Control-M Reviews

In my previous organization, which was in the banking domain, most of the Control-M jobs were related to finance, including SAP, file processing, and payroll generation. Currently, I am working in the healthcare industry, where Control-M is used mostly for claim settlement and process flows.

The most valuable feature is the automation process. Manual tasks like scanning claims at a hospital or dispensary are automated with Control-M, greatly reducing time and effort for processing and saving data. This process previously consumed a lot of time when done manually.

Most improvements are related to cloud connectivity. It would be beneficial to have cloud integration tools for services like AWS and Azure. Currently, batch flows integrate through modules but don't connect directly, which could be enhanced for better efficiency.

I have around 13.5 years of experience in both scheduling and administration with Control-M.

There are no stability issues mentioned, and everything is automated. In case of application failure, I get involved, otherwise, the monitoring team takes care of the operations.

The support was better previously. Nowadays, the support is less responsive and accurate, unlike the past ten years when the solutions and responses were much more reliable.

Negative

Other tools I compare with include AWS, Redwood, and TWS. However, Control-M stands out due to its user-friendly graphical interface, unlike TWS, which is command-based and hard to use.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the initial setup of Control-M a ten out of ten due to my familiarity with the tool. However, some users face difficulties with the web interface.

I am the architect along with two other team members who work with Control-M. We handle design, including servers, databases, and connections.

Other solutions considered include AWS, Redwood, and TWS.

I would definitely recommend Control-M because it is a reliable tool expected to remain relevant for the next twenty to thirty years. I rate it ten out of ten.

We use Control-M for batch automation. Previously, all of our batch work was manual, but now Control-M has significantly reduced the need for manual intervention. As a result, our batch processes are now 99% automated.

It's so easy to navigate, and especially for new hires, it's very straightforward to show them around the client because it is user-friendly. It's very easy to use. Compared to other softwares, Control-M has significantly simplified our monthly release process, making it easier to move things forward.

We're upgrading Control-M, and the process is very long. There are numerous boxes to tick and things to check to ensure everything is in order before the upgrade happens. We run three instances of Control-M, and making various changes for each is challenging.

I have been using Control-M for five years.

You might experience a brief connection issue, but it usually resolves within a few minutes. The problem is related to the web server.

Scalability is excellent. We utilize only about 20% of Control-M's capabilities. 

Support is helpful, and the online community is very good. There's the community forum, which I use regularly to find answers to questions. BMC has been very helpful in that space. They were extremely fast and solved a difficult problem our in-house team couldn't solve in a matter of minutes. 

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. We used to use in-house software.

We have three different environments where people can work. People can use our development instance of Control-M to work on their batch processes before they go live, allowing them to experiment and refine until they get it right.

It's much simpler now. Everything was a manual batch job. Using the features of Control-M every day makes our batch processing so much easier.

It makes our lives so much easier. For our operations team, which runs our daily batch overnight, viewing everything as it happens has been an absolute lifesaver, especially if things go wrong overnight. It's great to have that visibility. It has also sped up our process, reducing overhead and weekend overtime. Batch processing is much quicker now, resulting in fewer manual errors.

Control-M has so much functionality that even if you initially purchase it to handle a specific part of your batch work, it can offer much more. We've progressed beyond traditional batch processing to include MFT, which has been incredibly useful. Our file watchers and other automation features have significantly simplified our workflows and made our lives much easier.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We do a lot of file transfers. We've anywhere from 19,000 to 20,000 transfers on a monthly basis. Some of them are internal transfers, such as scraping data from a database in one application and then taking that data and porting it over to or transferring it over to another server that houses another type of application that ingests that file. That type of work is happening all day and all night.

The most valuable thing is that it works as advertised. We don't take advantage of some of the features like we should because that's not our primary role and responsibility in the environment that we manage. We only want to make sure that a file gets to where it was supposed to go, or we pull in a file and it comes to us correctly. There are some GUI interfaces that we take a look at that tell us the number of transfers and the servers that are being utilized the most for capacity management and performance management. That's about it.

It's not something that I use every day. The supervisor of operations uses it, and as long as he's not complaining about it, I'm good. We're only using the functionality that we need to use. However, we've had an opportunity to work with one application owner here who wanted to do some transfers in the cloud and things like that. I know that there were some challenges on that, but they finally got all that set up. There was a learning curve though.

BMC went from what they called AFT to MFT about four years ago. We purchased that module and converted all of our AFT jobs to MFT. It didn't change the transfer methodology technically, but added some bells and whistles, a GUI interface, and management features for error tracking, success tracking, and setting up the transfers themselves through Control-M.

Its stability is great. There are no problems.

They were good. I'd rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

It was pretty straightforward. I got a good team that took care of all that. We don't have any complaints.

We did it ourselves. We had it done on a Saturday, and it was rocking and rolling that Saturday evening. 

It was a little bit pricey. They were proud of the product. A particular module was not free. However, BMC was able to negotiate that particular module into our whole contract itself without having to negotiate an individual price for that module. All that was included in a one-time negotiation, and we've signed a five-year contract on that. I haven't had any other opportunities to work on pricing or anything like that with BMC. I'd rate it a seven out of ten in terms of pricing.

I'd advise looking at the roles and responsibilities of your team and your IT topology and assessing whether or not this product would fit into your basic production environment and/or some type of standalone system. There are multitudes of products out there, and some people even use homegrown products. It's based on your business needs and how you want to meet the needs of the end users and the consumers of the file transfers. 

I'd rate it a nine out of ten. We haven't had any issues with it. 

We can recommend it for all domains, such as banking, insurance, or telecom. Whatever the customer needs, it can handle without any issues and is highly secure for file transfers. It supports all transfer protocols and methods and can integrate with external MFT solutions from different providers. Control-M will fulfill all requirements.

Whether distributed or mainframe jobs generate files, they use Control-M for file transfers. However, if they are not using Edge jobs or any JIT process outside of the Control-M schedule, those areas do not use Control-M. However, distributed or mainframe jobs generate files that need to be transferred to another system using Control-M.

We use encryption detection methods and various monitoring methods to check files and ensure they meet all business criteria. If a zero-byte file is detected, we can handle it. We use file watchers to monitor and transfer files between source and target, whether the environment is homogeneous or heterogeneous, on-prem to cloud or cloud to on-prem.

Improvements could be made in naming conventions, such as adding dates and timestamps to filenames after replacing them. While the auto-delete function exists, enhancing it further could be beneficial. For example, when using SSH or WMA connections to transfer files, more detailed logs could be provided, specifying exactly where issues occurred. A pre-transfer check that warns if the file size is too large for the available target server space could be useful. 

These enhancements are expected to be included in the upcoming 9.0.22 version of BMC Control-M.

I have been using BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer for five years.

Control-M allows team members to manage file transfers without any file size limit as long as the target server has sufficient space. If the target server lacks the necessary space, the transfer will fail with an error indicating insufficient space. 

The tool itself does not impose any restrictions on file size, so you can transfer files of any size without limitation, provided there is adequate space on the target server.

BMC technical support is highly effective and responsive to concerns and questions. With the hybrid model, including BMC Helix Control-M MFT and BMC OneCloud, they support SaaS solutions, managing all patching, installations, and maintenance tasks. Using Helix, BMC can open necessary ports for customers, ensuring seamless access to the Helix environment. This approach minimizes the need for customers to handle patching and advanced maintenance themselves. BMC also ensures high availability and performs all required updates and support, providing a streamlined experience for users.

Positive

Currently, we have a B2B webMethods MFT solution for file transfers and script-based file transfers with specific security commands. Script-based methods offer limited GUI and tracking features. 

We have not used them extensively in the last six or seven years. Since adopting Control-M, we have transitioned all non-standard file transfer methods to Control-M, which provides more comprehensive features and tracking capabilities.

We are not paying separately for MFT. It comes included with the contract, license, and software package. In addition to Control-M, we also use Informatica and other control modules. The MFT functionality is automatically included with the software package, so it has no separate cost.

Control-M is not just for file transfer; it integrates with all file-related jobs in downstream systems, including file generation, file transfer, and file usage. These processes run smoothly together, allowing us to meet KPH, PAs, and VNSLS SLAs. If you use a different tool for MFT, without proper control, there could be time delays. This might require adding buffer time between the file generation, file transfer, and file usage jobs, causing delays. With Control-M, there won't be any delays, as all three jobs run together seamlessly, ensuring no time lapse.

Compared to script-based or other file transfer methods, Control-M offers a more streamlined process that doesn’t require extra support for file transfer tasks. Those managing the Control-M tool can handle file transfers and perform necessary checks. The integration includes a web or self-service portal, allowing customers to track file transfers and check their status, even from a web view. Unlike other tools where only the production support or technical team can monitor file transfers, Control-M allows users with appropriate credentials to verify whether a file transfer was successful.

This is especially beneficial for reporting tool users like PowerBI, Cognos, or BusinessOptics, where data files are transferred from the source system to the reporting tool. Report users who refresh data manually can check if the file transfer was successful and, if necessary, rerun the job, ensuring their reports are updated on time without needing support from the technical team.

Control-M offers excellent file management. In my current customer environment, more than 90% of file transfers are handled by Control-M, with only 5% to 10% done using internal mechanisms within AWS or Azure for cloud-specific transfers. For transfers within AWS, between applications, a small portion of the files is transferred outside Control-M. However, most file transfers go through Control-M, and the customer is satisfied because they don't need to pay extra for the product or support team. Control-M also handles email service and business view integration, allowing users to monitor and resolve file size, space, network, protocol, certification, and public key problems on-premises without additional support.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our organization works with the cloud and databases. Our primary use case for Control-M is automating orchestration and scheduling jobs across the cloud and on-prem. We use it to monitor and report on jobs. We also use the index to integrate with the cloud service. It leverages our ability to manage workloads across various cloud platforms like AWS and GCP. 

Implementing Control-M saved us time by reducing our manual intervention. We can divert more resources to meaningful work. It reduced the amount of manual intervention needed by 30 to 35 percent. 

In addition to improving efficiency, workflow orchestration enhances our integration with other tools. We can orchestrate across on-prem and cloud environments and reliably create and integrate data pipelines. Workflow orchestration is critical to our DevOps. Control-M is constantly surveying the network.

The most valuable features of Control-M are automation and orchestration. It allows a different schedule, and we can manage thousands of jobs. It ensures we can complete them on time accurately. This automation reduces our manual intervention, significantly reducing error.

Control-M should receive more notice when it releases new features. The user interface is also a bit complex, and the navigation should be streamlined. 

I have used Control-M for a year and a half. 

I rate Control-M eight out of 10 for stability. 

I rate Control-M nine out of 10 for scalability. 

I rate Control-M support eight out of 10. 

Positive

We used Broadcom before switching to Control-M. The migration was a little complex.

Deploying Control-M is somewhat complex. It's easier to convert to the other tool. We spent more than two weeks on the deployment and received some support from the Control-M side. We had almost five teams of people working on it. First, we set up the environment. Then, we ran the installation and reconfigured the database. After that, we did functional and integration testing. 

Switching to Control-M reduced our total ownership cost.

Control-M isn't cheap, but this is an enterprise model. 

I rate Control-M nine out of 10. I will recommend it. It's easy to integrate and has the flexibility we need. 

I've been with the same company for 22 years. The use case started out truly as a batch processing solution. That was what we originally got it for back in the day to help us automate what was being done manually or being done through homegrown tools or scripts, et cetera. The use cases evolved through the years. Now, we use it to orchestrate workflows that are touching traditional data centers and that are going out to the cloud and bringing it back.

From one spot, we have a single pane of glass. Like many companies, our systems are getting more complex and more diverse, with cloud and edge computing, containerization, et cetera. However, we have one place where we can go and look and see what's going on. If something happens, we can check what happened and where it happened. Today, we're dependent upon a lot of services and cloud technology that sometimes we don't know the ins and outs of.

A big challenge is to make sure that we have certain things run daily or on a periodic basis. That really was the driving use case. We had a lot of manual tasks going on and if someone, for example, left on vacation, something may not get done for two or three days, a week or two weeks. This solution takes all that away.

The main use case was to get away from having to stare at a system or a screen, and just let things run, let the workflows flow, and only be notified if there's something wrong. That was really a big driving use case.

It freed up people to work on exciting work instead of mundane work. No one has to sit around and stare at that screen all day long. No one has to reinvent the wheel for the 50th or 500th time to do tasks like maybe put a file out into an S3 bucket or out into an HDFS Hadoop file store since it's already there. It's already done for them. They just drag, drop, click and they're done. It's freed people up and they can do the exciting work that is really what we should be doing anyway. No one wants to be doing boring work.

I am a big proponent of an automation API and Jobs-as-Code. That is Control-M in the DevOps world. It opens up the tool to a traditional operations tool. Developers can jump right in there now, giving them that ownership, and integrating the existing DevOps tools that they have. That is a huge feature that I just love. 

There's an application integrator. It doesn't matter if you're trying to integrate with on-premises, off-premises, API, container, or serverless functions, it's easy for you to design. You just design that integration and then it's available instantly, and that's a huge time saver. 

It's rather easy to create, integrate and automate data pipelines with Control-M. I can give a broad answer. It can be as easy as drag and drop, or it can be as complex as designing the integrations. If you use customization, you can access a data lake that your organization developed. For the typical user out there, the difference is on a scale of one to five, with one being easy and five being hard, you're probably looking at a two and a half. For most people, it's very easy. It's getting easier as it's all web-based nowadays. Alternatively, it can be all code-based.

I have not explored Python Client too much. I've tinkered with it and that's been the limit of my exploration. Now, with the integrations like AWS, we've made extensive use of it, and it is very easy for anybody to do. Python Client has a lot of great possibilities, especially in the data science arena, however, sadly we have not had an opportunity as of yet to play with it.

The Control-M interface for creating, monitoring, and ensuring delivery of files as parts of your data pipeline has gotten better. It is not perfect. That said, it’s come a long way over the years. Nowadays, most of it is web-driven. A lot of it can be API driven if you so wish. There's still probably some future work to be done there, however, for the average user that's coming in, starting to use it for the first time, they're going to need a little training and handholding at the beginning for maybe the first week or so. Then you can start setting them free to go out and use it on their own.

The orchestration of our data pipelines and workflows has been able to give a single point of view too. Management doesn’t care about the bits and pieces. A workflow or a data pipeline could have 100 or 1,000 components behind it, and management does not care about that. Management cares whether the SLA has been met or not. They want that easy-to-see red light or green light. We can provide them with that. The solution drives self-service and it helps. A manager doesn't have to call somebody in IT and wait around for an answer.

They can immediately get that information for themselves, consume it and be able to understand that, "Hey, you know what, this data pipeline over here, we're going to be 15 minutes off our SLA for today." Then, they can start asking why. I like parts of Control-M like Batch SLA Impact, is they can start doing some of that analysis themselves, for example, “this late due to the fact that maybe the system was down for maintenance for two hours last night." That's really beneficial in today's business world.

The automation of Control-M has sped up everything. We can integrate directly into existing pipelines and the DevOps teams can get anything integrated with their Jenkins deployments. They don't have to wait for traditional operation functions. This is all built-in. It validates and checks. In some cases, it automatically deploys the agents and deploys the configurations. That's something that years ago you'd have to wait for. The speed of delivery has vastly improved.

Nowadays, auditing is as simple as running a report. If this falls under an auditable category, we can just hit a button and the report is done. Control-M audits everything, even if it is not under the regulatory or audit spotlight. Every process, every movement, and every change is logged by the system. If there's ever a question, you’ll be able to find a why and a when. There’s an audit trail.

It certainly helped speed processes up. I can eliminate what I call the manual gaps between certain features. I don't have to send an email to somebody to say, "Hey, guess what? That file's ready. Now you can run process X, Y, Z." The system just says "Hey, the file is there, let's go." It's eliminated those gaps between parts of the workflow. It also helped optimize the infrastructure needed as it's like a Tetris Puzzle. I have these ten different workflows that I'm trying to run and before I may have had ten dedicated systems for them. Now I know that I don't need that.

We use this model all the time. We can run those ten processes on three systems and be just fine. That saves money. The solution is not only speedy, but it also saves money.

They are doing a great job with continuing to drive the open-source model of it. Five years ago, if you looked for Control-M anywhere, you would not have found it. Today, that model has changed. They're actively publishing on GitHub.

You can download for free an entire container and run Control-M at home if you want to tinker with it. That was unheard of a few years ago. You can type a query in Google and start to see all sorts of documentation that is now available to the public. The major strides that they have made there are pretty darn good.

If you want to take it and ramp it up to doing some very heavy-duty integrations, you can find yourself at first dealing with a difficult integration. However, once you get that integration going for maybe a month or so, the next person after you will have less difficulty. That's the power. 

They can improve their interface. They're going through huge modernization efforts and they're getting there. They're probably 75% there, however, there's still another 25% to go.

I've been using the solution for 22 years.

Since it supports business, it has to be stable. It's very stable. We have not had major outages or anything. That's always a good thing, however, like with any solution, its stability is going to depend on how you deploy it and what safeguards you put in place, including high availability and disaster recovery, et cetera. All the hooks for that are in the product, however, it's up to you to decide how you're going to use those hooks.

It's highly scalable. You can run five things in it today and easily scale up to run 1,005 things tomorrow. In terms of scalability, there are no issues there.

Technical support tends to be very helpful.

Positive

I used to work for an insurance company and I used Computer Associates. It was called CA-7 and CA-11, which are similar tools.

We tried to use Computer Associates before this, but it didn't support the systems we needed and the integration was next to impossible.

I was involved in the deployment and initial setup of the solution right from the beginning.

We had jobs and workflows running within the first day. That was pretty good. We don't use the Helix model, however, there is a Helix model you can purchase, in which everything's hosted by BMC. You can be up and running literally in hours which is reasonable. There's a learning curve, however, if you do not get some value out of it within two days, you're probably doing something wrong.

At the time, there were only two of us deploying the solution. Today there are only three of us.

It's business-wide. Everything from data to marketing, to finance, even though it probably wouldn't make sense to anybody else, it touches everything. It's deployed across Windows, Linux, containers, VM, cloud, et cetera.

If anybody has a use case or wants to learn more about it, we'll show them. Anybody in our organization can get basic access and can tinker around in an alpha test environment. This includes non-technical people. We have non-IT people that use it.

If they can self-service and maybe design some parts themselves, that's a huge win right there. We have a very open model of deployment.

There are occasional patching and vulnerabilities that come out. Most of the patching nowadays can be automated if you're using the Helix-based solution. A lot of that is handled by BMC.

We did not use an integrator, reseller, or consultant for the deployment.

I can't speak to the exact licensing costs. 

Every few years we go through a reevaluation. We'll go through and look at what's on the market and what companies have come up with or released new versions. We'll go through and we'll say, "Okay, let's compare these, what do we need and what are all the tools offered out there?" We do that roughly every five years and it keeps us on our toes.

The biggest difference as of late is the API and Jobs-as-code. Control-M is light years ahead of others. It is light years ahead of the competitors and what they're offering. Other competitors are starting to get APIs, however, only BMC is working with Job-as-code and is in the lead. To my knowledge, they're really one of the only ones who can define your entire workflow as code.

Control-M is pretty critical to our business as it runs many different business processes every day, and if it wasn't there, we would probably hire many more people, be a lot slower, and be more prone to error.

We use a hybrid deployment. We have parts in the traditional data center. We have parts in the cloud. We sometimes have parts that live on containers. They only exist for two minutes. It is very much a hybrid mix of goodies with our deployment.

I'd advise potential new users to examine it today and not think about what it did ten years ago. Control-M is an old product. It has been around since we all used mainframes, however, just because something's been around for a long time, doesn't mean it's a piece of junk or doesn't work with modern technologies. It has adapted and grown with the times. Control-M did cloud-based work before many of us were even talking about the cloud. It's hard to get rid of negative perceptions sometimes, however, the best thing for people to do is to head out to the internet, look it up, and go out to GitHub.

If you have a technical team, send them out to GitHub. You can download everything in an image or in a container and try it yourself. It doesn't cost you a nickel. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The biggest advice I can give is to try it out. Don't only believe what the PowerPoints tell you. There's no excuse that you can't have a deployment running clearly within hours. Be willing to think about how it can solve problems in new ways. Sometimes we try to find a new tool as we have a square problem and we get upset as all the tools we're looking at only have round solutions. Sometimes the reason that it only has round solutions is due to the fact that that's the proper way to solve the problem. You have got to be willing to break down whatever you're trying to do, whatever workflow you're trying to automate or integrate, and take it in pieces.

If all you want to do is save yourself a lot of money, use Cron, and use Windows Task Scheduler. However, if you want to take your business to the next level and start to get to the point where you can automate to remediate and audit, that's where tools like Control-M come into play.

Our company uses the solution for workload automations such as application schedules or file transfer jobs for customers. For multiple jobs, we schedule the second job to execute based on the output of the first job. Basically, workflows are defined and centralized.

We implemented and provide ongoing support for three to four major banking customers. 

The job scheduling and file transfer are two major, important features. 

The work routine manager is useful. 

The solution is easy to use. 

The solution should improve the out-of-the box conversion tool for migrations so the percentage result isn't so low. We have many use cases where we migrate from different vendors like Otter. When we see the result for main frames, the percentage is low. A higher percentage would give us more confidence. We want to share good results with our customers. 

There is no option to deploy agents from Control-M itself so they have to be installed manually and that is time consuming. BMC does provide a separate tool to deploy the software but it would be easier to do from the solution's controller. 

I have been using the solution for ten years. 

The solution is very stable. 

The solution is scalable so scalability is rated a nine out of ten. 

Technical support is good. First, customers reach out to us and we troubleshoot. If we cannot resolve an issue, then we raise a ticket. Support fixes the issue or escalates it to the next level or engineering.

The setup is straightforward and not complicated. 

We implement the solution for customers. An on-premises implementation can be completed in one day or faster depending on the customer's infrastructure. Agent deployments are what take time. 

We install the agent on one to five packets, prepare the SOP, share it with the customer, and ask them to install it. If the customer has an existing automation tool for deploying software, then we give them the bundle. If we are providing the BMC solution, then we create a package for the agent and deploy for the customer. 

Yearly licenses are based on the number of jobs. 

I definitely recommend the solution for automating manual workloads. You get good visibility for jobs and a dashboard to maintain things. There are no challenges and all of our customers are happy with the solution. 

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

We use this solution for automating the workloads of an application. For example, if an application in an organization has a lot of manual tasks, it can be automated in a batch with the help of Control-M.

The solution is deployed on-premises. Helix Control-M is cloud-based, but most of the companies that use Control-M deploy it on-premises.

MFT is one of the most valuable features. There's another feature called Workload Archiving, where the data for all the jobs can be stored for however many days that we want, which is very useful for any historical analytics.

There's a feature called Workflow Insights. There are eight different kinds of dashboards in Workflow Insights, but there could be more because there is third party software that provides more dashboard styles.

I have worked with this solution for about 12 years.

It's very stable. It's the leading workload automation tool in the market.

It's very scalable.

I have used customer support from the BMC. There's also a community that has a knowledge base for all of the possible issues. When we can't find the answers, we use technical support.

Setup is straightforward.

Deployment took about three months because we had to plan the infrastructure.

We did the implementation internally.

The license is paid yearly.

Apart from the standard license, if we avail any additional features, there's an extra cost. For example, Workload Archiving is an additional feature from the standard product, so we pay extra for that.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.

I would recommend this solution to other people who are interested in using it.