2018-10-23T09:22:00Z

What needs improvement with Stonebranch Universal Automation Center?

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
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PeerSpot user
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24 Answers

Siddharth Matalia - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
2023-01-27T17:34:00Z
Jan 27, 2023

It can be hard to manage the task monitor. We are still working with the vendor, and we are trying to make the changes as per our requirements. We are asking them to build some new solutions so they can be helpful in the new releases in our organization. In terms of the task monitor, we should not have to try to calculate how many hours back we have to check or monitor a job. We'd like to have some sort of mobile app in the future.

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Atul Pednekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5
2022-09-15T09:45:06Z
Sep 15, 2022

Stonebranch Universal Automation Center could improve the analytics.

Sushil-Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2022-05-30T08:13:59Z
May 30, 2022

It's not available on the cloud, so they should take that due to safety, security, and scalability.

DF
Real User
2021-03-04T00:59:04Z
Mar 4, 2021

It can't handle negative written codes. If a program was providing a negative value, it wouldn't be able to handle it well. There some issues with the conversions initially and with the initial simulations. These are areas that could be improved.

HQ
Reseller
Top 20
2020-12-31T09:30:27Z
Dec 31, 2020

The product is very new to us still. Therefore, it's difficult to gauge if there's anything missing. We're still learning about the product as we go.

FB
Real User
2020-04-22T08:26:00Z
Apr 22, 2020

There is room for improvement with its connectivity with the Microsoft SRS system. It is very weak. They keep telling us it works with it, and technically it does, but it does not provide a lot of visibility. We have lost a lot of visibility migrating to Stonebranch, compared with just running tasks on the SRS server. That's really about the only thing that is a sore point for us. We don't really use the Stonebranch Marketplace. We looked at it earlier and management really wasn't impressed. So admin was told not to worry about it. It could be that if we were looking at it now, now that we're smarter, I think we would find things there. But we have gotten used to the way we're doing things now, so we don't want to rock the boat.

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DP
Real User
2019-07-04T07:00:00Z
Jul 4, 2019

The Universal Controller is decent for the money it costs. We host it on-promise - some local virtual servers. It still doesn't have all the features and functionality of our mainframe scheduler, but hopefully it will get there. It needs some work to have full features, compared to other products that are out there, specifically IBM's Workload Scheduler. Also, regarding the Controller, there should be a much cleaner method of looking at dependencies between workflows. I would also like to see, when there is a workflow that's going to kick in at a certain date, the option to pick the time for those dates.

MB
Real User
2019-05-28T07:45:00Z
May 28, 2019

Usually, when there's something that I need from them, I put in a request for an enhancement. It typically takes a few months, but they deliver. For instance, I have a request regarding our agent on the mainframe. It may time out when communicating to the Universal Controller, when the mainframe is extremely busy. That can cause a task which is running at that time to not see the results of the job that ran on the mainframe. It happens sporadically during times of really busy CPU usage. We're expecting that enhancement from them in the fourth quarter.

MA
Real User
2019-04-17T08:37:00Z
Apr 17, 2019

There is a component called the OMS, which is the message broker. We rely on infrastructure, resiliency, and availability for that piece. If that could change to be highly available just as a software component, so that we don't have to provide the high-available storage, etc. for it, that would be a plus. It would just be cheaper to run.

BL
Real User
2019-04-17T08:37:00Z
Apr 17, 2019

One hiccup we've had is due to the fact that we have other internal scheduling tools. We're able to talk to them, but we have trouble with some of the networking between them, so we're still trying to work out the kinks there. Also, there's the z/OS agent. We've had troubles with GDGs, with recovery. Say we have a job that fails on a Saturday and there are other jobs that update that generation. If they go to fix the one from Friday, it picks up right where it left off. It doesn't know about the future generations that were created. We've been trying to have Stonebranch correct that for us, and that's probably the biggest open issue. And they're the hardest ones to install and upgrade. Mainframe, in general, seems to be a hurdle, in my opinion.

reviewer958350 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2018-11-11T12:06:00Z
Nov 11, 2018

* FTP tasks have been an issue. * It has also been challenging to support PGP encryption which is a fairly standard encryption method.

reviewer958347 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2018-11-11T12:02:00Z
Nov 11, 2018

For me, Stonebranch can do more than integration and scheduling, like real-time interfacing services and point-to-point to integration. With this, we don't want to invest money on multiple tools for different purposes.

reviewer958344 - PeerSpot reviewer
User
2018-11-11T11:54:00Z
Nov 11, 2018

* A migration tool for encrypted username/password to use the new keystore feature. * Enabling proxy certificates for IBM's System SSL would be great.

it_user958341 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2018-11-11T11:52:00Z
Nov 11, 2018

* The API's need to fully meet the capabilities of the user interface. * Better support of workload balancers (F5).

CS
Real User
2018-10-31T19:09:00Z
Oct 31, 2018

More number of FAQs should be provided because I found it hard to configure when I started using this tool.

RO
User
2018-10-31T13:58:00Z
Oct 31, 2018

* Virtual resource priorities could be better. * Maybe in the future, the use of queues. * Promoting objects to multiple environments at once.

Kay Lützel - PeerSpot reviewer
User
2018-10-31T13:55:00Z
Oct 31, 2018

* Run in Unix and Windows environments Additional features: * Migration tool for encrypted username/password to use the new Keystore feature * UDM third-party file transfer * Enable proxy certificates for IBM System SSL.

reviewer951501 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2018-10-29T14:50:00Z
Oct 29, 2018

Dealing with customer requirements and enhancements. The process now is a little bit non-transparent.

RP
Real User
2018-10-23T09:49:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

Lifecycle management.

reviewer948108 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2018-10-23T09:44:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

In my opinion, training materials and FAQ/support should be improved. For people who start using UAC in a DevOps model, it's hard to understand configuration and how UAC works, how to create workflows, etc. More online classes or tutorials.

reviewer948102 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2018-10-23T09:40:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

In my opinion, scheduler sometimes is getting turned off due to causes that Opswise was not predicted.

reviewer948099 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2018-10-23T09:35:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

REST API can be improved by exposing more information about running instances. For example, the failed error message of a Stored procedure task cannot be seen through the API. Other features that would be helpful is to dynamically insert new tasks to be run at run time when certain conditions are met. Currently, that's possible with a web service task but only one task can be inserted at a time for one instance which is limiting possibilities.

reviewer948096 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2018-10-23T09:30:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

The FTP tasks. Ever since UAC changed to using cURL for FTP, we have had a lot of issues. 90% or more of our FTP tasks have been moved away from the UAC task type to our own FTP task using WS-FTP pro (which has more flexibility, that UAC does not offer such as PGP encryption)

reviewer948087 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2018-10-23T09:22:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

Have a better graphical workflow overview, more information on icons, the UI uses. We would like to have information in dependencies in virtual recourses.

The Stonebranch Workload Automation solution, part of our Universal Automation Center platform, helps organizations automate, manage, and orchestrate their IT processes - across hybrid IT environments.  1. Workflow Orchestration and Automation: Holistically control scripts, jobs, tasks, and IT processes running across your on-prem, hybrid cloud, and/or multi-cloud environments.2. Real-Time Automation: With our event-driven automation technology, it is now possible to achieve real-time...
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