We performed a comparison between SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite and Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"The ability to integrate file transfers has been instrumental in allowing us to accomplish the things we need with Control-M. In our industry, we take a lot of data and either push it down to the stores or retail grocery stores. We take files and push them down to the stores or pull files and information from the stores and bring it back to corporate. So, it's two-way communication with file transfers. One of the bigger things that we do with Control-M is scheduling data moves and moving data from one location to another."
"The most valuable feature is the reporting function. It allows us to pull up reports for specific information that the end-users are looking for."
"We have a better picture of our auditability. When someone comes to us, and asks for sources, "How did the deltas occur?" We can provide answers quickly, or at least quicker than what we used to. We are actually sure of the information that we provide, where before it was like, "Hmm, I think it comes from over there. Let me double check, but it gets really convoluted over here and I think that is where it comes from." Now, if it is within the Control-M environment, it has a straightforward answer that we can provide with confidence."
"The scheduling and management were really good. Monitoring was also better. It had a good visual presentation. It showed me charts and all such things. It was really good on that side."
"The pressure on our operations and our maintenance has been reduced."
"The product has improved dramatically over the years; it offers a lot in terms of features and capabilities and integration with third-party tools. A wide range of models available with the product is critical in reducing manual and mundane work such as custom script writing. This saves significant amounts of time and, by association, money for the organization."
"The reporting is top-notch. I haven't found any other applications on the market that can replicate what Control-M offers. The alerting is very good, and I think their service monitoring is the best in the industry."
"The web interface is handy. It's easy to use, and Control-M provides you with the necessary materials to understand the features and perform various tasks."
"With SEEBURGER BIS, you can string as many different activities together in your workflows as you want. You can put them in any order, like a piece of code. One leads into the next, which leads into the next. It is just very flexible from that vantage point. This makes it so easy to use and reduces the number of moving parts that you need to have. It is just a lot less frustrating not having to conform to how some other vendor software works."
"Among the most important [features] are the BIC 6 Converter and the communication protocols, which have the newer security features for certificates and encryption."
"The entire framework is something that is very easy to use, easy to set up, and extremely straightforward. Once you develop a process and once you get it deployed within the process engine, with the latest 6.52 features, the processing engine is actually smart enough to make a decision as to which process engine has less load, and it can exchange messages with that process engine."
"SEEBURGER BIS can reconcile documentation, like our accounts payable and statements within the system. If you are manually doing it, then it is really time consuming with a lot of errors. Whereas, SEEBURGER BIS allows for a lot of basic level programming within the documentation, filtering, and sorting out VLOOKUP. It lets us get two database tables from two different systems, then merge them based on the logic that we provide. So, it is a very helpful product."
"We haven't had any issues with scaling."
"SEEBURGER BIS helps us automate processes. When something is manual and we have to fix the data, then it is really complicated. However, when it's automated, we trust it and the process in the system, so we don't have to go back and fix it. For example, we had a problem with a partner sending 17 files every week, but a few times a year, they wouldn't send files during a certain window. We would escalate this with them. Then, when they caught up and sent the files again, they weren't authenticated. We had to fix this situation before it became a nightmare because our financials were impacted. Also, it was really messy. So, I worked with SEEBURGER to have something automated to pick up the files within a certain window and validate them as accurate. If the files come outside of this window, then we have to approve the loading of them."
"One of the most valuable features is the option to have all integration patterns constantly updated in one platform. That is the main strength I see in using SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS). It means I can use a very old-fashioned pattern, combined with a very modern pattern. There are no limitations in terms of combining components because all the components simply fit together."
"The solution helps us automate processes, more on the insurance side. Where they used to have to babysit monthly files, because of size, they don't have to do that with SEEBURGER BIS. They just run the monthly process. Files get collected, translated, and sent to the proper systems, so the babysitting is gone."
"The Security Plus feature of this solution is excellent, and allows you to send encrypted files very securely to remote destinations."
"The product has been very stable."
"Offers secure file transfers with a fast and efficient protocol for very large files."
"Security is the most valuable feature of this product."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides 100% reliability for file transmission. It ensures that files get delivered in a secure manner. When you use Connect:Direct, your file 100% gets delivered to the next delivery location. If the log shows that a file got delivered, it will have all the transmitted data without truncation or other data issues."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is a solution that is on the market for a very long time. There is an integrator that has been developed and evolves every year. On the roadmap, there is always a new integration. For example, it's one of the solutions in the market that out of the box can handle EBICS protocol. The file processing is done very well. By default, there are a lot of configurations that can be customized."
"The history module only contains a maximum of 10 days, but we would like to have access to more. For example, it would be helpful to have 30 days or two months of history available."
"We've also had a few database bugs within our organization. I think we are migrating to OpenJDK rather than just regular Java and that has since shown some issues with our Control-M instance, timing out and causing our jobs to stop running. We are still working with BMC to fine-tune that and get that resolved."
"We develop software. More frequently, we are working with microservices and APIs, using our integration tool, MuleSoft. While Control-M is really a good tool to integrate with other tools, it is important for them to continue improving their microservices and API."
"I've never been very successful when researching ways to utilize Batch Impact Manager. It's a tool to set up dummy jobs in your job flow and it's supposed to come back to you and say, 'Okay, for this job flow, you are 50 percent complete at a certain point in time'...I would like things like Batch Impact Manager to be a little more user-friendly, out-of-the-box."
"In general, it is a very good product, and we are very happy with it. It meets all of our expectations."
"Its installation can be better. Currently, we have to install it manually. The file transfer feature can also be improved. It is not very easy to transfer a file from business to business. In terms of new features, they can include new technologies. It can have API integration."
"While they have a very good reporting facility, the reports that I'm asked to produce, a lot of times aren't necessarily what we need."
"Everybody's biggest gripe is the reporting capability option. It is a gripe because there is a lot of information in Control-M, but the solution doesn't have a good reporting tool to extract that information. Now, if you want all that information, you need to rely on another third-party BI tool to extract the information out of Control-M."
"There are a lot of service packs during the year. I know that part is the process for updating features, but sometimes it's difficult to update service packs every month."
"We are a little locked in with understanding the errors that we receive. We are working with their support to prevent these issues when they come into the database. We use a SQL database and believe they can do better when it comes working with large databases. We have had few instances where the system is hanging, which are most likely from the database. We are working with their support to find out the problem and fix their system. We have tried to use their notification system to prevent these issues, but they need to improve their monitoring system."
"In the BIS, if I want to have some API functionalities, that is a separate tool. The integration between the API tool and the BIS is not that straightforward. If they were to combine these tools and give us one suite, that would be helpful. Today I have a lot of partners onboard. I have something like 50,000 partners doing API transactions. If I want to introduce a new tool for API management, I have to do a lot of workarounds. But if it were integrated well within the existing suite, it could be straightforward for me."
"They have their own private cloud. That's the reason we did not go ahead with managing everything by ourselves or moving into the cloud. They said that they're going to be doing it within the next two years, having access to Azure and AWS. That would be something we would like to see."
"All the topics we've identified have been placed on the SEEBURGER roadmap already... Among the things we have requested are improvements in the user interface and improvements that would be implemented by completely new modules or improvements in their Cloud Services."
"We occasionally get ZIP files. Sometimes the ZIP file has one file inside of it, and sometimes the ZIP file might have 30 files inside of it. We have been working with SEEBURGER to enhance their PKUNZIP process to be able to unzip multiple files in a single workflow instead of just one file. This is still something that is in process."
"Java is very old technology and they should move away from it, to anything that's better."
"The integration is not so excellent. While I'm not saying there is a problem, there is no pattern. When we start a new project, we have to work with new people and processes every time. The technical side of their system is very good, but their change process is not repeatable. It needs to be rebuilt each time."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct could improve by adding some of the functionality that some other vendors have. For example, GoAnywhere has call agents, which are small clients that can be installed on the endpoints and can be handled by the central point on the server. If I want to do this with the IBM solution, I have to sell a lot of account addresses. The price could be unprofitable for the customer. There is some small functionality that could be implemented and could be easily done to improve this solution."
"This solution cannot be deployed on a root_squash NFS, which limits superuser privileges."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"They have File Agent, which is an additional utility and a component of Connect:Direct, for automated file transmission. In that utility, there is some issue with the file name. There is a limitation on the file name, and that is being fixed by IBM."
"User interface is not user friendly."
"Technical support is the number one concern."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
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SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite is ranked 4th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 9 reviews while Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is ranked 7th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 6 reviews. SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite is rated 9.0, while Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite writes "You can string as many different activities together in your workflows as you want". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct writes "Customizable, beneficial file processing, and overall good support". SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite is most compared with IBM B2B Integrator, Mule ESB, SAP Process Orchestration, SAP Cloud Platform and IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services, whereas Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is most compared with IBM Sterling File Gateway, AWS Transfer for SFTP, Aspera Managed File Transfer and BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer. See our SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite vs. Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct report.
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