We performed a comparison between OpCon and Stonebranch Universal Automation Center 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 flexibility, integration capabilities, self-service options, reduced human error, intuitive graphical user interface, database functionality, deployment concept, testing environment, on-demand access, MAS assistance, reliability, and strong automation capabilities. Stonebranch Universal Automation Center is lauded for its performance, excellent graphical representation, intuitive solution, regular upgrades, job dependencies, rerun function, GUI, task monitor, stability, scalability, and helpful technical support.
OpCon could enhance its web-based interface and Solution Manager while upgrading to newer versions may be complicated. Stonebranch Universal Automation Center would benefit from cloud availability and improved analytics capabilities.
Service and Support: OpCon's customer service receives positive feedback for providing timely solutions and a strong dedication to effective resolutions. Stonebranch's support is highly regarded for its expertise, efficiency, and consistent availability to assist customers.
Ease of Deployment: OpCon's initial setup requires collaboration with SMA Technologies and training, however, with the help of SMA consultants, it is considered smooth. Stonebranch Universal Automation Center's setup is generally easy, however, the complexity of the infrastructure may pose some challenges.
Pricing: OpCon has a high initial cost and is intricate to set up, necessitating a learning curve. Nevertheless, it is viewed as a valuable and high-quality product. Stonebranch Universal Automation Center is comparatively less expensive, making it a favored option for businesses.
ROI: OpCon has proven to be highly effective in generating return on investment through its task automation capabilities, time-saving features, and error reduction. Stonebranch Universal Automation Center has demonstrated significant cost savings of 40-50% when compared to previous tools.
Comparison Results: OpCon is the preferred choice when compared to Stonebranch Universal Automation Center. OpCon is highly praised for its flexibility, integration capabilities, self-service feature, graphical user interface, and reliability. Users appreciate the ability to automate tasks according to their specific needs, reducing human error.
"It has streamlined operations, specifically with the timing of our processes. We don't have to worry about if things are going to run at a certain time. The automation allows us to say, "Okay, we want this to run at this time, and this to not run until that is done." So, it has really streamlined the accuracy and timeline of when jobs run throughout the day."
"For us, the most valuable feature of the solution is the file transfer piece and being able to automate the moving of files around between our various vendors. It reduces the time involved versus somebody having to individually move the files around."
"With a simple click of a button in self-service, the department or the user can complete his/her job."
"I find OpCon's ability to monitor files and folders, and its integration with other software to be the most valuable."
"There are a lot of valuable features. The version that we're currently casting, Self Service, is going to be the most valuable to us. It is going to allow us to open up the doors, broaden our automation capability and help other business units to be able to automate a lot of the little things that they do from day to day. I'm really looking forward to being able to help other areas with their automation needs. Self Service is really key."
"Having the jobs laid out while attaching dependencies is a nice addition to the program."
"The end code response allows us to evaluate how a process finished, set the termination/end code appropriately, and then trigger further processing based on how it ended."
"The stability of this solution is awesome. It's the only product I've ever seen that you can actually build to fix itself if it has a problem. You'll build something and, if you find an issue, you can say, 'Hey, if this happens again, do this to correct it.'"
"The support is good from Stonebranch Universal Automation Center."
"I like the dashboard and the various workflows."
"I have found the agents to be so much simpler, when compared to ESP."
"The interface is very user-friendly and easy to navigate."
"When it comes to agent technology and compatibility with other vendors, from a platform perspective it was the one vendor that fit all the platforms that we have, from your old platforms - mainframe, NSK, IBM i - to the new ones, going into cloud and container"
"The Universal Agent is the most valuable feature. Being agent-based and being able to go across multiple technology stacks, which is what our workflows do, Stonebranch gives us the ability to bridge those disparate technologies. It enables us to remove the dependency-gap with the agent so we know the status of the workflow at each step."
"The ability to monitor tasks that are on the open-system side as well as our mainframe side gives us a one-window view of all our processes."
"We like that it has GUI and is not just a command line."
"I would like OpCon to implement a reporting feature on the dashboard that displays historical data for specific jobs. Ideally, this feature would allow us to view the past seven days or the next seven days, but with a specific focus on highlighting instances where a particular job has historically failed, particularly on Saturdays over the past year."
"More functionality within self-service would be greatly appreciated."
"I would like more web-based training from SMA. That would be nice. Our primary OpCon representative is phenomenal, but we would like some training opportunities for learning on our own. When I started utilizing OpCon, the sheer breadth of it made for a very daunting task. I was almost fearful to start, not to mention fearful to go change things and possibly hinder a job."
"Do your first install, your first upgrade, with SMA. It's simple, it's as per the manual, as per the training, but you need that little bit of confidence."
"There is some difficulty with the ease of use when I don't have some of the templates that were already created. More templates would be great. Non-core featured templates are my biggest struggle."
"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."
"There is room for improvement needed around setting up the calendars and frequencies. I would like more flexibility in what jobs run. Sometimes, with frequencies, I can't find what I want to without putting a little more labor into it."
"The way to view a schedule is called perch view, and that's not always the greatest. It can be quite slow."
"Occasionally, we have an agent that doesn't come back up after patching. That doesn't happen very often... It's really just a restart of the agent and it comes back up. But that might be one thing that could be improved."
"There is a component called the OMS, which is the message broker. We rely on infrastructure, resiliency, and availability for that piece. If that could change to be highly available just as a software component, so that we don't have to provide the high-available storage, etc. for it, that would be a plus. It would just be cheaper to run."
"The Universal Controller is decent for the money it costs... It needs some work to have full features, compared to other products that are out there, specifically IBM's Workload Scheduler."
"It's not available on the cloud, so they should take that due to safety, security, and scalability."
"There is room for improvement with its connectivity with the Microsoft SRS system. It is very weak. They keep telling us it works with it, and technically it does, but it does not provide a lot of visibility. We have lost a lot of visibility migrating to Stonebranch, compared with just running tasks on the SRS server. That's really about the only thing that is a sore point for us."
"It can't handle negative written codes."
"I have a request regarding our agent on the mainframe. It may time out when communicating to the Universal Controller, when the mainframe is extremely busy. That can cause a task which is running at that time to not see the results of the job that ran on the mainframe. It happens sporadically during times of really busy CPU usage. We're expecting that enhancement from them in the fourth quarter."
"It would be ideal if they had the exact same features as the CA Workload Automation DE series. It would be helpful to have calendaring options."
OpCon is ranked 9th in Workload Automation with 56 reviews while Stonebranch is ranked 16th in Workload Automation with 26 reviews. OpCon is rated 9.2, while Stonebranch is rated 8.8. 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 Stonebranch writes "Allowed us to develop workflows without having to train and develop very specialized skillsets". OpCon is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Automic Workload Automation and UiPath, whereas Stonebranch is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, Control-M, Redwood RunMyJobs, ESP Workload Automation Intelligence and IBM Workload Automation. See our OpCon vs. Stonebranch report.
See our list of best Workload Automation vendors.
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