I design for multiple clients which use a multitude of workload automation tools from Chef and Puppet, BMC Control M, Broadcom Autosys & CA7, Microfocus WAM, IBM WAM, TIDAL and Active Batch.
The top 2 of what I run into are BMC Control M and Autosys. See also Chef and Puppet - open-source and DevSecOps. The issue I run into is a fat vs light client.
BMC has been a long-standing leader in my book - been around a long time and reliable. Recently see more Chef and Puppet
Search for a product comparison in Workload Automation
Control-M would win over the competition in 95% of cases, the only issue really is the cost and whether your enterprise needs all the whistles & bells that come with the product and partner products. Cost-wise, if I was looking for something on a slightly smaller scale I would consider Tidal. Tidal's licensing model is definitely easier than BMC's and is made for those who have to consider their budget more closely. However, Control-M has been developed for more than 30 years now and it is pretty difficult to compete with that depth.
At the moment I am not sure I'd consider the collection of products that Broadcom now own. Are we looking at the beginning of the end, will firms be milked for legacy systems that comprise the backend of many big corporate entities? I wouldn't want to make that mistake.
If you are a new enterprise then BMC's cloud offerings look very competitively priced when compared with the traditional "on-prem" Control-M systems. I know some companies who create ad hoc Agents in the cloud for the duration of the batch and scrub them once done - you cannot get much more efficient than that.
Either way, you need to be very sure about your choice. Migrating off a scheduler is one of the IT world's great "thankless tasks" and you need to know that the scheduler you purchase will see you through the next generation of IT.
Senior System Analyst at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
2021-09-09T03:43:12Z
Sep 9, 2021
It depends on implementation.. job creation doesn't necessarily need to be strict. It can be WAY more granular and can setup so that users essentially create their own jobs via a kind of cut-down GUI with the equivalent of your IT team only finalizing them to make sure things look valid and adhere to the policy.
Very flexible, and can be relatively straightforward technically after the initial learning curve as long as things are kept basic... It's kind of extendable as you want to make it (but the more complex and technically challenging it becomes the further you take it)
BMC (vendor) are now pushing it as "jobs as a service" - which for our specific setup would be massive, massive $$ but for a smaller situation could be more workable...
Consider ROI & TCO with your implementation. There are less expensive alternatives available and the trend is toward Consulted ($) + Open Source Products.
Please look at Enterprise Management Associates webpage. They are doing kind of deep analysis and comparison of all leading WLA products. I can also provide you this report
Sometime ago I have preapring a comparison matrix of workload automation tools. Control-M is one of top schedulers it is very up to date regarding cutting-edge technologies with one con - it is a fat client. It is not web-based so you need to install client on every workstation, visibility is also limited especially for huge constructs like 100+ tasks/jobs. Personally I recommend to look on BMC's alternative Stonebranch's Universal Automation Center. I am working for 6 years now using this tool for enterprise class workloads (ING). Appolication is satisfying Security requirements, it is stable, flexible, it supports unix/windows/zos platforms and some agentless technologies too. Price for the software is indivually set after consultation and researching his needs.
@Mark Francome I have worked using the configuration you have suggested. The Citrix I have worked on was restricted for any data movement between control-m and my workstation. As a result it was hard to smoothly generate reports, create workflows snapshots and so no. Of course it depends on citrix configuration, but still I find it less user friendly to web-based interface. As you already said control-m self-service is limited and it is Control-m's big vulnerability for the favor of such applications like UAC for example. Web-interface is more flexible, easier to maintain. It could be more broadly accessible and secured in parallel.
Installation of UAC can be also processed using automation tools such as SCCM, Ansible, or Puppet. It can be easily moved to the private or public cloud.
In general choice of the tools depends of requirement and infrastructure capabilities. For specific scenarios both application have dadicated to use. Control-M still is a elite among the other tools, but for the time being my choice is Universal Automation Center because is ... more universal :) than its competitors.
Senior IT Consultant at a government with 10,001+ employees
User
2020-07-06T18:28:20Z
Jul 6, 2020
We have been using Control-M from BMC for about seven years now, and we are very satisfied with its capabilities in the areas of workload automation and orchestration and enterprise integration. I'm sure we will continue to use Control-M and related products and supported APIs in the years ahead.
Hi community,
I work as Mainframe Manager (Systems & Programming) at an Insurance company.
Currently, we're looking to obtain enterprise-level job automation covering both mainframe and distributed systems.
What is your experience/opinion when you compare Stonebranch Universal Automation Center and Control-M?
Thanks for the help!
Control-M acts as a single, centralized interface for monitoring and managing all batch processes, which is helpful because nothing gets left unattended since it is all visible in one place, and therefore can be addressed in a timely manner. I like that Control-M includes a proactive management that is extremely useful in the event of production failures. In addition, Control-M makes it easy to identify bottlenecks, using their Forecast feature along with production simulations. It also has a solid GUI that is capable of efficiently handling more than 80,000 jobs in a single day. In addition, the use of the alert system they offer makes it possible to act in a coordinated and efficient manner when solving problems. Their self-service feature is powerful, allowing jobs to be set up and available to users via the web. Another useful feature is the workload change manager, which provides developers with the ability to implement Control-M into the coding and design stages beforehand instead of after the fact. This is a huge time-saver because you are able to see results immediately without having to wait for a scheduler to make changes. One thing I find to be cumbersome about Control-M is enabling its secure mode, which could be the reason why some customers may be reluctant to adopt it.
AutoSys Workload Automation is fast and easy to install and use. In terms of deployment, it is a great solution. Integration with SAP is great, too, and I have found that only minimal maintenance is necessary. I am satisfied with it because it has proven to be an excellent tool. The only thing that bothers me is I feel that the reporting and notifications could be slightly improved.
Conclusion: Control-M and AutoSys Workload Automation have many varied capabilities. While Control-M supports file transfers and batch file executions and can run SQL queries or stored procedures, I think it may be unnecessary for smaller organizations or particular environments where backend automation or utilizing a large infrastructure isn’t crucial for an organization. Having said that, I personally decided on AutoSys Workload Automation. At the end of the day, what you choose will heavily depend on your specific organization’s needs.
Time and money are huge value-adds to companies. It can, however, be difficult to reduce costs associated with time and money without reworking business processes. Workload automation provides a tool for businesses to implement and utilize, focused on creating more efficient processes.
The use of automation technology has many beneficial features. It reduces the need to employ more staff wh...
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I design for multiple clients which use a multitude of workload automation tools from Chef and Puppet, BMC Control M, Broadcom Autosys & CA7, Microfocus WAM, IBM WAM, TIDAL and Active Batch.
The top 2 of what I run into are BMC Control M and Autosys. See also Chef and Puppet - open-source and DevSecOps. The issue I run into is a fat vs light client.
BMC has been a long-standing leader in my book - been around a long time and reliable. Recently see more Chef and Puppet
Control-M would win over the competition in 95% of cases, the only issue really is the cost and whether your enterprise needs all the whistles & bells that come with the product and partner products. Cost-wise, if I was looking for something on a slightly smaller scale I would consider Tidal. Tidal's licensing model is definitely easier than BMC's and is made for those who have to consider their budget more closely. However, Control-M has been developed for more than 30 years now and it is pretty difficult to compete with that depth.
At the moment I am not sure I'd consider the collection of products that Broadcom now own. Are we looking at the beginning of the end, will firms be milked for legacy systems that comprise the backend of many big corporate entities? I wouldn't want to make that mistake.
If you are a new enterprise then BMC's cloud offerings look very competitively priced when compared with the traditional "on-prem" Control-M systems. I know some companies who create ad hoc Agents in the cloud for the duration of the batch and scrub them once done - you cannot get much more efficient than that.
Either way, you need to be very sure about your choice. Migrating off a scheduler is one of the IT world's great "thankless tasks" and you need to know that the scheduler you purchase will see you through the next generation of IT.
It depends on implementation.. job creation doesn't necessarily need to be strict. It can be WAY more granular and can setup so that users essentially create their own jobs via a kind of cut-down GUI with the equivalent of your IT team only finalizing them to make sure things look valid and adhere to the policy.
Very flexible, and can be relatively straightforward technically after the initial learning curve as long as things are kept basic... It's kind of extendable as you want to make it (but the more complex and technically challenging it becomes the further you take it)
BMC (vendor) are now pushing it as "jobs as a service" - which for our specific setup would be massive, massive $$ but for a smaller situation could be more workable...
Consider ROI & TCO with your implementation. There are less expensive alternatives available and the trend is toward Consulted ($) + Open Source Products.
Please look at Enterprise Management Associates webpage. They are doing kind of deep analysis and comparison of all leading WLA products. I can also provide you this report
Sometime ago I have preapring a comparison matrix of workload automation tools. Control-M is one of top schedulers it is very up to date regarding cutting-edge technologies with one con - it is a fat client. It is not web-based so you need to install client on every workstation, visibility is also limited especially for huge constructs like 100+ tasks/jobs. Personally I recommend to look on BMC's alternative Stonebranch's Universal Automation Center. I am working for 6 years now using this tool for enterprise class workloads (ING). Appolication is satisfying Security requirements, it is stable, flexible, it supports unix/windows/zos platforms and some agentless technologies too. Price for the software is indivually set after consultation and researching his needs.
@Mark Francome I have worked using the configuration you have suggested. The Citrix I have worked on was restricted for any data movement between control-m and my workstation. As a result it was hard to smoothly generate reports, create workflows snapshots and so no. Of course it depends on citrix configuration, but still I find it less user friendly to web-based interface. As you already said control-m self-service is limited and it is Control-m's big vulnerability for the favor of such applications like UAC for example. Web-interface is more flexible, easier to maintain. It could be more broadly accessible and secured in parallel.
Installation of UAC can be also processed using automation tools such as SCCM, Ansible, or Puppet. It can be easily moved to the private or public cloud.
In general choice of the tools depends of requirement and infrastructure capabilities. For specific scenarios both application have dadicated to use. Control-M still is a elite among the other tools, but for the time being my choice is Universal Automation Center because is ... more universal :) than its competitors.
We have been using Control-M from BMC for about seven years now, and we are very satisfied with its capabilities in the areas of workload automation and orchestration and enterprise integration. I'm sure we will continue to use Control-M and related products and supported APIs in the years ahead.
@Gerardo Batuyong The most popular comparisons of Control-M are with:
Broadcom: https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/comparisons/autosys-workload-automation_vs_control-m
IBM: https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/comparisons/control-m_vs_ibm-workload-automation
Red Hat Ansible: https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/comparisons/ansible_vs_control-m
Have you looked at any of these solutions? How do they compare with Control-M?