Automic Automation Reviews

We have many different use cases. One use case is to back up all our servers. This is a big usage. The next one is to schedule things on SAP systems. We have SAP reports. We have processes where different SAP systems are involved and we can build up dependencies. We create business process flows. This is a big use case.

We use Automic Automation for managing databases, such as SQL databases, Oracle databases, and SAP databases. We have customers who use UC4 for general monitoring, system jobs, and other things. These are the main use cases.

We have some business-critical processes. For example, if a file is there, then the file has to be loaded to SAP. The customers can then, for example, print the papers to transport the goods. If our UC4 process does not happen, the papers cannot be printed and the goods cannot be shipped to a customer.

Some departments use it to handle the databases. If the process is stuck, then perhaps for Oracle databases, the archive files will not be moved to another folder, and the folder will grow and grow. There would be no space on the file system, and the application that is using the database cannot work anymore. We have some very critical processes and also many processes that are not so critical.

The biggest benefit is that we have one point of view on the processes. We can build dependencies, and we can have access to different platforms. We can integrate different platforms. This is the biggest benefit of Automic Automation.

Our systems are very big. At times, we have more than 11 million jobs per day or executions per day, and we have struggled with this amount in the past, but Broadcom has improved the application so that we can avoid such struggles. We have a big environment. When new functionality is implemented in the system, very often, we are the first ones to struggle with something, and then Broadcom has to improve it. Normally, it is a very stable product for us.

We have some very big workflows, which include more than a thousand objects, so it can be very hard for us to have a good overview of it all. That is why we build our processes in small steps. This way, it is much easier to handle them as one very big workflow. This is our experience, and we try to go in this direction.

We have the agent, or we can use the REST API. It is easy to implement in the end. The big challenge is that if you have many components in your systems, you have to update the components from time to time, and this, of course, is a big effort.

Automic Automation has saved time and helped free up staff for other projects or tasks. We automate many things with Automic Automation. If we had to do these things every day manually, we would lose a lot of time. It helps us save time for other projects.

Automic Automation has helped us reduce our operational costs. I am from the admin team, and we have to roll out the new version of our agent. We have more than 30,000 agents in our system. To update each agent manually, we would have to log onto the server, move the binaries to the target system, stop the agent, and start the agent. It would take a very long time to do this manually for 30,000 agents. With Automic Automation, we have the possibility to just say that we want to update this agent. The binaries will be moved to the platform, and the agent will be stopped and started automatically. We do not have to log in to the servers. It will be done in the background. Therefore, it is a big help for us in saving time.

It has so many possibilities, and many functions are important for us. We use it very often, so it is difficult to say which is the best one. In general, the complete functionality that Broadcom offers is very good. It is very flexible in terms of using the functionalities and build processes. The biggest benefit perhaps is that we have so many possibilities in UC4 or Automic Automation to reach the target. We can more or less build each requirement from our customers.

The visibility and control that Automic Automation provides are good, but it could be improved. In case we run into performance issues, it is sometimes hard to find out what is the real cause for it.

At the moment, the REST interface does not include everything. It was improved a little bit, but some functionality is still open. This is something that can be improved. There is nothing critical that is missing for that we cannot use Automic Automation.

I have been using this solution for more than 25 years.

I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability.

It is easy to scale, but the database should support that scalability. We can scale processes, and it is easy, but in the end, the database must be able to handle that. We sometimes struggle a little bit there. 

In our experience, when we want to scale, we do, but we then see some negative side effects, and we have to go down again. We have to contact the support. In most cases, we need a patch.

Some errors are checked directly if you create an object, and for some errors, it is always best if Broadcom checks whether it fits or not, but, of course, not all of them can be done in this way. If we run into an error that we cannot solve immediately at our end, we have the possibility to create a support ticket. We have the possibility to specify the priority one, two, three, or four. If it is priority one, we normally get very fast support on the phone, and they help. If it is a normal error, a ticket is created, but it takes time to get a solution, which is okay.

I have good experience with technical support. We also have a TSE partner. If we have some problems, we can contact this colleague directly. That makes life very easy.

Positive

In the mainframe environment, we had our own solution, but it was a long time ago. It is not comparable with Automic Automation.

We are not using cloud environments at the moment. We work only with on-premises environments. We have databases. At the moment, we are focusing on on-prem because most of the automations are still on-prem. I guess it will change in the future, but I do not see the change to the cloud environment happening in the next two years.

I have not practiced the deployment process, but I know that we could support some of our customers. They really benefited because of this.

In terms of maintenance, maintaining the processes is easy, but before we roll out a new version, we have to test all the things. This is a big effort for us every time. We struggle every time a new functionality is implemented because in most cases, the product is tested in a smaller environment, and it works. However, we usually reach the limit and then we have to adapt the product. We have to get in touch with Broadcom for that. Before we can roll out a new version, we have to test it properly. This is a big challenge on our end. If you are a customer with a small environment, it is easier to install the application because you have not adapted many things. You can more or less use it as you installed it, but in a bigger environment, you have many adaptations.

We have our TSE as the contact person.

We do an evaluation from time to time. We check out the market from time to time to see if there is perhaps a better product, but at the moment, we are concentrating on this solution.

I could recommend Automic Automation, but it is a bit challenging if you want to implement it in a very big environment. If it is a small environment, it can easily handle that.

I would rate Automic Automation a nine out of ten.

The product is used primarily for automating IT processes. Our customer is a big telecom company called COSMOTE. They use Automic for various processes, including Sibel Automation, Oracle applications, billing, data warehousing, and core business workflows. It handles complex workflows with numerous jobs, making it ideal for large-scale operations.

The product is extremely user friendly for both operators and developers. Operators can easily monitor workflows and customize interfaces. Developers find it easy to build workflows in minutes. A standout feature is the comprehensive versioning, allowing easy rollback to previous states. The platform is also very stable, fast, and robust.

There are issues with compatibility when installing agents on legacy operating systems. This presents a problem for users with older systems. Additionally, the lack of support for these systems can complicate deployment. Despite these challenges, the technical support team is knowledgeable and capable.

I have been working with this platform for one year as a vendor, but as a customer for about ten years.

The stability of the solution is excellent. We have had minimal disruptions over the past twelve years, and any issues were related to network problems, not the product itself.

Scalability is one of the strengths of the product. It's straightforward to scale horizontally by adding more application servers or agents. These processes can be done quickly and efficiently.

Customer service and technical support are exceptional. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate them a ten.

Positive

Prior to adopting Automic Workload Automation, we evaluated various vendors. At the time, our team compared several offerings and chose this product based on its capabilities.

The initial setup of Automic on premises was straightforward, taking about an hour with appropriate scripts. While a wizard option was available on Windows, manual configuration was also easy.

Pricing has been reasonable historically, but I am currently unsure of the exact costs under Broadcom's licensing scheme.

During the evaluation phase, we considered numerous solutions from various vendors before deciding on Automic Workload Automation. There was a competing solution called Dollar Universe that we evaluated at the time.

I would certainly recommend Automic Workload Automation to others. It is a robust and user-friendly solution for automation, provided it remains cost-effective. Overall, I would rate the product a ten.

It is an automation tool. We build the workflows and Linux and Windows servers with it, particularly for running client jobs and databases. We use it with a lot of big data ecosystem tools, such as Hadoop or HDFS.

We have automated regular ETL processes such as data transformation. They are loading data into databases and the HDFS file system.

We use it for data transfer jobs between servers. It is being used for SFTP-type jobs, and we run a lot of Python-based things with Automic.

It deals with business-critical processes. It is an important tool for us. For a lot of backend work, we use Automic Automation to run all kinds of jobs. We have some very complex jobs, but we also use it for some basic jobs. It is being used for very critical or high-priority jobs and complicated workflows with hundreds of jobs.

It has been easy for us to manage complex workloads using Automic Automation. The user interface allows us to zoom into a particular section of a complicated workflow. If we have 30 different jobs and scripts tied together in a workflow, we can use the graphical interface to work on one section of the job on our screen. We can also embed one workflow into another. If there is a complicated workflow, we can bunch it all into one workflow and embed that one into a different workflow. This way, we can manage more complicated workflows.

It is easy to use. We previously had a thick client which was Java-based, and now, we have the web-based one. Both have been easy to use. Building jobs and doing the admin side of things, such as monitoring jobs, checking reports of the jobs, and checking job statistics has been easy. It is one of the easy-to-use tools.

We could see its benefits immediately after deploying it. We were replacing a legacy tool with Automic. It was a new solution, and we could see all the new features in it.

We have a lot of alerting features and notification features. It even has a feature to notify us when a job takes longer than usual. If our workflow usually takes two hours to run, but it is taking longer, Automic Automation can notify us. It helps to reduce the error or failure rates.

Automic Automation has freed up staff to do other things more. By automating routine things with Automic, they can move on to doing other things. It surely frees up people's time. It is saving time for our staff.

Automic Automation helped reduce our operational costs. We used to get called often with our old tool because of more failure rates, agents going down, etc. In that sense, it is saving time for staff. If more tickets are generated, we would have to hire more people offshore. With fewer tickers and fewer job failures, we need fewer people.

Automic Automation has helped improve our ability to meet SLAs by being more reliable and more stable. It is a stable tool. Our jobs are not failing because technology is failing or agents are going down or not responding.

Since we bought it, we have not had any big issues. We are satisfied with it. We are able to run multiple jobs. We can build and run complicated jobs. There are no issues. The user interface and other things are easy to use, and people are generally happy with the tool.

We use Automic for both legacy and modern systems. We have automated Linux workflows, shell scripts, database jobs, and big data jobs such as HDFS jobs and Spark jobs.

Integration with the cloud is an area for improvement. They have to make it somehow fit or usable for cloud use cases. Right now, it works great for our on-prem data center, but they have to come up with a very good reason why people should be using it in the cloud. 

We got the tool in 2015, so it has been nine years.

It is stable. We have not had any issues related to stability.

It is scalable. We only have a two-server cluster. We never had a need for more than that. We have the licenses to add more servers in case we need more throughput from Automic.

I have interacted with them a lot of times. They can be better, but overall, they are okay. If we have a severe or high-priority issue where we need help immediately, we get very experienced engineers, but if it is a routine issue, there are a lot of emails back and forth. So, for low-priority issues, there can be some improvement.

Neutral

We used to use a tool called Redwood Cronacle previously. We got separated from our parent company, and our managers had more autonomy to select the tech stack and switch to a different technology.

So, we had an old tool before, and we wanted to replace it. Back in 2015 or 2016, when Atomic was selected as a vendor, we were looking at all the features, the integrations with HDFS, and the agent architecture they have. We were also looking for the stability of the tool. With the previous tool, we had a lot of stability issues, such as agents going off, so we were looking for a more stable tool. We also wanted to have a more modern tool.

Given the number of jobs we had, it took us a long time to move to it, but we expected that. We were able to do it within the allotted time. In that sense, we did not have any unforeseen issues when we moved to Automic Automation.

Given that we had hundreds or thousands of jobs, it took us about six months to complete the move. We totally deprecated our old tool and moved 100% of our jobs to Automic Automation.

It does not require anything big in terms of maintenance. It just requires upgrades. Other than that, there is nothing. The platform is stable.

They have increased the license price a little bit. It is more than what we expected about two years ago. So, there could be some surprises when it comes to pricing.

It is an easy-to-use tool. You do not have to spend too much time learning the interface and other things. It is a stable tool. It is reliable.

We have not used the predictive modeling provided by the AAI capability. We tried it for a while, but we did not have any advanced use cases where we had to dig deep into the system. We have some basic reports, and people seem to be happy with that.

We predominantly use it for on-prem jobs. We never tested it on the cloud. It seems complicated. It needs a lot of setup such as opening the network and the network's firewalls and other things. It seems difficult. We may also need a different type of licensing to run from the agents in the cloud, so we did not try it. In the future, we may use Automic Automation with the cloud.

I would rate Automic Automation a nine out of ten.

The vast majority of our clients basically execute batch and PowerShell commands. We have a few clients that execute stored procedures on databases. However, the primary use is for executing batch and PowerShell tasks.

The solution is usually pretty easy for non-technical people to pick it up as long as they have basic experience with scripting. It has been easier onboarding new clients to Automic Automation versus Dollar Universe since it's relatively easy for anyone to grasp basic workloads or workflows. Compared to Dollar Universe, which had weird terminology and was complicated, Automic is by far easier.

I find that documentation is either very good or borderline useless depending on where you go. There are opportunities where things could be documented a little bit better. Additionally, during the version 21 to version 24 migration, a lot of manual steps were required, which was somewhat inconvenient.

I have been using Automic Automation since 2018.

Broadcom has generally been responsive and supportive. Recently, for non-urgent issues, response times have been slower, however they react quickly when it is urgent. They have been good about getting us back on track when needed.

Positive

The only other solution I ever worked with was Dollar Universe, which was extremely complicated to use, especially when trying to teach non-technical users. Compared to that, Automic Automation is much easier.

For me, the initial setup was straightforward due to previous experience setting up similar systems. However, I do think there could be improvements, such as automating some tasks currently done manually. The initial setup could include more wizard-based steps to reduce configuration file work.

At the time of deployment, we had an entire team involved because we managed two production environments each with their infrastructure. Now, the environment has been consolidated, making management possible with two people.

Pricing is above my pay grade, however, the team lead mentioned that we have a good deal compared to other solutions out there.

I would rate Automic Automation as eight out of ten. I would advise staying current with updates and possibly considering improvements to documentation.

Currently, we support one of the bank's environments, which is highly complex and relies heavily on Automic Automation. This environment is massive, processing billions of batches daily across four environments, each with millions of jobs. We utilize Automic for various tasks, from simple scripting and file transfers to sending data to external parties like Bloomberg and Nets. Given the scale and scope of our operations, we primarily use Automic for most of our business processes.

We struggled with the manual process of loading data into our SQL database. By implementing Automic Automation, we've successfully automated many time-consuming tasks, significantly reducing the potential for human error.

Automic has significantly improved our IT operations by reducing costs and saving time. For example, manually triggering a script at 10 AM required logging into the server and clicking at the exact time, which took at least 15 minutes. Automic automates this, allowing us to schedule scripts without manual intervention. This benefit is magnified when handling thousands of scripts with dependencies, such as script A triggering B, C, D, E, and so on while managing upstream data and multiple file transfers.

Workload automation capabilities are crucial to our operations. While we depend on databases, Windows, and network infrastructure, Automic is a business-critical application supporting our core banking batches. Its importance cannot be overstated; it's essentially the backbone of our bank. As such, any issues with Automic must be prioritized and resolved promptly.

The file transfer feature is the most valuable for process automation, as many organizations rely heavily on data transfer. Consequently, file transfer functionalities are the most frequently utilized within Automic Automation.

Automic Automation struggles with managing external dependencies, limiting its effectiveness. Built as a self-contained system, it relies on internal workflows composed of basic tasks. When external workflows and dependencies are involved, Automic's limitations become apparent. Manual scripting has been necessary to address this, but integrating this functionality directly into Automic would significantly improve its capabilities. For instance, scheduling a job to run after a delay and only if previous batches are complete is currently challenging in Automic. A built-in feature for such dependencies would greatly simplify the process.

We occasionally encounter bugs when applying new agent versions, patches, or updates to Automic. This is problematic because Broadcom, the vendor, should thoroughly test their components before release. Unfortunately, we've experienced instances where bugs have been discovered after deployment, highlighting the need for improved testing practices from Broadcom before making products available to the market.

I have been using Automic Automation for four years.

The new version experienced significant stability issues. While the vendor may share responsibility, our outdated infrastructure, particularly the ten-year-old data, also contributed to the problem. Queries on such old data were time-consuming and impacted tool performance. We identified and addressed our infrastructure shortcomings with the vendor's assistance. Although there were initial challenges, the system is now stable. We continue to work closely with the vendor to maintain optimal performance.

Automic Automation is highly scalable, with thousands of agents deployed as part of our baseline build. Consequently, every server in our large environment hosts a UC4 agent.

We can connect with technical support by submitting a ticket through the portal, and support is prioritized based on the impact on our business. However, in many cases, we have found that the vendor does not provide a thorough root cause analysis. Instead, we often receive generic recommendations to upgrade our systems or infrastructure.

Neutral

I previously used IBM Workload Automation. Both IBM Workload Automation and Automic Automation have their advantages and disadvantages. IBM Workload Automation was capable of handling all external dependency requirements. We have integrated similar capabilities using other methods, but not within Automic. While Automic might be more expensive, the cost depends on the chosen purchase and licensing model, including options like premium support.

I was involved in upgrading Automic Automation from version 12 to 21. This complex process is highly dependent on the environment and requires extensive planning. Before the upgrade, we must reboot all potentially impacted systems, release specific certificates, and upgrade the agent to ensure compatibility with the latest version. Automic release notes, accessible in their documentation, provide crucial information about potential issues and compatibility requirements. While these compatibility metrics should be carefully reviewed, the complexity of the process varies significantly based on the specific environment, ranging from simple to highly intricate.

Four people were involved in the upgrade process, which took 18 hours due to the necessary migration of our large database.

Automic Automation is costly.

I would rate Automic Automation eight out of ten.

We have a team of 31 people who work with Automic Automation.

Our expert team makes maintenance of Automic Automation easy.

I recommend Automic Automation as a powerful tool with solid functionality. It offers numerous options for completing various tasks in multiple ways.

Everything hinges on a solid foundation. Therefore, a dedicated server for Automic Automation is crucial. Sharing a machine with other applications can introduce latency issues. To avoid this, establish a separate machine with its own VLAN and database exclusively for Automic. A dedicated environment ensures optimal performance. However, installing Automic on shared infrastructure is likely to cause problems.

We primarily use Automic Automation for ETL and batch processes.

It automates pretty much any application for internal users, including file transfers, payroll, shipping, and billing. Some of them are business-critical and complex.

Automic Automation has helped the organization by freeing up people for other projects and tasks. The time spent on running business tasks has been decreasing consistently.

It does exceptionally well when it comes to managing processes that span multiple operating platforms, even though our use cases with it are limited.

In terms of the reduction in our job/workload failure rates, we only use our internal cloud, but because of being able to easily build self-remediation, even if the volume of failures does not decrease, the remediation time is so low, and the impact is minimal.

As for compliance, it is tightly integrated with some of our processes, allowing for task history to be shown and comments to be added for internal compliance, which is critical.

With the simplification of business tasks, Automic Automation has helped us reduce our operational costs, but I am uncertain if there is a direct monetary gain. While it reduces operational workloads and costs in terms of resource use, it may be a wash in a dollar-for-dollar comparison.

Automic Automation has been ingrained in our organization far longer than I have been, but it seems we were able to see its benefits very rapidly, within six months.

We majorly have flavors of Linux or Unix. We also have some Windows, VMs, bare metal, or Kubernetes. Automic Automation can be used with cloud and on-premises environments. This was very important, especially during transition periods, as we moved things into our cloud. If it was not able to interact with both, that would have caused major problems in migration efforts. We are currently using it in our internal cloud environment, but we may move a few things and look at GCP.

We have consistency in throughput when it comes to SLAs and we are able to have more self-remediation or to have remediation that requires minimal interaction to complete. Even if there is an issue, setting up the monitoring and doing remediation is quick.

The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the tool. With a little bit of time and understanding, it is capable of completing any business use case we have encountered. There are many ways to achieve desired results without much issue.

Anything related to the enhancement process is poor at best and should be more transparent. They should consider an open-source model where users can more easily see requests.

They need more long-term consistency in pricing and should consider support-based costs. They should find a model that has more long-term price consistency to not lose larger customers. They can even consider a perpetuity model and move towards support-based costs.

Finding better real-time solutions is hard because it is not designed for that. It does not work as well for activities that require real-time input/output, but it works very well for batch, ETL, or similar cases.

I have been using Atomic Automation for approximately 13 years.

If you increase the load without knowledge of maintaining database performance, you may see lag. However, in a well-tuned environment, it runs very smoothly. We have periods throughout the day where we get massive loads put on it. We see a small amount of slowness, but it is always a manageable slowness that self-corrects, so no issue.

The scalability is excellent. It does not perform real-time scalability in our environment, but because of the way we have built it, it can scale well past any thresholds with no issues.

Any problems that I have seen working with Broadcom do not include support. Support tends to be responsive. They are highly knowledgeable in their product area and very easy to work with.

Positive

I have been exposed to and had minor interactions with alternatives but not nearly as much as Automic Automation.

Any new deployments, upgrades, and environment rollouts have been easy and straightforward.

If you make a capable engineer with no experience in the product do it without a discussion with support, he or she might hit some hurdles because of the nature of the product. The documentation definitely serves you well if you know what you are looking for, but if somebody is coming in fresh, I could see them having problems. A discussion of steps with support can help any experienced IT technician manage an initial rollout.

We do all of our maintenance. Mostly we do it from within the tool itself, aside from things like OS patching or DB maintenance.

The number of people required for deployment depends on the environment. The biggest piece that is going to affect that is related to the database. In most environments, you would require a DBA because the level of access and monitoring you need in the database is usually outside of the scope of the systems admin. If you have access to the database and you have a DBA and the systems admin, one person can do it.

Initially, the pricing was competitive but consistently, year over year, its pricing has become more erratic. It increases to the point where even with the positives, it starts to become a longer-term question about how it will fit into the environment.

Be comfortable using the Broadcom community and support. Both these resources will keep you from reinventing the wheel. When planning for more than a small blueprint, plan for scalability and reproducibility across environments. Make sure your framework is reproducible, and you have that consistency, especially across environments. Be comfortable integrating into your larger environment through not just the product directly but through its APIs.

Overall, I would rate Automic Automation an eight out of ten.

Our company uses the solution to run scripts for customers. For each use case, we create a description and use it with the agent to schedule run times. 

Our team size ranges from 40 to 50 people and varies across clients or use cases. 

The solution includes many features and is scalable and stable. 

The automation tool provides scripting that is easy to convert for specific requirements. 

The pricing has the potential to be high because it is based on the number of servers and agents. 

I have been using the solution for five years. 

The solution's stability is better than other products. We do not see the solution fail much at all. 

We had issues with other products where servers would go down or items needed to be fixed and that caused struggles. 

The solution is scalable. 

I worked closely with technical support for overall assistance during my first installation and they were dedicated and helpful. 

I have not needed support for issues but am currently working with them to complete another installation. 

Sometimes support leaves out details, but they do help a lot with tools. 

I rate technical support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

The ease of setup depends on the person who handles it. The setup is a bit different because it includes four or five components that require separate installations. There are various steps and processes to follow. If you have knowledge of the solution, then setup is easy. 

Typical setups take 14 to 16 hours for server and data installations. 

We implement the solution for customers. 

The pricing is based on the number of servers and agents. 

Our developers chose the solution because of its scalability, stability, and features. Technical support is also much better than what competitors offer.

The solution allows us to do everything we want. We can use it for smaller items or large-scale projects with no problems. 

It is important to understand workload automation and how the solution functions. Work with your customer to determine the infrastructure and number of agents or servers. Create an infrastructure table and then starting installing to those specifications. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

The Zero Upgrade feature is the most valuable. 

Its dashboard can be improved. In version 12, they have already moved to a web-based interface from a UI. We are looking into this feature now. We are also looking for available APIs that we can use to interface the engine into our other systems.

There should be a subservice facility that we can use to interface with Microsoft Teams and send out authorization on job executions. We have seen a feature like this in other products that we are looking into.

I have been using this solution for more than five years.

It is stable. We are not experiencing any major issues.

It is scalable. Around 30 people are using it in our organization. 

We previously had platinum support, and we were very happy with their technical support. After we moved away from platinum support, their technical support is just not that good.

We only had MSTs previously. We shifted to Automic Workload Automation because we wanted to integrate SAP and other business requirements. 

We are now looking into other products outside Automic because of its cost. We have shortlisted BMC Control-M, Stonebranch, ActiveBatch, and IBM.

The initial setup was complex because we have multiple endings running in every country that we manage. We also have an active-active setup and two instances running on one machine. We use it to widen our range so that we can have two engines running on the same machine. 

It is currently deployed on a private cloud and on-premises. We have around ten people to maintain this solution.

It costs too much. That's why we are now looking at other products.

I would rate Automic Workload Automation a six out of ten.