Control-M Reviews

We install, configure, and deploy Control-M for customers and make it run on-premises from them. After that, the customers take over.

BMC uses partners. They don't sell directly in the Middle East. So, they don't directly install the product and sell it. Instead, they go through partners, like my company.

We, as a company, don't use Control-M, but we sell Control-M to customers. We go onto a customer site, install the product, and configure it per their requirements. Then, we get their feedback and support related project stuff.

From a services perspective, we actively use BIM, which is the affiliate manager. We use the history to see the forecast. When the customer gets Control-M, the affiliate manager comes along with it. 

It is 100% on-prem, primarily because the Helix part of Control-M is not hosted in the Middle East yet. For many customers, there are regulations since the primary customers are banking, insurance, etc., which all require their data to remain within the country.

My customers are primarily banking customers, so they have their end of day processes that happen at night after the bank closes. These processes would involve AML, banking, and end of month payroll-related stuff across multiple organizations.

We do maintenance, project management, and support. Once a project is done, the customer has a support contract through BMC. That is through us. Customers cannot directly get in touch with BMC to open cases. It has to go through a partner. Therefore, we offer first and second line support to the customer.

There is definitely room for improvement. Version 9.0.20 actually comes with a web-based interface, but there are still a lot of things unavailable with it. There will eventually be more inclusions added into the web interface, but there is still a long way to go. 

There is also the automation API, which is a way to interact with Control-M, but it also needs a lot of improvement for other people to understand how to use it.

The documentation isn't really straightforward for the initial setup. It says, "Follow the on-screen instructions." The reason why people read the documentation is to have a heads up of what to expect and what is coming up. However, when you say, "Follow the on-screen instructions," I believe that is inappropriate.

I have been using it for two or three years.

It is very stable. We hardly get calls in respect to issues on Control-M, particularly on version 9.0.19. 9.0.20 is still pretty new in terms of deployments. However, with version 9.0.18. I have had a couple of problems from customers.

You barely need one person for customer maintenance because the system is pretty stable. Of course, if it is version 9.0.18, the number of support cases that come in are more compared to version 9.0.19. We also get information requests from the customer where they might have audit requests or want to enable certain protocols because of security compliance within their organization. In these cases, they reach out to us. 

It is not that we are always involved with the customer. It is not an onsite model. If there is an issue with the product, the person calls. We have 20 customers whom we manage at the moment for BMC. That is just done with three people: an onsite resource and two employees, including myself. The onsite employee is with a telecom vendor within the UAE. His job is monitoring and maintaining the system as well as assisting the customer. He does everything in respect to Control-M at the customer site, e.g., defining jobs, monitoring jobs, executing jobs, and making sure that they are done properly. Another of my colleagues and myself deal with all the other customers from a project and support perspective. It is primarily support because once a project is done, then a customer has support with us. We manage those cases, involving ourselves in those cases. We understand what is required. If we have the information already and know how to do it, we will give them the procedure, etc. If we cannot do it, we get in touch with BMC to get the relevant answers.

I have not had an issue with scalability per se. If there is any kind of resource crunch, the customer just needs to add resources. If it is a memory usage, then add memory to the virtual machine and you are good to go. 

You can have jobs at multiple customer sites. For that, there is a different level of scalability altogether from an infrastructure perspective.

BMC support is good. I would give them eight or nine out of 10, most of the time. They reply quickly, even before the actual SLA time. However, in certain worst case scenarios, I would give them a seven out of 10.

Most of the time, the integrated guide immediately opens up the relevant page. You can get the necessary information from that. The videos are really basic. For example, with version 9.0.20, there are videos that come up by default in many places as part of the help page, which is ideal for beginners. Whereas, at my level of implementation, we are looking for more detailed explicit knowledge for a specific scenario. For beginners, the web help is more than enough, if a person is patient enough to go through it.

Personally, I have worked previously with a competitive product: Automic One Automation Platform. I was working with Broadcom earlier, doing a similar profile, where my portfolio was dealing with retail support and projects. So, I was deploying Atomic solutions. After that solution, I made a change and moved to BMC, as a partner. I have been working with Control-M ever since. Therefore, I have exposure with other automation products.

The initial setup is straightforward.

If all the prerequisites are ready, a full-fledged setup for a single system would take 15 to 20 minutes to deploy.

Normally, we deploy with high availability so it has an uninterrupted service, even if a server goes down.

Once the PO is all done for a project, we have a pre-kickoff with our company and the customer. We basically run them through the prerequisites and understand their priorities. For example, some customers are more inclined towards Windows and others are more inclined towards Linux. Most of them would like to have the DR environment in the setup, meaning it would be the primary site with two servers for high availability and a DR site with two servers. All these technicalities for the infrastructure and environment would be run by the customer along with the prerequisites. 

From a project perspective, we ideally implement the process flow. So, we understand their documentation. Then, we have an actual analysis and design phase, where we sit down with the customer stakeholders and get their requirements in terms of the actual process flows early on. Until then, we just know at a high level that these are the number of database jobs that will run on Control-M. We don't have explicit details at the analysis and design phase. We literally sit with them and go through their documentation, understand what they want to implement on Control-M, and how we can make it better or include notifications. After this, we start off with the installation. Based on the outcome of the analysis and design, we implement the process flows.

The annual licensing within BMC Control-M is on a per task basis. Three- and five-year contracts are also offered. The customer usually buys a bundle of tasks, e.g., 5,000 tasks, then my team configures Control-M for their usage. 

It is a good, stable solution. It does depend on what exactly you are implementing, because automation solutions are primarily back-end solutions, e.g., back-end processes and batch processes, which can be executed on Control-M. However, sometimes customers get back-end solutions confused with RPA, which is front-end automation. When customers decide that they want to use some kind of an automation tool, they should really understand what their process flows actually need. There is a handshake that can be given between the front-end and back-end, but there are some customers who come to us wanting to buy Control-M, but they are actually looking for an RPA solution because their operations are front-end.

I would rate Control-M as eight or nine out of 10 in terms of stability and features.

Control-M is the primary tool used in our department as an interface between desk jobs and SAP. I create and monitor the jobs in Control-M and that ties into SAP.

At this point, we are using it as a batch scheduler, which is primarily used for SAP. We use it for everything financial, like payroll, because SAP is our primary ERP.

Our system administrator uses Control-M when he is scheduling batch jobs. 

Our SAP jobs are fairly critical, because there are a lot of collections from a financial aspect coming through on a daily basis. From that regard, Control-M is fairly critical for us. We need to know when and if jobs fail since that has an impact on the collection of money.

We used to have multiple shifts of people sitting there and monitoring our jobs until the introduction of Control-M. So, with Control-M, we have been able to reduce the human capital, in regards to shift workers. Therefore, we are saving money from a cost perspective, in this regard, by about 25%. We have had a 50% reduction in staff. The ability to monitor and be notified, when our jobs have on time completion or fail, has had a big impact on the company.

It is more about the notification tools and its ability interface with SAP. It has the ability to notify people about jobs and schedule based on prerequisites, because this is not something that we can actually do within SAP. For example, if one job is dependent on another job completing, SAP doesn't have this capability. This is why we went with Control-M. 

It is very simple to use. I have only been in this position for four years, but it was really easy for me to pick up and monitor Control-M.

In the client, it provides a unified view for me. I can alter the view that I want to see jobs and conditions. This is nice to have. The fact that you can see everything in one space is very important, especially these days where everything is about data and monitoring as well as because we are working from home on a global basis. So, in real-time, I can monitor jobs, failures, or anything that might be stuck. The real-time monitoring and the ability to see everything in one place is important for us because we operate 24/7.

I use the mobile and web interface. I started off with the desktop client, and there are some slight differences in the interface between the mobile, web interface, and desktop client. This is a nice feature, because when I am on the road or going for a walk, then I have my mobile with me and I can get notifications if I need to run anything. Then, I can just log on from there.

All the modules within Control-M can interface with SAP.

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.

Two or three years ago, I was at a seminar where they said that they were looking at improving the reporting. However, from that time until now, there hasn't been much of a change in the reporting capabilities. Especially in today's day and age, where accessing data has become very important, this is something that they should be looking at.

We are using Commvault as our backup application. Currently, there is no integration between Control-M and Commvault. 

I have been in my position as an operator for four years. The company has had Control-M for over 20 years. 

Over the last three upgrades, Control-M has improved quite a bit. When I joined our department, Control-M didn't have a good reputation because it was always falling over. All our issues were addressed by Control-M with their upgrades. 

In the latest version, we find it has been extremely stable. We haven't had many failures as far as the program is concerned.

Generally, we don't interact directly with BMC because we have a service provider that we use, Blue Turtle. So, we interact with Control-M via Blue Turtle for any queries that we are having.

The initial setup was done before I joined the company.

We have a system administrator who applies our Control-M updates.

Control-M has helped us improve Service Level Operations performance. It helped us from the monitoring perspective. Now, we are able to control real-time monitoring and real-time notification of any failures that would occur within the system. Because we run it 24/7, we have notifications for any failures that have been setup. They will come through on our mobiles, and in that regard, Control-M has helped us.

Unfortunately, I can't compare it to anything else.

It just works. Control-M is very good. You only need to look at something else when an application gives you problems. However, in our environment, it is stable and just works. We haven't even bothered looking at anything else.

I can highly recommend it. It is very easy to learn. It is very stable. It has multiple interfaces, e.g., you can use it on your desktop, access it via the web interface, or access it on a mobile. The support that you get is actually quite good. It is a tool that I highly recommend. For what we require it to do, it does exactly that and more.

We have a system administrator, a chief scheduler, who is my supervisor, and two operators, including me. The four of us are power users who have scheduling capabilities in Control-M. We have different people on our BI team. Overall, 10 people have various levels of access.

We have tried Control-M as part of your DevOps automation toolchains. We are only getting into DevOps now as a company. We are still playing around with it. Currently, we are still fairly separate as far as DevOps is concerned. My department is basically the middleman between dev and operations. Whatever dev wants, we will create those jobs and test them. Once they want to send them into production, they let us know, and it then goes to operations. We are the center for those types of things.

Because we went into lockdown and the financial impact of the lockdown, projects were placed on hold. This year, they were& still on hold. Probably sometime next year, we will be starting on those projects again.

I would rate Control-M as eight out of 10 because the reporting needs improvement.

It provides enterprise scheduling for a lot of things, e.g., supply chain, payroll, reporting, sales and marketing, and web services, which is our online store and ordering.

We are currently running jobs on Control-M for databases, web apps, proprietary applications, Workday, Oracle, WebSphere, Kafka, and Informatica stuff on Unix and Linux. It is flexible. I haven't had any problems with compatibility.

It used to be on-prem, but now it is in a different data center in a different city. So, it is a VM.

We use the GUI, but there is a web interface that some users are using on the business side. Those users can easily check on their job flows on the web interface, so they can see whether their job has completed or it is waiting for something. It can check the status and  history of what happened, for example, the previous day.

The scheduling is quite easy to use and pretty robust.

Control-M provides us with a unified view, where we can easily define, orchestrate, and monitor all our application workflows and data pipelines. It also provides the ability to filter. So, if I don't want to see everything, I can also narrow it down or open ViewPoint. This is very important since we have thousands of jobs to monitor. If we did not have this ability, it would be very difficult to see what is going on.

It is easy to use, and you can set things up very quickly. We can copy jobs, making copies of the existing configurations and setup. 

Control-M reporting is a bit of a pain point right now. Control-M doesn't have robust reporting. I would like to see better reporting options. I would like to be able to pull charts or statistics that look nicer. Right now, we can pull some data, but it is kind of choppy. It would be nicer to have enterprise-level reporting that you can present to managers.

I have been using Control-M for at least 12 years.

I haven't seen any significant issues with Control-M in several years, e.g., we haven't had to call support. So, it has been very stable.

It runs all the time. We are running thousands of jobs with little issue, especially when I compare it to some of the other systems that we use for other things. It has been very stable.

One to two people are needed for day-to-day administration. I usually do it myself.

I haven't seen any problems with scalability in terms of performance or stability. 

There are at least 50 people using Control-M. Some of them would be architects, senior programmer analysts, database administrators, Unix administrators, software engineers, and team leads.

I had an issue one time at my previous company. There was some issue with the database. We worked with Level 2 support to fix it. Other than that, there is not too much to talk about really in terms of problems. 

The integrated guides and how-to videos are very good in the solution’s web interface for reducing the time to full productivity with Control-M. BMC puts out a lot of webinars and videos on their YouTube channel. Sometimes I do use those. I go in and watch the video or webinar to see what is new or how to do things, which is very valuable.

We migrated from CA Unicenter, which was out of service and quite clunky. That system didn't have a graphical user interface; it was command line-based. It had a console, so it was very difficult to see what was going on. It was also difficult to troubleshoot. It took a long time to find information or set things up. Therefore, management decided to move to Control-M, especially since I had experience with it. It has been much easier to use and work with than CA Unicenter.

CA didn't have File Watchers. It had another way of achieving that outcome, but it was very cumbersome and not always reliable. It was also difficult to troubleshoot. 

There is a lot of logic in Control-M that you can do. For example, after a job completes, there are actions you can do. There are actions before the job completes or before it starts. There are actions you can do afterwards. There was some logic that you can add to the job, and we just didn't have it with CA.

The calendars are also a lot easier to work with using Control-M. The CA calendars were just terrible. In Control-M, we have a lot less calendars, about 20 calendars, compared to 80 or 100 in CA.

It is faster to implement things like new jobs or projects with Control-M. Whereas, in the past, certain things would be executed manually, like scripts and workflows. It is very easy to use. I can set up jobs and workflows quickly, which helps developers to test.

It is very easy to set up a PoC. If someone just wants to do a quick test, it is very easy to do. Assuming that everything is in place, it is quite easy to test or set up cyclic jobs.

We did the setup twice. The first time was a migration from another system, which was not BMC. That took three months, which was still pretty fast, and it was very successful. The second time was an upgrade to version 19, and that took about two months, and it was also quite successful. From my perspective, the solution was very good as far as upgrades go. We didn't have any major issues, before or after the upgrade.

We had a vendor help us out, but overall it was very smooth and a success. We used Control-M’s Conversion Tool when migrating from CA Unicenter to Control-M and the vendor helped us. Using the Conversion Tool was very important because it speeded up the process. It took all the information from one system and transferred it over, which saved us a lot of time. So, we spent more time on the verification. We spent less time on the setup and spent more time just verifying the setup to make sure everything was correct. It was a time saver for us.

My experience with BMC during our initial deployments and upgrades was very good. I got quick responses with good information. The people that I dealt with were knowledgeable and helped to resolve the problems. So, my experience was very positive. I would rate them as 10 out of 10. I never had any issues.

Control-M has helped us achieve three times faster issue resolution. We have it integrated with ServiceNow, so it tickets automatically. Whereas, in the past, we used to do it manually. We had operators opening tickets, so it speeds up ticket resolution for opening and assigning a ticket. Also, Control-M captures some errors. Sometimes, this helps to troubleshoot any problems. You can set up alerts for jobs that run too long, etc. So, it has a lot of features that we use.

Control-M helped us double or triple our Service Level Operations performance.

CA sent us a proposal and IBM also sent one for Tivoli Workload Scheduler. We saw their presentations and packages, then did some research. We thought Control-M was the best solution based on experience and feedback from others. I had experience on Control-M already. I had been working on it for several years and had a positive experience. The other thing was just ease of use. Tivoli and Unicenter just do not seem as polished. They didn't look as easy to use, especially Tivoli. I think we heard that Tivoli was very clunky and not easy to use.

It was mostly my experience with it. Control-M was easy to use, very stable with no issues, and easy to configure and maintain. Whereas, CA was not as easy to use nor polished. CA also always keeps on buying other companies and incorporating things, so the experience is not as smooth. With Tivoli, we just heard that it was terrible to use and lacked a good interface. We had another Tivoli product from IBM for backups, and it was just terrible.

Give Control-M a chance. If somebody is considering the solution, they should install a demo on their system and use it. It is very easy to use. It has a lot of options and features. BMC is pretty good when it comes to upgrades and implementing new features, so there is always stuff coming in. There are a lot of new options that we haven't even tried.

Of course, you should compare all your options, but Control-M is a good choice. It is probably the best.

In the future, we will probably use Control-M as part of our DevOps automation toolchains and leverage its “as-code” interfaces for developers.

I would rate it as nine out of 10. The reporting is something I would like to see improved. Other than that, there is not much I dislike about it. I work with it every day. I have been working with it for the last dozen years or so. It is an excellent product. It just needs more reporting.

We are mainly scheduling jobs on Linux Windows, SAP, and DataStage environments; a few other application integrations, like Micro Focus, and third-party applications, like Web API.

We are using it for banking and financial services.

We use Control-M as part of our DevOps automation toolchains and leverage its “as-code” interfaces for developers on a few JSON-based script applications. This is in the testing phase, but in production for one or two applications, and rolling out new applications and application updates is much faster. Earlier, we had to go through a lot of processes. We had to raise a change request and work through various approvals, then the scheduling team would do it and there would be a lot of failures. Now, they are directly creating those jobs and submitting them. It is coming in automatically because it is running in Control-M.

Multiple critical processes have been automated. Here are two of those processes:

1. Our critical banking application for end users, especially to check their bank data, e.g., how much is in their account, how much money they have withdrawn, etc. 
2. It is used for ATM withdrawals and runtime data, e.g., SMSes go out with how much has been debited or credited in their account.

Automating these processes provides more visibility to our application team. They can see critical jobs failing and immediately taking action in Batch Impact Manager (BIM) with the help of our team.

The most beneficial features are the Forecast option and Archiving feature, as well as the integration option with other applications and tools to the API. When it comes to the API integration with any third-party tool, we can integrate using the application integrator tool and API interface with web APIs, which is the best part. Control-M has its own Forecast solution. Therefore, we can forecast how many jobs are going to run, on which day, and at what time. Another benefit is the tool's Archiving feature. So, we had a lot of requirements, like when an application or end user team would say that they want to see the log or output of the job from two or three months before. So, the archive solution is very helpful because we can keep at least a year's worth of data for our environment.

It has a very good GUI. We can search for a job very easily. The web interface, user account creation, and access control are very good. From an access control point of view, we can provide access to as many users as we want. A second group of users can be given a certain number of features, according to the requirements. The web interface is very easy for end users to login and use. A lot of features have been added, e.g., adding jobs. They can add jobs to their stuff, whatever they want, then get it validated by the scheduling team and work it into production.

A lot of businesses are using ServiceNow, which is another tool. I would like there to be some integration with ServiceNow or other third-party tools as well as have easily available integrations. Right now, we need to write scripts. Apart from that, if there were some integrations with an ITSM tool, then that would be good. Because at the end of the day, most of our clients are using different ITSM tools. I know that BMC Remedy is easy to integrate with Control-M. However, if there was availability for Jira as well as other ITSM and DevOps tools, that would be a good improvement.

I have been using it for almost 12 years.

It is very stable. If we are using agents, it runs without any issues. I have sometimes found issues when we are running it with an agentless solution. However, with the agent, it does not have many issues. It will have an issue once or twice a year.

It is a very scalable solution. 

Almost all our end user application teams are using it. 

For day-to-day administration, we have two people. For scheduling, we have four people. 

The integrated guides and how-to videos in the solution’s web interface is a good approach. There are a lot of documents and webinars. Also, the support is very good. We receive good responses very quickly.

I would rate the technical support as nine out of 10.

We migrated from Tidal Automation. In Tidal Automation, various options are not there. So, jobs are running mostly using an admin account. When all jobs are running using an admin account, that is a risk. However, in Control-M, we have various options. We can use an admin account as well as a separate account, like a user account, to run jobs. Whereas, these features were missing in our previous tool. 

We switched from Tidal to Control-M because the application team wanted more control. There is a web-based solution for Tidal, but all the data is shown there. For example, if there are 10 applications, then the web applications team can see all 10 applications, though they might only want one application. Even if the backup team wants to view just their backup jobs, they see all the applications that are working. However, in Control-M, we can control whatever applications that we want, limiting what can be seen by each team. 

The initial setup was easy. BMC provided all the documentation before starting. They did it in the development environment and targeted various applications. They showed us what they were doing before they implemented it. So, we were coordinating with them.

Deployment took three months.

I was involved during the initial setup. It was done by BMC's professional services team and I was part of the support.

It is a good investment. I think we are paying the same amount of money for Control-M that we were paying for Tidal and not getting as many features.

Control-M has helped us achieve faster issue resolution. It is 60% to 70% faster than what was happening before.

Service Level Operations have improved in the sense that fewer team members are required as compared to before. So, we had a bigger team, and that has been reduced because of Control-M's latest features, like development. Therefore, a lot of things are now being done by the application team instead of having a separate scheduling team, which has now been reduced. The application team is currently being trained to handle more things on their own. They also have visibility on what jobs are running and what jobs are failing.

In our environment, pricing depends on the total number of maximum jobs that can run, which is fine. Therefore, if the number of jobs increases, then the licensing fees will increase.

I have hands-on experience with Redwood and ActiveBatch solutions. If there are a lot of Windows requirements with Windows jobs, then definitely ActiveBatch is the best solution. If we see there are a lot of SAP-based requirements, then Redwood is the best solution and either Redwood RunMyJob or Redwood CPS work for this. If we see Unix or any other application with jobs, then Control M is the best solution.

While we do use Control-M to streamline our data, we don't use it much to view our data and analytics project since there are various third-party applications of the bank where jobs are running. The major work that we do is creating and adding those jobs to the tool.

We are not using file transfer at all because we are a US-based financial company. They have a lot of restrictions for file transfer between third-parties, so Control-M is not used for file transfers.

It is one of the best scheduling tools in the market for batch job automation and DevOps.

I would rate Control-M as nine out of 10.

We are using Control-M mainly to schedule our jobs and also for file transfers. We are now in the process of using Control-M to take some workload off our mainframe. 

We use it mainly for job automation and handling large chunks of data automatically.

We have Informatica workflows, which make up about 50% of all our jobs. Then, we have all kinds of software on Windows and Linux servers. The file transfers are another big thing on Control-M. However, we are mainly using it to automate our in-house scripts, like monitoring and whatever needs to be done.

We mainly use desktop clients. Some users are also on the web. Currently, we don't use the mobile interface at all.

We have some batch jobs or Informatica workflows that create the files for file transfers. We have those on Control-M, so it is all automated and happens through the conditions.

Our daily customers' accounts and credit card actions files are processed by Control-M automations every day. That is pretty much part of the core of our business. Other critical components are some monitoring scripts and health checks on our servers, which are run from Control-M. This has made things easier because we have the Batch Impact Manager on Control-M. So, we can use that to send emails, like, "We haven't received the daily-files yet. Or, the daily files are going to be late." Therefore, we have proactive monitoring if things aren't running on schedule.

I don't think it transfers data any faster than before. However, we now have better control and can also send emails to the correct people directly from Control-M, like, "Hey, this transfer is now complete." In terms of data transfers, and if something goes wrong, it is easy to just rerun the file transfer.

If we are using the Batch Impact Manager, it has caught a few times where the job has been running for a while and may not meet the deadline. There may be a loop somewhere, where one job has been stuck for a few hours. So, in this case, the Batch Impact Manager notifies us that it is taking quite long. There are days that this is useful to locate issues.

Multiple scheduling options allow you to do anything you want, whenever you want, and however you want. You can easily be in control when things happen.

Control-M provides us with a unified view where we can easily define, orchestrate, and monitor all our application workflows and data pipelines. This is quite important because I am our Control-M administrator. So, it is pretty important to me personally, but also for the company. It may not yet be quite in the center of our business, but we are clearly using Control-M as our main scheduling program.

Since we are using version 9.0.18, the web interface is a bit outdated and doesn't really support all our needs. However, we are migrating to 9.0.20, which should give us a lot more options, even in the web interface.

The unifying features between Control-M for different platforms needs improvement. The scheduling options on the Control-M mainframe jobs are different than they are on our Linux server. There are a few differences here and there.

There are capability-related issues between versions, but I think the latest fix pack has that covered. BMC has been doing a pretty good job about this.

I have been Control-M for two and a half years.

The stability is pretty good. We haven't had any issues with Control-M being unstable in the last two years. They are up and running 24/7.

One person is the minimum needed for day-to-day administration of Control-M. We have three admins, who are also our SFTP and file transfer team. Someone just decided that they should be the Control-M admins, so they made all three of us go through the admin classes. Now, we have three admins. 

Scaling has been pretty simple and a straightforward process. We just recently got the Control-M Workload Change Manager, which is an additional plugin to the main software. That installation was also quite easy. We got it up and running pretty quickly.

We have about 10 people using Control-M actively, who are system specialists and business intelligence specialists. We have three admins, then we have some batch job designers from the mainframe team using Control-M. We have also trained some of our Informatica people so they can monitor their own workflows and create new jobs. They can basically do whatever they need to do by themselves. 

I would rate their technical support as five out of five. They have been really helpful and knowledgeable. Even though there have been some cases where support has originally said, "Well, we don't know for now," they have asked for data and provided us with a solution pretty much every time we have had any issues. 

If they don't have a solution on hand, they take it to the lab. We communicate with them and the lab, then everything works out pretty well. Even if there is a big issue, which isn't very common, they have just taken it, and said, "We will see. We will go to the lab where we will test".

The interface guide and YouTube videos have been somewhat useful. However, there is too much data in there. When you try to search something, you get too many search results that weren't exactly what you were looking for.

I don't think anything has changed that much. We used to have CA-7 before Control-M. Now, Control-M is just kind of taking over. So, not much change happened. It is just a new software to do the old job. 

We have benefited from Control-M. It is much easier to use and a bit more versatile than CA-7. 

I personally don't use CA-7 because it is located on the mainframe, and I'm not a mainframe guy.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup of Control-M.

We are currently in the process of upgrading Control-M into a new version. We have been working closely with BMC's technical people. 

So far, I think it has been good. No one has been talking about getting rid of Control-M. It is more like we are increasing our Control-M usage, if anything.

Control-M has improved our service levels on pretty much any aspect. Now, we can see the Control-M estimates of when a certain job will be completed. They become pretty accurate once a job has been running for a week or two. It can predict quite well when a certain job will be ready. So, if a customer asks us, "When are we going to receive our file?" I can check on Control-M, then say, "Well, I would say around...," whatever time it shows and let them know.

We have the CA-7 on the mainframe, and I have seen it being used along with Control-M. Control-M seems to offer a much better user interface, mainly because it is graphic and not on the black screen of a mainframe session.

I don't think our data analysts are currently using Control-M. We do have Informatica software in use, which is some sort of data analyst software.

Always make sure that you have at least double checked everything, because Control-M does everything you tell it to do and exactly as you tell it. Therefore, make sure you are giving the right orders.

Working with Control-M has been pretty complex, but that has been mainly due to our corporate policies since we are located in Finland and in the banking sector. So, there are hundreds of things that we had to consider. While it has been a complex process, it has been more because of our corporate policies rather than Control-M. Once we decided everything, and everything was approved, just taking Control-M into use has been a pretty straightforward process.

Definitely take the scheduler course provided by BMC. That was hugely helpful for all of us. Trying to learn Control-M on your own will be a tough path to walk.

We have Control-M on the mainframe. As the mainframe will be taken down in a few years time, we have to replace the mainframe scheduling agent with something else. That will be Control-M.

Our dev teams are running their own fields. Once they are ready, they go through systems to store into production, then we can automate it. However, during DevOps and other testing phases, we may not use Control-M at all.

I would rate Control-M as a nine out of 10.

In my organization, Control-M supports large services and data management. We are mostly using it to schedule jobs in applications, like Informatica PowerCenter, PeopleSoft, and SAP.

We are using the desktop interface.

We utilize Control-M’s streamlining of our data and analytics projects. We are in the retail industry. We are also into other industries, like gas stations, baby stores, and online stores. When it comes to data, we have a lot coming daily. It can be product, purchase, or business information. Only 70% of the data is being used with Control-M. It can be a data transfer from one location to another location. Or, it can be putting the data into a database, then storing it for the future. Every day, the purchase history and product details are uploaded to the database using a Control-M job. Because of that, our business is able to identify our customer's needs. Using its analytics, we are tracking reports that help us provide more services to our customers. Control-M is definitely playing a vital role, in terms of handling a lot of data.

There are very critical processes that we have automated in Control-M, e.g., order confirmation. This is a service when a customer tries to purchase something from our online stores. Normally, when a customer places an order, it makes updates in the background, puts some things in a database, and performs some actions, then it gives an order confirmation. That has to be done within a short span of seconds. For us, that is a critical service because a customer should receive an order confirmation as soon as they make a purchase. This is one thing that we have automated. Because a lot of things are done in the background when a customer tries to order something, the process is automated. Automation of these processes improved the quality of our service. It has also reduced manual efforts and the time to deliver services has decreased, giving us a time advantage.

The scheduling feature and scheduling tool are the most valuable features. I like the scheduling services that we have in Control-M, which are very beneficial to our organization because they are automating things. There is also less manual work. We can schedule a task without any manual interruptions.

We use the File Transfer feature from BMC. Before File Transfer, we used to have to develop the script, which was always a problem for us. After using File Transfer from BMC, a lot of our issues were resolved. Also, it is ready to use. There are many extra, additional features, which help our day-to-day work requirements. File Transfer is a fantastic feature of BMC.

The web version is quite new. When compared to the client version, the web version has made a lot of improvements that needed to be done.

Because of the Role-Based Administration feature, we have been able to give autonomy to our users to develop their cycles how they want. Using this Role-Based Administration feature, we are able to give restricted access based on their job roles. 

The user interface is not that good. While we know that BMC is working on it, the user interface is how we work in the client. Also, the web version is quite slow when compared to the client version. 

Currently, per our requirements, we are planning to use Control-M Web more. However, because the UI is not good and still not up to the standard, we are not using it fully. This is one area where BMC needs to really focus further development.

For installing or upgrading the PeopleSoft and SAP plugins, currently there is no way to do it via Control-M Configuration Manager. So, we are installing or upgrading the plugins, like PeopleSoft and SAP, manually. If BMC could provide an option via Control-M Configuration Manager to upgrade these plugins, it probably would reduce a lot of manual work as well as ease our work. This is one improvement that I personally want to see, because it would help our way of working.

I have been using Control-M for four years and 10 months. It has been close to five years.

Control-M is 100% stable.

For day-to-day administration of Control-M, normally less than five people are required in our organization.

As per our requirements, it is okay most of the time. We do not need to search for another solution. It is very scalable.

There are currently 700-plus people using Control-M services. Their job roles are software developers and system engineers. 

In 80% to 90% of situations, BMC has provided better solutions. In rare cases, the support was not an asset.

BMC Control-M videos and webinars are being uploaded on YouTube or the BMC website. These are really helping us a lot to solve issues or understanding some things. One thing that BMC needs to continue is giving more webinars and uploading videos.

My company used a couple of applications before using Control-M.

When we migrated Control-M, we tried to use Control-M's Conversation Tool. However, it did not fully satisfy us per our requirements.

Normally, we do upgrades ourselves. However, if we need assistance, then we normally contact BMC by opening a case in Case Management.

Control-M has improved quality levels as well as standards. When it comes to cost and time, we have seen an improvement of approximately 70%.

The use of Role-Based Administration has eliminated the need to submit tickets or requests to the Control-M administrator.

BMC's price is based on the number of jobs.

If it is for scheduling, we only use Control-M in our organization. For non-scheduling solutions, then we probably will look at other solutions that are feasible for us.

DevOps automation toolchains are in our roadmap for next year.

We want to use Centralized Connection Profiles in the future.

I would rate it as nine out of 10.

We use Control-M to automate scripts that we use in banking and automotive use cases. These are our two big applications. We have a total of 18 applications running in Control-M now, and we want to move over approximately 13 more.

Control-M is running in a virtual machine.

Before Control-M, we had a lot of applications running under different operating systems, including Windows Server and Linux Server. We had a lot of scripts and a lot of programs that were running on the servers. When we implemented Control-M, we were able to automate a lot of those scripts. We have a lot of bank applications and processes and to this point, we have automated about 30% of the ones that we have to do.

We have automated some of our critical processes in core banking. Many of them are now being handled by Control-M. However, we have not yet finished all of the scripts.

Control-M gives us good visibility of our applications and processes. For example, in the morning we can see the results of all of the scripts, whereas, in the past, we could not do that. Our goal is to move the execution of the scripts from the server to Control-M. At this point, the scripts are controlled from Control-M but the execution is done on the server.

We have four domains in Control-M. We have planning, monitoring, history, and forecast. We do not perform data analytics yet.

Our clients use the web-based interface to interact with Control-M.

When a new team member or a new client wants to use Control-M, we have to install a client on their machine. After that is done, there are three options. The first is called Workload, and it is used for observing or monitoring the workload and execution of the jobs. The second one is called the configuration control manager, and it's for configuration administration. The third is reporting, which is another important one. We use the reporting module to generate our reports that concern the execution of the jobs.

We use Control-M to integrate file transfers with our workflows. It is called Advanced File Transfer (AFT) and is used by our financial team. We have another technology for file transfers but the problem with it is that it provides no transparency. There is no interface to see the transfers between applications. With Control-M, we can monitor the transfer between applications and it's great because we can see everything that happened throughout the day.

AFT allows us to configure actions. For example, if a file transfer does not complete successfully then we can send a notification to the destination about the problem.

Control-M has helped to improve our data transfers because it allows us to monitor the execution of the process. With other technologies, we cannot do that. Also, it allows us to configure the notifications, which is very important for us because it will automatically tell the other team when there is a problem with the transfer.

The most valuable feature is the monitoring, which allows me to see the execution and results of each of the scripts.

Being able to view the history is very important because if we have a problem then that is where we search for the details.

From an administrative perspective, the planning domain is very important when we want to add a new feature or a new script.

The forecast domain is what we used to ensure that the implementation is working and that the configuration is okay.

Compared to similar technologies, AFT takes a lot of time when transferring a large file from server to server.

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.

There should be more granular control available for monitoring applications and sub-applications. For example, when we want to monitor a job, we can specify the application, but we want to have the option to only specify sub-applications that are related to it. As it is now, all of the sub-applications are monitored.

We implemented Control-M for our clients approximately four years ago.

Control-M has been stable for us since we implemented it, four or five years ago. We have not had any problems with the database, file system, or scheduling component.

The scalability is excellent.

We have about 13 people who work regularly with Control-M. We are all engineers and IT managers, and I am the main administrator. The other administrators are in charge of their specific applications, and they need access to Control-M because they need to see the execution plans for the applications that they are in charge of.

I have worked with BMC technical support and I would rate them a nine out of ten.

They respond very quickly, according to the severity of the problem. Also, the responses that they give are really clear and assist us with finding the problem, as well as the root cause.

I have worked with Dollar Universe and AutoSys in the past, before working with Control-M. I find that overall, Control-M is the best one for several reasons.

First, with Control-M, it's easy for someone to be an administrator. All of the documentation is available online, which is important. The second point is that the interface is easy to use. The third is that the solution is really stable compared to other products, such as AutoSys or Dollar Universe. These solutions were not stable in our environment. Part of the reason was that we had trouble finding any documentation online.

This is an expensive product compared to other solutions, although I think that it is a good one. We are in a good position with licensing, as we can run 10,000 jobs. To this point, we have 3,000 jobs that are running, which gives us room to integrate the remainder of our applications. 

My advice for anybody who is looking to use Control-M is to have a lot of money. It is a good solution but it is expensive compared to others.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We use Control-M to provide business services to our customers. The use cases involve Hadoop, a lot of file transfers, and SQL scripts. In our business, automation is used for many things and we use a lot of the Control-M modules. For example, we connect to SAP, with databases, Hadoop, MFT, Informatica, and other technologies.

What we do relates to many different business services in a retail environment.

We have hybrid deployment; over the past two years, we have had a mix of on-premises and cloud-based implementations. Ultimately, we are moving to the cloud. We are using AWS, GCP, and Azure.

The main benefit is that Control-M can work with almost all of the applications that are on the market right now. We work with technologies including Hadoop, Informatica, all kinds of databases, and file transfer with MFT tools. The real potential with Control-M is that it can be used for everything you want.

It is really important that our clients can manage their own application workflow with full autonomy. Our customers are using this capability a lot and it helps because we don't need to be present when they want to perform a simple task. It's better for them because they don't need to wait to ask or to have something changed. They can just do it themselves. Also, it's better for us because we have more time to do other things.

The expanded capabilities in version 2020 for planning and monitoring have had a positive effect on our clients' operations, as well as our own. It saves a lot of time when it comes to developing and implementing things. As a result of saving time, both us and our clients are saving money.

Control-M has definitely helped us to achieve faster issue resolution, although it is difficult for me to estimate how much by. We don't have metrics that are suitable for tracking this kind of thing.

The best part about this product is that it has a lot of features. Control-M doesn't limit us and we can use it for a lot of things.

Control-M is easy to install, use, and maintain. It is easier to work with than other products.

The web interface hosts a lot of videos and webinars and I really appreciate this because I find them very helpful. They have tutorials that explain how to approach the new technologies and explain how things can be done using Control-M. This is something that I use a lot.

The Application Integrator is helpful because not all applications have a module available in Control-M, and we can use this feature to create them.

When it comes to supporting cloud services, Control-M is a bit slow. We are not advancing with the technology because we don't have the modules that can interact or use the new application services provided by the cloud technologies. BMC has been telling me that they are working hard to be more aligned with these new technologies, but they are a bit slow. Consequently, we are having a few issues when it comes to implementing Control-M. Some services that are being offered, such as Databricks, have been a problem.

The documentation is something that needs to be improved. Years ago, the documentation was very good, and I don't understand why but the documentation is no longer as good as it should be. For example, if I need to install or upgrade Control-M Enterprise Manager or Control-M server, the only information that I have in the documentation are things like "Execute this and follow the instructions on the screen".  What it doesn't tell you is what will be needed for the process. For example, you may need to enter a password or select a source, but you won't know what these parameters are in advance.

Also, it is different to find what you are looking for in terms of documentation. For instance, if you visit the Control-M download page, you see several tabs. There is a tab where you can download software and another tab where you can download patches. This is perfect. However, there is another tab for the documentation but there is never anything there.

With any Control-M product, it is hard to find the documentation. The reason for this is that they are moving all of the documentation online, in an HTML format. The problem is that it is hard to download documentation in this format. In particular, if it is a specific part that you need or a certain module, then it would be much easier to have a PDF version like they used to have. Consequently, it is more difficult for us to pass the documentation to our internal teams.

For example, if we are trying to configure a module for Informatica or SAP, it's hard because we don't have PDF documentation. We need to go online but it is difficult because it is very hard to find what you are looking for.

Another area of improvement for Control-M is the version release lifecycle. Prior to 2018, we had the same, main version of Control-M for two or three years. Since 2018, they have been releasing a new version every year. There was a 2018, 2019, and 2020 version. It seems that these new versions are being released in an unfinished state because we are seeing a lot of bugs. Historically, it has been very stable, but from a point between two and three years ago, it has not been so much so. It seems that the problem is that the versions are changing too quickly.

I have been using Control-M for nine years.

There are some limits to scalability in terms of cloud integration. There is some integration with cloud services but it is very simple. It is called the Application Integrator Module. This is a very good feature but the problem is that if we have to interact with cloud services, we need to create all of these modules on our own. We are paying a lot of money for a product where we have to create our own modules, which is not perfect.

It is very good that we have the Application Integrator available but for services that are being used by a lot of companies, we need official support from BMC.

I would rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

We have been dealing with BMC for several years and when you consider the support from a few years ago, the response that we received was more technical and more accurate regarding the problem that we were having.

As it is now, more and more we are seeing that the customer support has to rely on the product development team to resolve the issue. This is because there are a lot of bugs in the product and customer support cannot provide a solution for these. Instead, the problem has to be fixed by development, and then a patch is released to solve the problem.

For this reason, I am rating the support an eight instead of ten.

We have had cases where our clients migrated to Control-M from a competing solution. In fact, we did a migration last year from TWS, the Tivoli Workload Scheduler from IBM, to Control-M using the conversion tool. The tool was very important because it reduced a lot of work.

The problem is that the conversion was not as good as it should be. I estimate that we had to modify 90% of the jobs because the conversion was not good enough. It was still important because it would have taken a lot longer to create all of the jobs from scratch. That said, it was not perfect, at least that was our experience with migrating from TWS.

We were using TWS and another one that is called Visual TOM. It is another product that is similar to Control-M. These are both scheduling products, but Control-M has tons of features that the other ones don't have. They don't have the modules, the plug-ins, or the Automation API. They are stable and they are good, but we can't use them like you use Control-M because Control-M permits us to perform many more things. Unfortunately, with the many more things that you can do, it does introduce more opportunities for failure. However, this is true of any feature-rich solution. The more complex it is, the more prone to error it is.

Control-M is easy to install and maintain. There are not a lot of steps required to upgrade or downgrade from one version to another. With other products that I've been using, it is difficult and complicated to upgrade because there are a lot of confusing steps. But with control-M, you need only follow the onscreen instructions.

The length of time required to deploy depends on the customer. The scope and complexity of the client's requirements dictate the amount of time it will take to complete. For example, we can deploy for a smaller customer in one week. However, for a large retail customer, it could take a month to complete.

We have one client right now, where we are upgrading from Control-M 2018 to 2019, and it is going to take us almost three months to complete. Part of the reason it takes this long is that when you try to upgrade a production environment, it's really difficult to get a window to perform the upgrade or the installation or the modification. That said, it's still easier than many other products.

Pricing varies depending on which components and modules you are using.

My advice for anybody who is considering Control-M is that I recommend it. Although it's not perfect, it is relatively easy to use and maintain.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.