Control-M vs Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Control-M
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (3rd), Workload Automation (1st)
Sterling Commerce Connect:D...
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the market share of Control-M is 4.3% and it increased by 54.4% compared to the previous year. The market share of Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is 7.5% and it decreased by 22.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed File Transfer (MFT)
Unique Categories:
Process Automation
3.0%
Workload Automation
30.4%
No other categories found
 

Featured Reviews

DG
Sep 6, 2022
With critical path functionality, we can tell ahead of time if there are problems with a critical job
It has improved our organization a lot. It has helped us control any problems that we have with jobs. We have critical jobs that run and we can tell ahead of time if there's a problem. There are alerts that we can send out. And if a certain job goes down, we can tell what the impact is and which jobs are impacted that are waiting for that job to complete. We're better able to meet our service level agreements because we do a lot with the Fed. There are certain things we have to have done at a certain time. The automation the product provides means we either meet our or are ahead of our deadlines. In addition, we can tell if a job is running long and if it's going to meet the SLA. And if it's running long we can see why it's running long. That's a benefit for us. Before, we used to schedule jobs on the servers and we'd have issues with the servers. With Control-M, we can tell if there are any issues coming up because we can run the critical path and see if there are problems before they actually happen. On the server, we couldn't necessarily tell if something wasn't running. When it comes to creating actionable data, it gives the auditors a very accurate and timely report. Our audit preparation process is much easier. We don't have to do as many manual reports anymore. Previously, it was painful. We had to do everything manually with multiple spreadsheets and it was just ugly. With Control-M, it's all in the database and we just extract the information from the database. Also, our management team is happy with the orchestration of our data pipelines and workflows. They're happy because they get to see the information through the reports that we create. We're also meeting our service level agreements with the end-users, in terms of getting them their data. And customers are happy because their information is being put into their accounts on time and correctly. And for projects, the orchestration of data pipelines is helping because we can go through the testing before we move something into production. That means that when we have a major project or an upgrade coming up, they can run it all through the test, try different scenarios, sign off on it, and then move it into production. It's a very streamlined process. If we didn't have Control-M, our projects would be slower because we'd probably have to be doing a lot of stuff manually. It's very critical for our business. If we have an outage coming up, for example, if we have to shut down power, we can tell what's going to run and if anything is critical during that time frame. We can manage the data much more easily.
Ankit Rahangdale - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 6, 2022
Secure, fast, and 100% reliable
The setup depends on the requirement. In the current environment or current project, we have it as a middleware. We have other tools for displaying the output of a file, and there is an application that is taking it to the display servers so that it can display the data. That is one implementation in the current project. There are also multiple implementations for their finance-related file transmission because that requires security. All the financial data is automatically transferred by the Connect:Direct whenever the application team puts a file into one of the directories. We provide the directory where they need to put the file. We have the automation job that picks up the file and delivers it to the user or the application that needs to utilize that file. Its setup is straightforward. The concept is straightforward. All the related information is also available on the internet. If any of the newbies want to check or get some info on Connect:Direct, they can go to the IBM site, and they will get all the details regarding the implementation, configuration, and any issues they are facing. They can just check with the error message, and they will be able to get some details about it. It is a pretty straightforward tool. In open systems servers, the setup and configuration take 10 minutes or less than that. It also supports silent installation, which hardly takes two minutes. It can be deployed anywhere. It supports on-premises and cloud deployments. IBM recently provided a patch for cloud HPE servers. There were a few vulnerabilities that caused data leaks, and they have fixed that in their recent updates.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Technical support is very helpful and available 24/7."
"The monitoring tool is very good. It's very easy for expert and entry-level users to use on short notice."
"The feature we use most in Control-M is related to the file transfer module. It is quite advanced compared to the other tools like Automate, etc. The new version which has come of same MFT has a lot of advanced features which makes it very easy to work with. There is less need for written programs and more GUI-based stuff."
"Monitoring is a valuable aspect of it. The monitoring tool is very good, and it is easy for expert and entry level users to use on a short notice."
"As soon as you have an issue, a ticket is created and the tech support is quite responsive."
"We can set up automated email notifications to the programmers or the whole team for a particular job. It helps save time because we're not consistently looking at the job to see if it has ended or failed."
"The Control-M interface is good for creating, monitoring, and ensuring the delivery of files as part of our data pipeline. There's a wealth of information in both the full client, as well as the web interface that they have. Both are very easy to use and provide all the necessary material to understand how to do various tasks. The help feature is very useful and informative and everything is very easy to understand."
"I think the administration part is much more valuable than any other feature."
"Automation is the most valuable feature."
"Security is the most valuable feature of this product."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is a solution that is on the market for a very long time. There is an integrator that has been developed and evolves every year. On the roadmap, there is always a new integration. For example, it's one of the solutions in the market that out of the box can handle EBICS protocol. The file processing is done very well. By default, there are a lot of configurations that can be customized."
"Offers secure file transfers with a fast and efficient protocol for very large files."
"The Security Plus feature of this solution is excellent, and allows you to send encrypted files very securely to remote destinations."
"The product has been very stable."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides 100% reliability for file transmission. It ensures that files get delivered in a secure manner. When you use Connect:Direct, your file 100% gets delivered to the next delivery location. If the log shows that a file got delivered, it will have all the transmitted data without truncation or other data issues."
 

Cons

"Its operations and infrastructure can be improved."
"Some of the features are not available. We were about to deploy the REST API, but we had some challenges. We had to use a third-party application. So, it should be improved in terms of integrating REST API jobs. That was something that was lacking. The customer was not that happy in terms of getting the desired output. So, we had to use a third-party application called Hangfire. We would like to have more videos on REST API integration, and we would like to have easy integration with the Control-M application through the REST API."
"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."
"In general, it is a very good product, and we are very happy with it. It meets all of our expectations."
"A Control-M on-prem license is based on the number of jobs, which is the number of tasks a particular customer wants to have. These tasks have to be run within 24 hours window. For example, if you have a license for 100 jobs, you can run a maximum of 100 jobs in a 24-hour window. If your operations could not run 10 jobs, and they ran only 90 jobs, they just carry over to the next day, but the next day, they will have 110 jobs. Control-M asks you to buy those 10 more licenses because you were out of compliance in terms of the number of licenses. This is something that needs to be indicated in Control-M GUI so that customers know the number of licenses they're going to use in this time window. Their support and documentation should be improved. I am not that satisfied with their customer support. Sometimes, they don't have the answers. Their documentation is very poor. It is not well written, and it is not in a very logical manner. You can use it on Unix, Linux, Windows, and AIX, but it needs some improvement on iSeries. It needs a built-in mechanism inside the system to give you an option to restore from the last point of failure. If a process crashes, the Control-M needs to have a mechanism in iSeries where the process can be restored from the last point of failure."
"They really need to work on improving the web interface, as there are still a lot of bugs... In general, they need to do a lot of work on shoring up their testing and quality assurance. A lot of bugs seem to make it into the product."
"Its architecture is old. AutoSys gives more flexibility."
"I would like to see them adopt more cloud. Most companies don't have a single cloud, meaning we have data sources that come from different cloud providers. That may have been solved already, but supporting Azure would be an improvement because companies tend not to have only AWS and GCP."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"They have File Agent, which is an additional utility and a component of Connect:Direct, for automated file transmission. In that utility, there is some issue with the file name. There is a limitation on the file name, and that is being fixed by IBM."
"Technical support is the number one concern."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct could improve by adding some of the functionality that some other vendors have. For example, GoAnywhere has call agents, which are small clients that can be installed on the endpoints and can be handled by the central point on the server. If I want to do this with the IBM solution, I have to sell a lot of account addresses. The price could be unprofitable for the customer. There is some small functionality that could be implemented and could be easily done to improve this solution."
"This solution cannot be deployed on a root_squash NFS, which limits superuser privileges."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"Sometimes we face issues and can't figure out the cause of failures."
"User interface is not user friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"This product saves hours in a day based on my experience working here versus other companies with manually operations."
"The pricing is reasonable. It's not an exorbitant amount. The licensing is pretty reasonable for the number of jobs that we run."
"You're going to spend a lot of money upfront, but the benefits you're going to get out of it are going to quickly pay for it."
"The price is right because of the licensing schema, which is based on nodes and processes. You purchase what you use, no more and no less, and you can grow with time."
"Its pricing is a little bit high. They could provide an enterprise-level license for an unlimited number of jobs. Currently, it is based on the number of jobs, and if you exceed the number of jobs, there are charges. For example, if your license is for 3,000 jobs per day, but you run 3,050 jobs, you will have to pay for the extra 50 jobs. They charge $120 per job. So, it is too costly."
"It is not bad. The company can afford it, and it pays for itself. We have those jobs running automatically."
"Compare to other tools Pricing and licensing was more. It should be decrease."
"Annual licensing fee."
"The price and licensing of Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
43%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Control-M compare with AutoSys Workload Automation?
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 th...
What do you like most about Control-M?
First of all, the shift from manual to automation has been valuable. We have a tool that can automate.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?
They are expensive. If we were a small company, it would be complicated because we have to have strong sales and operations to be able to afford a tool of this level. Being a large company, the cos...
What needs improvement with Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct?
There is room for improvement in monitoring. We don't have good visibility tools and monitoring, so I believe there may be some enhancement needed in its monitoring dashboard.
 

Also Known As

Control M
No data available
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
HZMO, Bank of Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about Control-M vs. Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct and other solutions. Updated: June 2024.
787,061 professionals have used our research since 2012.