We performed a comparison between IBM Workload Automation and OpCon based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: IBM Workload Automation and OpCon are both highly regarded for their unique strengths. IBM Workload Automation stands out for its impressive capability to initiate tasks across multiple nodes and pre-plan them. OpCon is recognized for its adaptability, seamless integration capabilities, self-service functionality, and ability to automate manual tasks.
IBM Workload Automation could benefit from enhancements in performance, navigation, job dependencies, daily schedule refreshes, stability, reporting visibility, and integration with new technologies. OpCon could be improved in terms of its web-based interface, upgrading process, logs, programming and configuration, accessibility through a mobile app, self-service functionality, failover, licensing, support, and UI features.
Service and Support: IBM Workload Automation's customer service is praised for its lab advocacy program, which provides thorough code support. However, customers may face difficulties in pinpointing the root cause of certain problems. OpCon's customer service and support have garnered positive feedback. Customers describe their technical support team as exceptional and commend their prompt responses and efficient solutions.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for IBM Workload Automation can be difficult for those who are not familiar with IBM tools or application development. OpCon's setup can be complicated. Close collaboration with SMA and receiving training is necessary, however, once acquainted with the system, it becomes more manageable.
Pricing: IBM Workload Automation's setup cost is dependent on the customer's contract and the number of agents installed. OpCon offers a tiered pricing model that includes previously purchased add-ons. Although OpCon is recognized as an expensive and intricate solution, it offers good value for the price.
ROI: IBM Workload Automation focuses on optimizing workload scheduling processes. Users have found it beneficial for automating and streamlining tasks, resulting in time savings and improved efficiency. OpCon has also demonstrated significant advantages in terms of ROI. It excels in automating tasks, which saves time and also contributes to increased productivity.
Comparison Results: OpCon emerges as the preferred choice when compared to IBM Workload Automation. OpCon stands out for its adaptability, ability to integrate with other systems and self-service functionalities. Users appreciate the ability to automate tasks according to their own requirements, leading to a decrease in complexity and an increase in productivity.
"I have supported this product in literally 100s of different environments and its unmatched in its ability to scale to any size."
"The support from Cisco is very good. I was with them as a company for 40 years"
"Technical support from IBM is very good."
"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."
"The technical support is great, the product is easy-to-use, and it is stable."
"The most important feature is the creation of folders. It's a really great feature because you can organize the process with naming conventions."
"This solution has a request feature where users can request the added features they need to have developed. Based on client voting for those features, these are developed and released."
"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."
"I find OpCon's ability to monitor files and folders, and its integration with other software to be the most valuable."
"The core system is the most valuable part: being able to view the processes that we've never really been able to view as a whole before. That is super-helpful, as is being alerted when issues arise."
"Manual processing has been automated 99 percent by OpCon. With new processes, we give it at least two weeks manual so we can write down the details of how to do the steps, then we automate it. Within a month, it has been automated, then it's no longer a manual process."
"The most valuable feature of OpCon is its scheduling capability, particularly for automating file transfers with vendors."
"The most valuable features are its integration into Windows, into VM, and into AIX, as well as SQL."
"We haven't freed up a full person's job using it, but there are a good handful of people for whom it has freed up about half of their time. And those employees love it. A lot of tasks are based on certain times, and they're no longer stuck doing those things at those times. We don't have to have anybody coming in early anymore. They can focus on the processing part of their jobs instead of the file moving and downloading."
"The most valuable feature is the automation in general."
"The end code response allows us to evaluate how a process finished, set the termination/end code appropriately, and then trigger further processing based on how it ended."
"There should be more custom documentation, specifically around Java APIs. There should also be more training. In terms of features, we are currently using only 50% of its features. We don't use all features that are available, but there is always room for improvement in all of the tools."
"It should support other schedulers that aren't IBM products."
"The configuration of IBM Workload Automation has some challenges. We have a difficult time customizing it, but it is similar to other solutions."
"It is missing some features and can improve in areas where the competition is somewhat better like linking job dependencies."
"Scalability-wise, it can be a little bit challenging."
"This solution does have bugs and could be improved in this regard. However, these bugs are resolved relatively quickly."
"The performance of the previous versions could be better."
"Slow down on the releases a bit. I fully understand that IWA functionality is increasing at an amazing rate, but trying to keep up with the upgrades is rough."
"The biggest area where there is room for improvement would be integration with their code. They've got a function for embedded scripts and it would be nice if that worked with a code or versioning management system, like GitLab."
"More functionality within self-service would be greatly appreciated."
"A way to select multiple jobs in the UI for a quick change or to hold, release, et cetera, would be nice."
"I believe there's room for improvement, and while I think it's something they are considering, I would welcome seeing OpCon integrate with a broader range of systems and third-party products."
"I would like to see them improve the Solution Manager for the web application. It's the future for us. Our customers need a lot of functionality, but there isn't that functionality within Solution Manager. So they have to develop and improve it."
"Licensing would be the first part I would overhaul. Each time a new licensing paradigm comes out, more features are removed and costs are added. They "add" features that are rarely used and increase charges for the number of jobs run. I'm sure someone in finance got a raise for their brilliance but the end-users won't thank them one bit. Expect price hikes and threats when you hold them to account at every opportunity."
"I'd like to see the product include a view where you can see everything about a specific job on a single screen."
"There are some limitations in the actual jobs that are created and how you're able to rename files. Suppose you're bringing in, say, 10, 15, or 20 reports from a core system, and you're using an "asterisk character" to identify files. For example, if you're grabbing files that start with this, end with this, but the characters in between could be different, it has to retain that same name in the destination. It won't allow you to rename them with a date stamp or the like."
IBM Workload Automation is ranked 13th in Workload Automation with 28 reviews while OpCon is ranked 9th in Workload Automation with 56 reviews. IBM Workload Automation is rated 8.2, while OpCon is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of IBM Workload Automation writes "With an easy setup phase in place, agent-based installation can be done in minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OpCon writes "Gives us the ability to schedule dependent jobs across different mainframes". IBM Workload Automation is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, HCL Workload Automation, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and ESP Workload Automation Intelligence, whereas OpCon is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, Automic Workload Automation, UiPath and VisualCron. See our IBM Workload Automation vs. OpCon report.
See our list of best Workload Automation vendors.
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