We performed a comparison between OpCon and Rocket Zena based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: OpCon is praised for its versatility, seamless integration, convenient self-service option, and ability to automate manual tasks. Rocket Zena is highly regarded for its user-friendly interface, simplicity, useful diagram feature, Linux configuration compatibility, cross-platform job scheduling, and efficient FTP file transfer capability.
OpCon can improve its web-based interface, Solution Manager, which is not as functional as the desktop interface. Upgrading to newer versions can be complex, and users want a mobile app for accessibility. Rocket Zena lacks visibility into connections between applications, has limitations on the number of components in a process, and has a slow UI loading time. Users also find the UI unintuitive and want a web interface for easier access.
Service and Support: OpCon's customer service has a highly skilled and efficient technical support team that provides prompt and effective solutions. Customers value the support staff's helpfulness and friendliness. Rocket Zena offers excellent support, with knowledgeable and responsive technical assistance. However, obtaining higher-level support may involve some delay.
Ease of Deployment: OpCon's initial setup involves close collaboration with SMA consultants and training, which can be complex. Rocket Zena's setup varies among users, with some finding it easier to understand. However, Zena faces challenges when it comes to integrating with SAP.
Pricing: OpCon is recognized as being pricey and intricate to set up, demanding a learning curve. Nevertheless, it is regarded as a high-quality product that offers good value for the investment. Rocket Zena is seen as cost-efficient and budget-friendly, making it a feasible choice for smaller businesses.
ROI: OpCon has proven to be a valuable investment with significant returns through reduced time and errors, enhanced productivity, and the removal of full-time operators. Rocket Zena offers time savings, improved accuracy, and alleviates stress for engineers.
Comparison Results: OpCon is highly favored over Rocket Zena due to its flexibility, integration capabilities, self-service features, automation capabilities, and reliability. Users appreciate OpCon's graphical user interface, database functionality, and the ability to create a testing environment. OpCon's positive user reviews and its comprehensive features make it the preferred choice.
"MAS is by far the best feature, although not a feature of the software specifically. MAS has more knowledge than our employees, so we have been able to develop schedules that are far beyond our own skillset."
"OpCon has also reduced our data processing times because of the way you can build out workflows. It can run things in sequence. It's not restricted to a linear process, so you can run multiple jobs at once, allowing for multi-threaded jobs."
"When a lot of jobs are scheduled on different platforms, without any interaction possible between them, it's very difficult to manage things. With OpCon we avoid this difficulty. It's very visual."
"We're also starting to use its Self Service and Solution Manager. My team in the data center and some of the development team use the Self Service. Developers are using the Self Service for upon-request jobs for their testing. They used to have to go through us to schedule testing and now they can just go on and kick it off all they want. They have also really appreciated that they have access to view and/or submit jobs."
"Thus far we have only had a few minor problems, all of which the vendor addressed quickly. We have not encountered any major problems. The product is very stable and reliable."
"The automation of processes is the most valuable feature. One of the major hurdles for us over the last few years, before we found OpCon, was to make our nightly process happen automatically. Being a bank, we have nightly update processes that have to happen for posting transactions, for example, and it was a huge load off our department to have that automated."
"It allows batch work to run as smoothly and efficiently as possible."
"Last year, we added a second environment and the OpCon Deploy product. This has allowed us to build a testing environment. This has been a great addition for us as we can work through our workflows without disrupting our production environment."
"In the latest upgrade, Zena added a web-based client. The more I use it, the more I like it. It's an excellent interface. They do a good job of steadily improving the solution to make it more useful."
"I have used other tools with similar capabilities; it's the ease of use."
"From a Linux configuration point of view, Rocket Zena is straightforward. It's fairly easy to set up the server and agents once you know how to do it."
"The most valuable feature is the FTP file transfer."
"Its FTP feature is very good, as is scheduling any process or task with the Zena client. I have found it to be very helpful. If a task fails, it gives you a prompt."
"You can click Ctrl-G and bring a diagram view. You're able to view in a diagram format. The view that it provides is easy, and you can move to the left, up, or down. You can double-click on a certain process. It'll drill into that process and all of its underlying components. You can double-click on an arrow or a component, and it'll bring up a screen that'll have all the variables that are assigned to that particular piece, as well as the values at run time. So, the diagram feature of it, at least for me, is pretty valuable."
"I have found the scheduling feature the most valuable. I can map dependencies by using ASG-Zena. It gives a nice, quick visualization as to where things are."
"We haven't had any problems since we installed it. It runs as expected, we haven't had any critical problems. It helps keeps the business running 24/7."
"It does not have the ability to interact with third-parties via the web/Internet. We have certain processes where we have to interact with a third-party on a website, and unfortunately OpCon just cannot do that."
"Enterprise Manager is a little clunky which I know they're addressing in the solution's manager."
"There is one feature that has been a difficult problem, and right now, OpCon can't do it. I'm not sure if it should be expected to, but we have tried to get it to where it could start a process on an external database."
"Usage is a little complex. It's not like you can bring somebody in and they can just use it. They have to be trained... As far as complexity goes, it's right up there."
"The logs are a little daunting to look at the first few times, however, as you begin to understand what you're looking at, it becomes easier."
"I would like to have an interface with PowerShell. PowerShell has a lot of functionality. We use it a lot because we're a Windows shop. Having a built-in tool or interface with PowerShell would go a long way."
"What can get complicated is if you're doing anything more than just the built-in jobs. If you're using the more advanced features, troubleshooting becomes extremely complicated."
"Some additional logging-information reporting would also help. They have all the information there but you still have to search around and look back. It's not right there for you, where you click and can get the reporting. You have to know the system and do some additional searches. So reporting is another area that they can build on by simplifying it."
"In the next release, I would like the user experience to be improved. The user interface should be more appealing to gen-z."
"Rocket Zena is a mainframe-based job scheduler. I would like it to be more open so that we can use it on a distributed platform."
"The scheduling mapping is a little disjointed. There is no wizard-type approach. There are a lot of different things that you have to do in completely different areas. They could probably add the functionality for creating all components of a mapping or an OPA schedule. The component creation could be done collectively rather than through individual components."
"In the web interface, it stacks the tasks across the top, and they accumulate until you close or clean those out. That seems a little cumbersome. You must right-click and close all tabs constantly to keep the console clean and manage your views."
"The UI is not intuitive, and it would be nice if there was a web interface."
"Another one that is probably a little bit bigger for me is that when there is an issue or there's an error, it writes on a different screen. I have to find the actual process name and go to a different screen to view the alert that got generated. On that screen, everyone's processes, not just the processes of the folks in my department, are thrown. It takes me a while to find the actual error so that I could go in there and look at the alert. It could be because of the way it was set up, but at least for me, it isn't too intuitive."
"In the next release, I would like to have an alert feature to indicate when an agent is down. Rocket Zena is not capable of sending alerts that the agent is down. As of now, you have manually monitor to see when the agent is down."
"One area where it could be improved is communication between the different servers. Sometimes there are processes that have already been completed but we get a status notification that they're still active."
OpCon is ranked 9th in Workload Automation with 56 reviews while Rocket Zena is ranked 12th in Workload Automation with 9 reviews. OpCon is rated 9.2, while Rocket Zena is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of OpCon writes "Gives us the ability to schedule dependent jobs across different mainframes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rocket Zena writes "A continuously evolving, stable solution, with responsive support". OpCon is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Automic Workload Automation and UiPath, whereas Rocket Zena is most compared with Control-M, Rocket Zeke, IBM Workload Automation, AutoSys Workload Automation and ActiveBatch by Redwood. See our OpCon vs. Rocket Zena 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.
