Control-M Reviews

My main use case for Control-M involves job scheduling and managing batch scripts.

As we work under a bank, I use Control-M for payment processing, loan processing, and credit card processing, where all banking processing is done through batch scheduling, and those schedules run in Control-M.

The main business use cases or services supported by Control-M include payroll, supply chain, and financing.

The best features Control-M offers include being easy to learn and easily managed, especially as we are running around 500,000 jobs per day, which is easily managed by fewer people with fully automated controls through automatic alerting on job events.

Control-M is a powerful tool where we can automate everything end-to-end by running all scripts such as JavaScript, .NET scripts, or Python on shell scripts, and even the mainframe jobs are scheduled through Control-M for day-to-day banking processes and functionalities.

The current new feature that stands out for me is using the Control-M dashboard instead of depending on third-party monitoring tools such as Splunk, which makes it easy to see job status, job counts, and view job flows all in the new dashboard.

Control-M has positively impacted my organization as it has been in use for the past 20 years, providing substantial help for our day-to-day banking operations.

At present, I do not find anything that can be improved in Control-M, as BMC Software is doing a good job in enhancing new features and integrating AI, machine learning, and proactive alerting.

I have been working in my current field for 19 years.

Control-M is stable.

Control-M's scalability is excellent.

The customer support for Control-M is excellent.

I did not previously use a different solution.

Based on change management, my deployment of Control-M took around 15 days to implement the change, while the installation and upgrade was completed in one day.

Five people are managing all the administration tasks for Control-M.

Since using Control-M, I have noticed a return on investment through error reduction, as manual efforts have been reduced due to job automation and other tasks, which improves the stability and robust performance of our applications, enabling quick payment processing or file transfer functionalities within a limited time interval while providing customers a robust application.

I am not certain about the return on investment metrics such as fewer employees needed, money saved, or time saved, as that is handled by the leadership team.

I am not aware of the pricing, setup cost, and licensing as that is handled by my leadership team.

I did not evaluate other options before choosing Control-M.

Control-M is the best tool in the world, and I would rate it a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Control-M is essential for day-to-day operations, as we are highly dependent on batch processing for all our banking operations.

Control-M provides 100% accuracy in batch job scheduling and includes built-in features for high availability, eliminating dependence on OS-level HA, ensuring stability and 100% availability for users for batch processing.

Regarding Control-M's AI capabilities, governance and security are managed in-house, so the security lies within the organization and not with external vendors or sources.

I would tell someone considering Control-M that it is the best tool in the world, where users can easily learn and implement it in their organization with its end-to-end features.

My overall rating for this review is 10.

Private Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

My main use case for Control-M is for control jobs on Linux machines. We have some shells, and I automate shell scripts on Linux machines. Control-M works similarly to a graphical crontab.

For example, I have some scripts that I must process on batches for clients. These batches have a time-specific moment when they can be used. For example, we receive a text file and must upload it to a mainframe using a shell script to automate this process. Control-M executes this task at the specific time and works fine. I check it every day and provide reports to the customer and developers with information in emails to detect whether the job is successful or not.

Control-M is a good tool for managing a large number of jobs across a large number of machines. Another very important feature is cyclic jobs. For example, I have the first job, and then I have two, three, or four jobs that must run after this, and I can make these dependencies as well. It is easy to change the schedule, and this feature is very useful in Control-M. The graphical interface makes things easy.

The cyclical jobs are a good feature that I see, along with the ease of implementation. It is very easy to put a job to run, suspend a job, or hold the job. The management is very useful and fantastic. I believe this is the main feature of Control-M that administrators decided to use it. In any project that I work on as a projectist or architect, I would suggest the use of Control-M in larger environments as well.

Control-M has positively impacted my organization by saving time. It makes administration tasks easy. I have very accurate information in emails, and every time a job runs, the outputs are classified by time, which makes things easy as well. It is very good. I work in an environment where I have around 300 servers all working together with Control-M on my IUA. It would be quite impossible to manage all these jobs and this entire server park without this tool. The time saving is very impressive.

The graphical interface of Control-M, although useful, needs some improvements. It is quite old.

The boxes in the graphical interface could be changed to get a better view. It is not useful for using on small screens. A larger screen is needed to see properly a large number of smart jobs or jobs on the screen. This organization should be improved in my view.

In my current field, I have worked for one year, but I have worked with Control-M for more than 10 years.

Control-M's scalability is easy because we have several servers in use, and it is quite easy to add new servers and put them under our management as well.

Customer support for Control-M is nice. Because the solution is stable, there are few situations that require activating support, but the team provides good responses and support every time we need a solution.

The solution was already implemented when I started, so I did not compare it to other solutions. I am not an architect in order to decide for another solution. The solution was already implemented, and I use it to manage my servers.

The company saved money and time and has good results with the use of this tool. We have a portal named MyCloud, and in this portal, we have the cost of each solution that I worked on. It has a cost, but it has a good benefit.

The versions of Control-M that I have worked with do not have AI features, so I do not have any information about this, but in my vision, I think some tasks can be implemented through an AI agent. Some aspects of security should be required in this case.

I use Amazon Web Services as the cloud provider for those servers.

On my site, in my team, we use Control-M to manage around 300 servers. Increasing usage is directly proportional to the use of servers. If we implement more servers, they will have Control-M to manage the jobs. At this moment, we have a project that is stable, and we have no plans to increase it, but it is possible at any time.

The biggest lesson that I have learned is that Control-M is useful to save time and manage extensively a structure with one console.

At this moment, I believe that is all I have to say. The service is quite extensive, and there is a lot of information that might be useful. My overall review rating for Control-M is nine out of ten.

Public Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

The core purpose of Control-M is automation, workload automation, and job scheduling. We use it for cross-platform services including clouds such as AWS and GCP, along with different databases. We are dependent on each service, which gives us a clear understanding of our architecture. Control-M is very easy to use and easy to monitor.

We migrated to Control-M from services including some databases and some cloud services.

We use different scripts with Control-M following standard scripting practices. We also follow the agents approach by installing agents to our targeted machines. Additionally, we use the UI, which is very good. We log in using SSO. Control-M makes it very easy for ETL jobs, data pipelines, and everything else.

The main features of Control-M are the UI and the monitoring part. It has a very comprehensive UI and monitoring system. Control-M agents are another valuable feature, allowing us to run jobs on the target machine easily across any machines. Enterprise-level support is also a very good feature.

We use different scripts with Control-M following standard scripting practices. We follow the agents approach by installing agents to our targeted machines. The UI is very good, and we log in using SSO.

Control-M has saved us a lot of time and effort. Previously, it reduced the human touch and manual work significantly. It has brought substantial changes to our organization.

Control-M is a very sophisticated tool overall. The main issue is that there are some RBAC issues related to improper access control. There is no clear role defined, though there are some operator and admin kinds of roles. Control-M should integrate some primitive roles or define them better. In short, there should be very minor permissions so that roles can be properly defined for users.

Another suggestion regarding Control-M is that there should be more automation APIs. Since we are mostly dependent on automation and do not rely heavily on the UI, we need additional automation APIs for triggering jobs, fetching status, and similar functions.

I have been using Control-M for more than four years.

Control-M is very stable. During more than four years of use, it has remained reliable and stable. I would rate it 10 out of 10 for stability.

Control-M has significant scalability. I would rate it 9 out of 10 for scalability.

Technical support for Control-M is very good. The support team helps us considerably. Even when we were new to Control-M, they assisted us greatly with any integration issues or other concerns.

Compared to other vendors, Control-M has many features that are very helpful. The features are defined rather than broad level. We know there are many other solutions in the market, but we were previously using Azure Data Factory. Control-M has significant advantages in that it is simple to use, and anyone can operate it.

Control-M requires maintenance, but very little. Maintenance for Control-M is easier compared to other solutions.

The deployment of Control-M was easier, and we received support from the Control-M team. The deployment of Control-M took approximately one to two months.

The deployment of Control-M was easier, and we received support from the Control-M team. The BMC service team helped us map out our migration strategy and served as our architects.

There were some challenges, but I can say the migration to Control-M was easy overall.

Control-M has reduced our work by more than 35%.

Pricing for Control-M is at a medium level. I cannot say it is cheap or high.

I would recommend Control-M. We were also using Airflow, and there is a very significant difference in our workforce and environments when comparing the two solutions.

I give Control-M an overall rating of 9 out of 10. More than 30 developers are using Control-M in our organization. My relationship with BMC is more transactional in nature. We are currently customers, and we plan to become partners.

Public Cloud

Control-M is used as a job scheduler. Initially, when started, it was more or less used as a batch scheduler. It has evolved over time so much that even the name has been changed to Control-M Workload Automation, which completely justifies its name. It is not just a scheduler anymore; it does many more things than just a scheduler.

Control-M, especially, is quick to the market with all the new products that are coming up, be it the integrations or the capabilities that are emerging. Any new technology that comes up in any stream such as AWS or Azure or GCP is addressed quickly. Control-M is very fast to the market when compared to other schedulers or other vendors where they develop these integrations and the rapid release of these integrations. The target is around three to five integration releases within a month, which is best in the market. The support that is received when a case is raised is really quick and very helpful when compared to others.

The best features of Control-M are highlighted by its GUI, which is a game-changer because it is so user-friendly. Any person who is logging into Control-M for the first time will know what each option or the parameter is. It is so self-explained, eye-catching, and very easy to use. Currently, Control-M is moving away from the thick client to the web client, which also maintains the same user-friendliness. Another key feature is that it keeps up to the market standards with respect to security, compliance, and everything. All the capabilities are available, and it is just a drag and drop of each to create jobs. In this DevOps world, integration with the DevOps pipelines is possible where job creation can be automated as well.

It is very easy to integrate technologies for DataOps and DevOps processes as things change, not only for DevOps processes but for any other tools in the market. There are more than 100 plus integrations that are already built within Control-M where you can just drag and drop to create and have a centralized view of all these jobs, be it ETL jobs, data lake jobs, or ADF jobs. Adding these dependencies and having a centralized view is something that Control-M thrives on. If any issues are faced during this process, the support model and documentation around it are very clear and abstract.

Control-M has helped businesses positively, especially when started as a scheduler without exploring most of the modules that were available. Over the last eight years, the first benefit was that when integrating with a DevOps process to maintain version control, a client had an in-built macro or PowerShell script which was incompatible when the version was upgraded. Standardizing it using the Workflow Change Manager, which promotes jobs between environments, was suggested. Control-M's Application Integrator helps to create custom job types rather than using in-built job types, which helped develop around 150 or 200 jobs with that approach. Control-M also offers a conversion tool that allows conversion of jobs from other tools to Control-M without requiring costly professional services.

There are areas for improvement, especially with the transition from the thick client to the web GUI. While Control-M's main game-changer is its GUI, the current web interface is less user-friendly than the thick client. A Windows client option should be maintained for flexibility, as it caters to users who prefer different interfaces.

Control-M has been used for 15 years.

Control-M as a tool is very stable. However, stability can be affected by how the environment is set up, including network stability, storage, and database factors. Control-M itself is robust, and it would receive a rating of 10.

Control-M is a scalable solution, and its scalability would receive a rating of 10.

When a case is raised, the response that is received is really quick and very helpful when compared to others.

Positive

Conversion of jobs from other scheduling tools to Control-M has been done. Jobs have been converted from Dollar Universe and TWS, IWS Maestro as they call it, to Control-M. There is working experience on Maestro and Dollar Universe as well.

Deploying Control-M is straightforward; as long as you know how to deploy it, the first attempt may be more difficult compared to subsequent ones. Documentation and support are readily available, making the overall process easy.

Compared to other vendors, Control-M is quite costly. However, all good things come with a good cost. The features, speed to the market, and quality justify the higher expense. Control-M may need to rethink how to make it more cost-effective because while many clients appreciate the tool and its features, the current economic climate and desire for cost optimization lead some clients to consider other options that may solely meet their scheduling requirements at a lower cost.

Control-M does require maintenance, especially for the VMs in both on-prem and Azure environments, which need to be patched regularly. A separate team handles automated patching, and there is a move away from on-prem to have everything on a single cloud instance.

Maintenance is easy overall; applying patches does not take much time. The technical aspect of upgrading or patching is minimal, but the process around it can take longer. Gathering concurrence from job owners for downtime and executing the patching process usually takes time, even though the actual installation is quick.

Control-M would be recommended if you are looking for a scheduling or workload automation solution and are not overly concerned with cost but want to utilize features to enhance your estate and maintain a centralized view. This review has been given an overall rating of 9.

Other

Microsoft Azure

My main business use case supported by Control-M is performance data generation, which includes all orchestration jobs and workflow processes.

The feature I appreciate most about Control-M is the capability of scheduling jobs automatically, as the dependency and control runs all tasks automatically by themselves.

I value this feature because it frees up a significant amount of time from my daily work, allowing me to concentrate on other more manual tasks.

Control-M supports my DataOps and DevOps initiatives by automating the entire process through the dependency and successor logic.

The biggest return on investment for me when using Control-M is that it helps me automate the manual tasks of my daily work.

My company has achieved measurable benefits with Control-M through automation, which has improved delivery and reduced the possible manual errors that a human can make.

I think Control-M can be improved because we recently moved to Helix, the cloud control, and the latency of the application is substantial; the job is running in the background, but the UI side is very slow on the front end.

Control-M integrates with new or changing technologies within my DataOps or DevOps stack well; the cloud improvement is positive, but now that AI is a significant topic, it could incorporate more AI features. Although they do have some AI functionality in the cloud applications, it is not particularly useful and intuitive.

If I were to estimate the improvement percentage, I would say around seventy percent.

I have been using Control-M for six years.

After moving to the cloud solution, I believe Control-M is much more stable; we have been using it for around two years, and I do not see any downtime. On the cloud solution, I do not observe any downtime; however, on-premises, sometimes the server is not up and the agent is not running.

In terms of scalability, I believe Control-M works well for the work I am performing, around eight or ten because we are heavily using it for morning tasks, data preparation, and preparations early in the morning for the day.

BMC customer service and technical support typically assist us; we usually speak to the relationship manager to raise any concerns or issues that we find, and so far, we still receive the answers we need, although the response may not be as immediate as we expect.

I would rate the customer service and technical support a seven out of ten.

Positive

My company considered switching to other solutions once and attempted to source alternatives, but we ultimately decided to stick with BMC.

The overall experience with the deployment process of Control-M depends on whether we are discussing the application itself or the creation of the job.

I would describe Control-M's performance in building, scheduling, managing, and monitoring workflows as quite good; I have previously used other orchestration tools, and I believe Control-M has much better visualization of workflows in terms of scheduling jobs.

I use Control-M to orchestrate workloads across multiple environments; we have a stream of workflows that connects to AWS, then SQL Server, and our in-house applications and so on, creating a large web of workflows across different kinds of applications.

Control-M handles complex data pipelines and analytics processes mostly through the designer that designs the workflow; we put the complex logic there, and it serves more as a tooling for us to use than Control-M handling all of this.

The creation and automation of data pipelines across on-premises and cloud technologies with Control-M is quite good; so far, I have no complaints with that. Between the on-premises and cloud, we have one less concern about how the application processes on the cloud, but on-premises, we have more freedom in accessing the database and some backend functionality.

My advice for someone or other companies considering Control-M is to check their business requirements and see what Control-M can actually offer because they do have many plugins for different kinds of usage, so it totally depends on what the company wants.

I would rate this review eight out of ten overall.

My main use case for Control-M is to schedule and automate workflows.

A specific workflow that I automated using Control-M was the weekend maintenance where we bring down certain applications and conduct certain verifications, then perform maintenance and OS patching work, bring up those applications, and automate the workflows. Control-M has been very successful for this purpose and has eliminated unnecessary human hours from the workflow, providing significant convenience and automation.

The main use case for Control-M in our organization's context is to schedule the bringing up and bringing down of the market because we work for a stock exchange. We have many applications running through the pre-open, open, during, and closing periods, as well as market close, end of day, and batching. All of these involve many applications that must run one after another along with dependencies and successors. Creating workflows in Control-M has greatly improved our workflow management.

The best features Control-M offers are the convenience and the reporting aspect, along with the ability to monitor current workflows and see where things are at, where they are stalling, and where abnormalities are occurring.

For reporting and monitoring features, it is very important that we understand how long certain applications take to run and which applications are draining the memory and hard disks of our servers. Reporting helps us understand execution times, average execution times, points of improvement, and provides information for our higher management. Monitoring has been an essential part of our mission-critical applications, with a separate team utilizing the monitoring and alerting features of Control-M.

Control-M has positively impacted our organization very much because it gives all our external teams a single platform to use as a single pane of glass to view different workflows, different points of improvement, and monitor how certain processes are performing.

Automating the maintenance workflow changed things for our team and organization by reducing the potential risk of human errors and saving considerable time for team members who previously had to be available over weekends to work on these tasks. Overall, it has been a step towards advancement in our company to automate workflows.

Control-M can definitely be improved in terms of the user interface. The user interface they have been using is the same thing they have been using for the last 10 years. Control-M Web UI has not done justice to the fat client because we are forced to switch from the fat client to the Web UI. The Web UI has drawbacks, including the jobs on the monitoring page taking several seconds, from 5 to 10 to even 15 seconds, for the status to update from executing to completed stage. This is something we have to refresh the monitoring domain to see. There are a couple of inconsistencies when switching from the fat client, though I think we might get used to it over time.

Control-M's learning platforms need significant improvement. The Control-M courses are really bad, and the exams are really bad. Nobody has really spent any time improving them or putting thought into them. It appears someone made them without much consideration. I would like those things to be eventually improved.

I chose a rating of 8 out of 10 because Control-M has many things to improve.

I have been using Control-M for close to three years.

Control-M is stable.

Control-M's scalability is very good.

Customer support for Control-M is not too bad, but we wish that some of the bugs would be prioritized by the development teams so that we do not have to wait until the next year for certain issues to be resolved.

I am not involved in the pricing, setup cost, and licensing conversations as that is usually handled by my higher management.

I have seen a return on investment with Control-M, and while I do not have specific numbers, it has led to fewer employees being hands-on with the applications because of Control-M's automation.

We are yet to utilize the artificial intelligence capabilities of Control-M and would not know about the accuracy and reliability of its output.

Control-M is deployed in our organization on-premise. It is not very difficult to integrate other processors with Control-M, which is a reason why we continue using it.

Control-M is currently used extensively in my organization, but the decision to increase usage is entirely with management. Approximately 100 people use Control-M with different roles, though I am not very aware of those specific roles.

Our main business use cases supported by Control-M involve finance-related applications, though I am not very aware of the functional or application usage details.

My advice to others looking into using Control-M is to learn all Control-M related features before starting the integration because there are many things you can do. If you understand everything in your initial analysis, I think you will be able to utilize 100 percent of Control-M's features.

I rated this product 8 out of 10.

In day-to-day life, we are currently using Control-M as a workload automation tool, which provides the solution of scheduling jobs, file transfers, and cloud infrastructure jobs.

We use Control-M to get the start/stop status of a VM and to start or stop any VM with the help of Control-M and Azure VM plugins. We are also using Azure Functions and Azure Resource Group managers.

Control-M has a centralized GUI and includes many supportive plugins through cloud infrastructure and file transfer plugins.

One valuable feature is the centralized connection profile, which allows us to browse all connection profiles in a single point of view, despite a specific agent. We can browse through an EM level. The integrated Azure cloud profiles enable us to get the status of our VMs or to stop or start a specific VM without accessing the Azure portal.

Control-M has positively impacted our organization as we transition from legacy systems. We have configured around 70,000 jobs and are currently migrating all jobs from the legacy system to cloud infrastructure. Control-M helps us manage all file backup processes and batch process management, which people previously performed manually. By using Control-M, they are now able to perform these activities in an automated manner.

Control-M has definitely reduced the time required for job execution. Since we had 70,000 jobs that people were performing manually before Control-M, they are now specifically scheduled and available as on-demand jobs. They can run the jobs whenever they want, which has helped us reduce the time span and the manual efforts people spend on these tasks.

The configuration process could be improved as it is a lengthy, complex process. The installation might be simplified.

Additionally, the BMC support process might be streamlined. The complexity of the setup and the delayed support we receive from BMC are areas for improvement.

I have been using Control-M for seven years.

Control-M is stable. We are using the HA environment, so we are satisfied with the high availability.

In our organization, around 2,000 to 3,000 people are using Control-M, and they have many roles depending upon the application.

The BMC support process might be streamlined.

The configuration process could be improved as it is a lengthy, complex process. The installation might be simplified.

A total of 25 staff members are required for deployment and maintenance. In the organization, they are segregated as a manager, deputy manager, assistant manager, or senior supervisor.

I would suggest using Control-M because it provides vast capability with much more integration with cloud and native technology. Control-M should be considered by others looking for workload automation solutions.

The support requirements depend on the deployment capabilities. Whether it is a large deployment or a small deployment depends upon the deployment criteria and its size.

Since our company policy prevents us from using any external AI, I am not able to comment on its AI capability. We have not yet used Control-M AI, so for this reason we are not able to provide any comment on this functionality.

Some parts of Control-M are configured in a private cloud and some are in our on-premises environment. This constitutes a hybrid deployment. We have been using Control-M from the initial days. I would rate this solution a 7 overall.

Hybrid Cloud

Microsoft Azure

In our project, we are using Control-M for job scheduling and monitoring. We have data workflows and many other components that we can manage from a business point of view. We can manage processes across on-premises and all kinds of environments.

Control-M is the easiest tool available because we can accomplish what we want. We can automate processes and reduce manpower, which is the primary benefit. We can manage all workflows across different cloud environments with the help of batch scheduling, automating, and controlling jobs. It is easy to handle if you are confident with scheduling and related components. We can improve Service Level Agreements and SLA management.

Integrations are available through API and Control-M automation API to build, run, and manage workflows. We can integrate with CI/CD pipelines. As an automation solution, Control-M provides cost and licensing benefits that are good for our ownership considerations. Flexibility is also available. Job failure monitoring includes email notifications and alerts. Some users feel that the interfaces, both web and desktop, could be more streamlined.

IBM workload automation is another tool, but we are satisfied while using Control-M and comparing it to other solutions. IBM is primarily suited for mainframe integrations only, whereas Control-M is a workload automation platform where we can implement job as code and use it easily.

Deployment and agent upgrades are straightforward with Control-M. If you want to upgrade one agent version or the client version, Control-M is easier to manage compared to other tools. If we have Java capabilities, we can easily perform these upgrades. Moving to Oracle 19c would be beneficial. TLS protocols are in place while fixing vulnerabilities. TLS 1.2 and higher versions are good, and we could upgrade to TLS 1.3 for better security.

From a security perspective, communication protocols like TLS are available. SAP optimization would be beneficial if possible. Improving the overall application path would enhance the solution further.

We have been using Control-M for four years.

We experience all kinds of stability issues, and they are difficult to manage.

Compared to all other tools, the scalability is moderate only.

We are receiving all the good support we need. Even when we encounter issues with vulnerabilities that we cannot fix internally, the vendor provides excellent response times and support. Everything has been positive.

Positive

We have used other vendors in the past, including solutions from Azure, AWS, and Salesforce.

We have achieved nearly 30% return on investment.

Nearly 100 users are using Control-M in our organization. We previously used BMC Eclipse, which is a Software as a Service solution, for three years. Control-M has enabled us to transition from mainframe to the cloud environment with Azure. We are using this on a video conference basis. My overall rating for Control-M is 8 out of 10.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is extensively used by our clients mainly in the BFSI sector, where we see around 5,000 to 10,000 file transfers for a few critical customers. We use it for data from their vendors who provide inputs for their end clients, including insurance agents who provide data in these files, facilitating both B2B and B2C processes.

Regarding the usability of BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer, I have been using it since 2009, and I have encountered no issues. I appreciate that no code is required, it is centrally managed through account management, validations are in place, and file transfers are tracked in an audit through which account they occur. It is one of my favorite solutions, existing since 1980, and I have written a lot of papers on Control-M, including one on my LinkedIn called 'A Leader's Journey' before BMC published the journey of Control-M.

My impressions of application workflow orchestration with BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer are that it is a fantastic tool I have been using for 16 years. I have even received appreciation from the development team in Israel, stating that no one has used the solution to the extent that my team and I have for one of our customers. The orchestration process allows easy accessibility to different applications, and it facilitates configuring with drag-and-drop functionality to set dependencies.

If you can share an email, I can provide pointers on potential improvements for BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer, focusing on customer-centric enhancements. For example, providing checksums for file metadata in reports could significantly help with file transfers.

I have been working with BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer for more than three to four years.

Regarding stability, there were some issues reported during implementation and usage by our customers, but I would rate it an eight out of ten.

The scalability of BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is impressive due to its ability to handle large quantities of data and files, but there are certain features that could be added to make it a game changer.

From a support perspective, BMC technical support needs improvements. There are novice users needing help, but for customers such as us, who have been using the solution for over a decade, the response needs to be more timely and efficient, utilizing L2 and L3 support effectively.

Neutral

The initial setup process for BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is very simple for us, as it requires a component to be deployed in the DMZ, from where the file gets transferred centrally to the server.

We are the premium partners for BMC products implementations, recognized as Bihom partner of the year multiple times. I have deployed BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer since 2011 for our customers, and it has been working flawlessly, with people speaking highly about the solution as the heart of their organization.

BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer has indeed helped our clients reduce IT operation costs. For instance, I implemented it for one of the largest banks in 2012, which reduced their loan process sanction from four days to just two hours, and now it completes in 30 minutes. Additionally, the timeline for the policy dispatch to insurance end clients, which initially took up to ten days, now happens in two hours.

BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer has some competitors in the market, but according to the Forrester and Gartner reports, nobody is even close to this solution, and I prefer not to use open source options.

BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is my favorite product, so while I would typically rate it around 9.7 or 9.8, I would ultimately assign it a rating of 10.

On-premises

My use case for Control-M is orchestration.

The best features of Control-M are that it is easy to use; even a non-technical person can learn it in a couple of days with normal documentation and a few videos. Just two days should be sufficient to pick it up. Users do not need to be technical to use the tool, and it is easy to implement and deploy.

Integrating Control-M with other technologies for DataOps and DevOps is easy; we export the jobs we create in a non-prod environment and, on the runtime, we know what variables need to be replaced, and we replace those variables to deploy to prod since Control-M is just an XML file, which is very easy to search and replace.

Control-M is extensively used in our projects. When we start a project and it becomes an enterprise tool, we are required to use it. If there are any failures, we can tag them with an incident, making it easy for maintenance, monitoring, tracking, and deployment since everything is in one place.

The area that has room for improvement in Control-M is a better dashboard. For example, sometimes we have up to 100 Control-M jobs, and there is no dashboard to know how many jobs are in progress, completed, or waiting for files. That requires us to create an additional dashboard on top of the Control-M metadata.

I've been using Control-M since I started my career in data warehousing in 2011 or 2012 since there are more jobs, more tables, and more data loads in data warehousing.

When it comes to stability, I would rate it as good, an eight out of ten.

The scalability of Control-M is good; we create different servers for different projects instead of putting all jobs on one server, and I would rate scalability as an eight out of ten.

The technical support from Control-M is good; I normally never ask the Control-M team for help as it hasn't gotten stuck for me, however, they are supportive, and I would rate it an eight out of ten.

Positive

We have used different orchestration tools, however, I am not aware of the specific tools you mentioned.

The deployment of the solution is easy.

Regarding the duration of deployment, if everything is proper, I don't see a big challenge. Normally, it takes a day if you have the code ready and follow the process and checklist.

The return on investment seen with Control-M is significant; in my experience, we run more than 100 to 150 jobs a day, and to monitor those jobs, one or two people should be enough since it triggers emails for failures and allows us to view logs within Control-M itself.

I'm not sure about the pricing of Control-M. I didn't get involved at the pricing level.

When comparing Control-M with other solutions, I see that everywhere, orchestration tools are simple, and while they come with basic monitoring and alerting functionalities, the decision to use Control-M often comes down to cost, licensing, and maintenance.

My relationship with BMC is good. 

I recommend Control-M if there are no other tools available as it is easy to use, with easy maintenance and a centralized monitoring system, alerting system, and incident creation. 

Overall, I would rate Control-M an eight out of ten.

On-premises

Microsoft Azure