Control-M Reviews

The GUI for operators.

Scheduling has changed from basic to more complex as our developers get acquainted with the ability and flexibility of the product.

Report builder is cumbersome. Not all interfaces work out-of-the-box and there are a lot of adjustments to the product and configurations after installation.

We have used this solution for three years.

Connectivity to agents is a constant challenge due to security and Firewalls.

There were no stability issues.

There were no scalability issues.

Customer support is good. The support site, searching, and accessing knowledge modules, and accessing product downloads is very slow.

Technical support is excellent.

We were a manual shop, where operators ran selected routines through menus.

We had do perform several install configurations until we finally achieved the stability we required.

We work with a vendor group and they were very good. The BMC support contributions for design were flawed and we had to make several adjustments.

I am not sure.

There are various methods available for licensing, and we use the task/day load process.

We evaluated Compugen, CA, and Cisco.

High availability through software, supported by an Oracle RAC with ASM, is a valuable feature. In operation, it is fantastic.

My clients are happy; the comment that gets repeated is, "Control-M is a very stable tool".

The web console consumes resources to my "high" point of view. Thinking about a totally web management environment is an opportunity for improvement.

• Operator = 2 years
• Scheduling = 3 years
• Administrator = 3 years

Implementation was easy and quick.

We have not encountered any stability issues. BMC Control-M is very stable in any version.

BMC Control-M is an easy-to-run, scalable, robust platform or architecture tool.

Customer service is the best.

Technical support is the best.

Previously, I had version 8, and I migrated to version 9 because of its high availability functionality.

You cannot be an airplane pilot without education; with the right education and training, the solution does what it has to do and makes it fantastic.

Providers implemented it; they were excellent.

I cannot mention ROI.

A good product always has a cost. I think the cost supports the efficiency of the product.

Before choosing this product, we did not evaluate other options.

Is a very good option for the WLA tasks within a company. There is a lot of information on the internet for it. Analyze the costs vs the benefits and if you have the option to invest in a solution that gives you automation of almost everything in IT, acquire it. You will not regret it.

There are no specific features that I could say are more valuable than others. The whole product is valuable to us.

• Ninety percent or more of the batch processing is now centralized into a single scheduling platform. This helps the support teams so that they only need to go to one group for scheduling and monitoring the batch processing
• The operations support staff only has one platform where they can monitor almost all of our batch processing.

There aren’t any improvements that I’ve come across with the most recent release. If I had to note one improvement, it would be that jobs already in the system for a given day could be updated en masse. This could be the same on the database where the job definitions reside.

I have used the product for sixteen years.

I did not encounter any stability issues.

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

The level of support from BMC has been very good.

We already evaluated CA’s offering at the time because we were already using CA-7 on the mainframe.

Other than creating the jobs in Control-M once it was set up, I was not involved.

It is task based pricing. It is based on the number of jobs brought into the system daily and any that remain in the system from prior days.

For example, if you have 2000 new jobs that come in in for a new day, and you still have 500 left from previous days, you will need to have 2500 task licenses to cover them. This is the case, even if those 500 jobs are daily jobs that came in during the prior day and have not yet been completed.

We use BMC’s Control-M software for our open systems and SAP batch processing. We will be looking at converting the batch we are running via the solution to the same.

I’ve never used the mainframe version of Control-M before, so I don’t have any opinions about it.

• AFT
• SAP
• DB

We use AFT, DB and other modules extensively. They have reduced a lot of human error and achieved our SLAs.

In each module, one or more improvements need to be made. However, that is out of scope for this review. In a sense, if anything cannot be done in batch mode, it requires online processing with middleware.

I have used it for nine years.

I have not encountered any stability issues. Control-M is a bulletproof product and very stable.

I have not encountered any scalability issues. It is a very scalable product.

Technical support is 8/10. However, a lot of techies use the online forum. If you are knowledgeable, you can solve issues yourself; otherwise it’ll go to level 3 support, which makes tech support a middleman.

I did not previously use a different solution.

I have seen initial setups that are both straightforward and complex.

Licensing is little complex.

The GUI is very user friendly and also plugins (Control Modules) are available for almost all of the widely used applications.

It helped to automates batches in the best possible way.

They could improve the reporting.

I have been using it for 10 years.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support is very good.

I previously used another solution, but switched due to its limited functionality.

Initial setup was easy to understand.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated Autosys.

The tool has many features; make sure you make use of most of them.

Integration with different modules such as:
Web Service -WS
Advanced File Transfer - AFT

We use the Control-M modules to reduce the development time of the automations, using the modules.

Web Service -WS (We use to integrate with ODI e SOA)

Advansed File Transfer - AFT (We did an integration between several servers with a safe delivery)

I would like to see improvement in the integration of modules. As I worked with the modules, I saw the need for better integration several times.

In the case of a Web Service (WS) module, it could have more facilities with the integration of SOA services when an asynchronous service is invoked. When used for this purpose, it generates a number of unnecessary alerts to the operator dashboard.

We have been using this solution for five years.

I did not find it.

Most stability problems are network connected, i.e., communication goes down with servers where you have a client.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

Very good.

Technical support is very good.

I thought of using a different solution, but this solution is as simple as other alternatives.

Yes, I did. We change because of the integration facilities other market tools and to ensure a safe delivery of the company's files.

It was done through a vendor team with the support of the internal team.

Confidential.

This is quite specific. It will depend on the number of processes that you need to automate.

Yes we evaluated.

CA Workload Automation AE(AutoSys)

IBM Tivoli System Automation

Improve the disclosure of the modules for the clients and show the cases of success.

Linking of jobs (visual, which other products don't have): It will give you a whole picture as to how other jobs are linked to each other (or if there's no link to other jobs).

The product was already in use when I was started working in the company.

There was an upgrade to the project, before it was moved to BMC. It could have been better if there was a demo on how / on the changes.

I used it for around six months. I was using it around the middle of 2015.

There were no stability issues as such. There were only issues in the appearance, after the upgrade.

I did not experience any scalability issues.

I didn't really call for help on the production with the technical support.

I've used other products but BMC Control-M is far better than the others.

Other teams are in charge of the installation process.

Nothing to worry, as the product works well.

It is a good product compared to the other products in the market.

• User friendly interface
• Self-service portal
• Support for AS400 and mainframes
• many more.

Not all central scheduler tools have agents for iSeries, z/OS and UNISYS 2000. These are valuable features because I don't have to use many tools and I have one central tool for all platforms.

Reduces cost, failure, and human error.

I would like to see a decrease is the licensing price.

We have been using this for eight years. (Versions 6.4, 7, and 8.)

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability

Technical support has a very weak first line of support, but a very good developer team in Israel.

I didn’t use a previous solution, but I saw and compared it with OpsWise, TWS and AutoSys.

It's like comparing iPhones (Control-M) with other phones (OpsWise, TWS and AutoSys).

Control-M has the best and most user friendly interface. It's very easy to use when you are just beginning your journey with central schedulers.

There are many features like modules for VMware, Hadoop, BladeLogic, databases, PeopleSoft, SAP and many more.

The installation was quite simple. There was very good documentation.

The licensing is quite expensive.

We evaluated OpsWise, TWS, and AutoSys.

Make sure you plan well when you begin automating jobs in Control-M.

Control-M has a huge number of features and utilities that assist users in monitoring their schedules, and developers to build schedules that interface with many technologies. Here are some that stand out:

• Cross-platform support. A Linux job can be dependent on a Windows job, which can be dependent on many other flavours of hardware/software. Your batch is therefore managed by a single tool, allowing you to monitor your entire flow.
• Great GUI. Easy to navigate. Customisable. Status at a glance.
• BIM (Batch Impact Manager). Proactively monitors a batch flow, against a pre-defined OLA/SLA and alerts as soon as an exception occurs that might threaten the target.
• Automated error handling. Depending on the exit status of a process, automated actions can be defined that might circumvent the need to callout.
• Forecast utility. Particularly useful after making changes to a batch flow, to see what impact those changes will have.
• Reporting utility. Generate reports for the business to track batch performance, usage, and so on.
• Mobile App. Business users can track the progress of their own batch flow, on the go.
• Control Modules. These allow you to define jobs that interface with databases, SFTP, SAP, and so on, directly, via secure connection profiles.
• Too many great features to list!

Previous scheduling solutions were platform specific, so when the overnight batch processes crossed between technologies, manual intervention was required. This was time costly and meant that it was not possible to get an overall picture of the flow/progress.

The ability to work offline would be an improvement. It is sometimes inconvenient that you cannot load and work on a schedule – unless you are connected to a Control-M Server. For example, when you are away from the office or on a train…

When you launch the application, the first thing that you need to do is 'log in' to a valid Control-M server. It would be nice if there was an 'offline' mode that would enable you to launch the application and then work on a batch schedule that can be 'checked in' to the appropriate server when you are next connected. This would enable users to be productive in environments where there is not a reliable network connection.

I have been working with Control-M for 20 years, using many versions; three years with version 8.

No.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support is sufficient. BMC have a group of specialists in Tel Aviv who will advise on the best solution to any issue. It can be a little painful, trying to send huge log files to the vendor, but they are very helpful.

I have had limited experience with Windows Task Scheduler, Cron and Autosys. These are very basic scheduling tools that do not offer anywhere near the functionality of Control-M.

Out of the box, most clients will be fine installing Control-M with all default options. You have a choice of the packaged PostgreSQL database solution, or you can opt to use MS SQL It is therefore a relatively simple setup.

Control-M is expensive, but you get what you pay for. Talk to your account manager and discuss licensing options.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options.

Do it.

Control-M has a huge number of features, including:

• Cross-platform support
• Integration with applications such as Oracle, SAP, FTP, Hadoop, JMS, and many others.
• A GUI with various filter options that allows you to manage jobs from one screen.
• Add-ons such as BIM, Reporting Facility, and Forecast.
• Automated error handling allows you to define actions to be taken depending on the exit status of a job.
• Web-based and mobile applications allow you to manage Control-M from anywhere.

Before implementing Control-M, SAP or FTP related jobs were triggered using scripts. With Control-M, these jobs can be triggered using modules already integrated into Control-M, reducing team effort.

Also, Forecast and BIM give us a clear picture of batch job deadlines and alerts us of schedule overruns.

The cost of Control-M is a major factor. It is difficult for small-scale organizations to use Control-M as a solution.

I have been using Control-M for 10+ years and have no issues to date.

We have not encountered any stability issues. Control-M provides a highly stable environment. Fix packs are released regularly and immediately upon discovering bugs.

We did not encounter any scalability issues. Control-M can handle multiple servers, multiple cross-platform agents, and a large number of jobs easily.

BMC technical support is great. I rate it 10 out of 10. We have received immediate help with issues.

Previously, job scheduling was done internally using a SAP scheduler, Windows Task Scheduler, and cron. However, they all had limitations and we needed a single interface to handle different types of scheduling.

Initial setup and installation of Control-M does have challenges, but BMC has good technical support. Related documentation is also available online. Once you are familiar with these, setup becomes straightforward.

Pricing is somewhat on high side. But it’s recommended for bigger organizations.

We evaluated AutoSys and IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, but they didn’t offer anything close to the functionality that Control-M offers.

If you need a one-stop solution for all your automation needs, Control-M is your answer.