We performed a comparison between IBM Workload Automation and Tidal Automation based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: IBM Workload Automation offers the option for clients to vote on and suggest new features, supports triggering jobs in multiple nodes, and provides a convenient way to monitor batch applications. Tidal Automation stands out with its efficient job scheduler, user-friendly interface, flexibility, and seamless integration with various systems.
IBM Workload Automation has addressed performance concerns and improved navigation, however, there are still challenges with job dependencies and daily schedule updates. The solution lacks stability, reporting visibility, and integration capabilities. Tidal Automation has a busy user interface and a complex pricing model, which may result in a steep learning curve. It needs better QA testing, enhanced job migration, and production statistics reporting. The solution does not offer AI capabilities, advanced reporting, or customization options.
Service and Support: IBM Workload Automation is praised for its technical support, particularly their lab advocacy program which provides in-depth code support. However, customers may face challenges in identifying the source of certain issues. Tidal Automation's customer service and support has a responsive and knowledgeable team. They are commended for their ability to address problems quickly and provide solutions, as well as their impressive product knowledge. However, there are occasional mentions of lower-priority items getting overlooked.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for IBM Workload Automation can be difficult, particularly for individuals who are not familiar with IBM tools or application development. The setup for Tidal Automation is described as simple and uncomplicated, only necessitating a small number of servers and a database.
Pricing: The cost of setting up IBM Workload Automation is determined by the customer's contract and can vary based on the number of agents installed. Users consider the pricing of Tidal Automation to be reasonable and consistent, without a significant increase even with increased usage.
ROI: Based on available insights, IBM Workload Automation lacks user feedback on ROI determination. Tidal Automation garners favorable reviews highlighting cost savings, enhanced efficiency, and superior risk management.
Comparison Results: Tidal Automation is favored over IBM Workload Automation because of its simple setup process, user-friendly interface, and dependable job scheduler. Users like how Tidal Automation offers a consolidated view and allows real-time monitoring, as well as the flexibility to run jobs on various servers.
"I have supported this product in literally 100s of different environments and its unmatched in its ability to scale to any size."
"The technical support is great, the product is easy-to-use, and it is stable."
"The DWC, when configured correctly, is a great GUI tool to provide Self-Service Scheduling capabilities to the user community."
"Technical support from IBM is very good."
"Provides a robust, full spectrum enterprise-wide WLA platform."
"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."
"The initial setup is easy."
"This solution has a request feature where users can request the added features they need to have developed. Based on client voting for those features, these are developed and released."
"We have to run about 12,000 jobs every day and the majority of them need to be launched from our ERP, JD Edwards. The native compatibility of the Tidal platform with JD Edwards dovetails with our greatest need. It's directly connected to the heart of our IT system. We couldn't work without it."
"Tidal Automation by Redwood is a user-friendly solution."
"The versatility of being able to run on many different types of servers is valuable. There is also a versatility of different services that you could run jobs on. It's highly versatile. You can run a lot of different types of scripts on a lot of different types of servers. It interfaces with all of them."
"It saves times due to automation. With some files, we do hundreds a day for a particular vendor. This would be hard to do manually. Also, the speed at which we can do this is excellent."
"The best feature is that it allows task scheduling based on particular occurrences, like the receipt of files, database updates, or system notifications."
"The first, big thing that we got out of using Tidal Workload Automation was having a centralized view of the status of all of our batch processes across all these systems... We can look into the schedule at any given time and see if things are running on track or if they are falling behind. We can also see if something failed."
"Especially in the newer versions of Tidal, the segmentation of user permissions enables us to give people operator permissions for their jobs, to rerun jobs, but view-only for other groups' jobs. We're able to keep people from hurting themselves or other groups accidentally. The permissioning is really good."
"We use the solution for cross-platform, cross-application workloads. The solution’s ability to manage and monitor these workloads is very easy and accurate. We have file dependencies for running jobs. The job does not start until a file exists on a completely different server, then where the job will run. So, it is cross systems."
"The configuration of IBM Workload Automation has some challenges. We have a difficult time customizing it, but it is similar to other solutions."
"It would be helpful to have a mobile app that could be used to follow the job schedule."
"This solution does have bugs and could be improved in this regard. However, these bugs are resolved relatively quickly."
"It is missing some features and can improve in areas where the competition is somewhat better like linking job dependencies."
"There should be more custom documentation, specifically around Java APIs. There should also be more training. In terms of features, we are currently using only 50% of its features. We don't use all features that are available, but there is always room for improvement in all of the tools."
"The schedule refreshes daily and that's a challenge for us."
"Slow down on the releases a bit. I fully understand that IWA functionality is increasing at an amazing rate, but trying to keep up with the upgrades is rough."
"The performance of the previous versions could be better."
"It takes a lot of time to learn the product. I have admins and developers who are working on the products for the last three to four years and still don't know all the functionalities. Tidal has really great things about it, but people are focused on their day-to-day job and the solution is not intuitive."
"Some users have complained that the initial setup process is complicated and time-consuming, while others have suggested that the software could offer more freedom in customizing processes."
"The user interface is the place that needs the most work. If and when we find issues with the product, they are usually in that area. If I had to choose, that's where I'd want issues, as opposed to in the engine. But the UI is average. It's a little sluggish at times and there are some bugs in it."
"I don't know if Tidal wants to get into the business of monitoring long-running jobs, but that could be a feature for the future: a job launching and monitoring tool. Using Tidal for monitoring doesn't seem like a good fit, but if they could offer something that did that as an add-on or include it, it might be helpful."
"One of the weaknesses of the product is, when something happens, it's difficult to find out the root cause. There are a lot of logs you can take a look at in Tidal. Sometimes, they are useful, but other times, they're not. That is mostly relegated to the administrative team. Users for the most part don't see that and don't know anything about that. They just know they have a problem, then it's up to the administrative team to see what happened and figure out the problem."
"I know they are working on it, but there needs to be better reporting. Currently, there are only three or four reports that we can get off of the system. That needs to be improved. They already have a solution to this in the new version. I.e., a schedule of all the jobs running for one day, specifically calling out what dependencies that job relies on. It would be like a flow chart of how the day's jobs would run."
"I would like more involvement with the cloud."
"Initially, it is complicated to understand the functionalities as there is limited product documentation."
IBM Workload Automation is ranked 13th in Workload Automation with 28 reviews while Tidal by Redwood is ranked 2nd in Workload Automation with 37 reviews. IBM Workload Automation is rated 8.2, while Tidal by Redwood is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of IBM Workload Automation writes "With an easy setup phase in place, agent-based installation can be done in minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tidal by Redwood writes "Great visibility with a single pane of glass and a low learning curve". IBM Workload Automation is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, HCL Workload Automation, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and CA 7 Workload Automation Intelligence, whereas Tidal by Redwood is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, Redwood RunMyJobs, ActiveBatch by Redwood and Rocket Zeke. See our IBM Workload Automation vs. Tidal by Redwood report.
See our list of best Workload Automation vendors.
We monitor all Workload Automation reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
