Automic Automation Reviews

We use the solution across every business area for site switches, backups, batch scheduling, and other tasks.

We implemented the solution about 20 years ago when we switched from our legacy mainframe systems. We were looking for a scheduler to replace the one in our new SAP systems, as the SAP system scheduler wasn't considered robust enough. The solution was chosen to replace SAP scheduling at that time.

What I like most about Automic Automation is its flexibility to work across multiple platforms, such as Windows, Linux, and SAP environments. The ease of switching from one environment to another is particularly useful. I like its calendars and workflows. 

The support has declined somewhat over the years due to various takeovers. It's not as personal as it used to be.

I've been using Automic Automation since 2005 for about 19 years.

I rate the solution's stability a nine out of ten. 

I wouldn't rate the solution's scalability highly, but that's more due to our company's structure than its capabilities. We often don't know what's coming for our company in advance, so we might not always consider using it for new projects even though we probably could.

We initially bought it for SAP scheduling but soon found it could do many other things. For example, we use it for site switches between our two data centers, testing our critical systems once or twice a year. In the first two years of using it, our usage grew by about 400%.

Currently, we have about 400 agents and three environments: development, test, and production. We have approximately 150 users.

As for scalability, we currently only use about 20% of the CPU capacity, so there's plenty of room for growth. If we need to add more jobs or increase the workload, it's scalable. Increasing memory, disk space, or servers is also easy.

Before Automic Automation, we used a solution called ControlM, though I wasn't with the company then.

The deployment of Automic Automation was fairly straightforward, though we initially had a few minor issues. It took about a year before it went live, and only three or four people were involved in the process.

The solution does require daily maintenance, which mostly involves looking at the database and archiving older data to keep it efficient.

We've seen a return on investment, particularly in terms of resources. For example, when we have an outage for an upgrade, the manual implications would be vast without Automic Automation. If we were to ask everyone to do the tasks it does manually, we would need a lot more people.

The solution seems expensive to me, but it does the job well.

We did face some challenges during the early implementation about 17 years ago. There were occasions when jobs replicated themselves and filled up the database, causing system downtime. However, we've since fixed these issues.

I would recommend Automic Automation to other users mainly because of its ability to work in multiple platform environments. For example, it's effortless to move files from a Windows system to a Linux system.

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I think it's a very good product.

The primary use case is workload automation in our SAP area. The performance is fine.

We have seen improvements in time efficiency and cost resources, because we are mainly focused on the SAP area, and its automation in that part. We also have some other complex areas where we help the applications with their processes. Unfortunately, we do not use it in the automation of those parts in the infrastructure, like other companies have talked to here. Therefore, our company is still meant to be for SAP Scheduler, and not given the necessary management attention. 

It helps in the usual business, though it does not help us get in front of our competitors.

• Flexibility
• Easy to use
• Stable automation engine
• We do not have to use a broad variety of agents to connect to different types of systems.

• We would like to have some features with the AWI with the founding technique, which cannot currently be delivered. 
• We would like some advantages, which we had with the Java UI, with the automation engine.
• One topic, which we would like, is to be able to have more differentiate in the reorganization of SAP to more precisely view which types of objects and clients would be reorganized and archived. The archive file is not helpful for us. If we write the archive file, we do not use them because in the past the tools were not that satisfying. 
• Improvements also would be good in the area of performance measurement.The system overview and performance are not being measured because we can't derive any concrete information.

The stability is fine. There are always a few little parts or points with issues, but overall, it is very stable.

It is quite stable in terms of size and requirements. The stable environment does not matter that much. However, the product, with it types of agents, and the sizeable automation engine, seems to be highly scalable.

We have been satisfied with the technical consultants. We ordered them for special situations. 

Technical support is different. Sometimes it is fast and very helpful, sometimes it seems to be bureaucratic and slow. It depends on the questions. Over the last few years, we have noticed it worsening. Ten years ago, there was more personal contact. We had the feeling that the support was much more involved in the system and better informed in the topics. Because of the very high speed of growth, there are only a few dozen of people with ten years of experience, which is another problem of size.

Initial reason was the projects which from SAP R2 to R3. That was the reason why they looked for a different scheduling system. 

Meanwhile, we are controlling nearly all SAP systems that we have, so it has a three digit number. In this area, no one has any idea of using a different tool for it. The another direction where we hope that we can move into other directions, but without the necessary management, it can't.

The people involved in the initial setup were convinced that they had the right product and absolutely satisfied with the setup in 2001.

I know that it was evaluated against other tools in 2000, but I do not know which ones.

Have a look at following:

• Technical functionality
• Attitude of the vendor
• The way that they are in contact with their customers. 
• Flexibility of the solution.
  

Most important criteria when selecting vendors: Our company wants to have strong partners. Therefore, they change the direction from selecting specific small companies for a specific question or task to have more global partners for big areas, where they can rely on the necessary knowledge in the company in terms of enough people with this knowledge, not only one specialist, and no one else can take over in the case of any problem, holiday, or leaving the company.

We don't use it in my company. We implement for our customers. They primarily use the solution for workflow automation and work close with oracle. 

This is an easy-to-use, user-friendly product. The user interface is very simple and straightforward. 

It scales well. We can increase or reduce the number of nodes as needed. 

It is easy to set up. 

The solution is stable. 

The support could be better in the future.

They should work to reduce pricing. 

I've been using the solution for around two to three years.

It is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. I'd rate the stability nine out of ten. 

The solution is very easy to scale up and down by increasing or reducing nodes. 

I'd rate the scalability ten out of ten. 

Our clients are quite sizable, at least in Thailand. They are all enterprise-level organizations. 

The solution was recently acquired by another company, and since then, support has suffered. They need to work to bring better support services back to the product. 

Neutral

I am also well-versed in Stonebranch Universal Automation Center.

The setup is pretty straightforward. I'd rate it eight out of ten in terms of ease of implementation. 

Deploying the solution only takes about one day. You simply have to install and configure, and you are ready to go. The process is fast. 

We have a team of five that can handle deployment and maintenance tasks. 

This is quite expensive. It's one of the most expensive on the market. That said, I can't speak much about the exact pricing. I would rate it six out of ten in terms of affordability.

We are partners. 

I'd invite anyone to try the solution as it is user-friendly and has an easy user interface. It's functional and scalable. Overall, the product is quite good. 

I'd rate the product nine out of ten. I'm very happy with it in general. 

We used Automic for a multinational pharmaceutical client.

In the latest version, we can access the solution through a web browser as well. 

The web-based edition is missing a lot of the most important features available in Automic, we have absence. For example, when I'm scheduling a job, there is normally a flag that you can toggle to activate and deactivate the task, but that doesn't work properly in the web version. It's missing a lot of the calendar and scheduling features. 

My organization used the tool for almost 10 years, but we were dissatisfied when we upgraded to web-based edition because it doesn't provide all the options. It's challenging to create a new job or edit and reconfigure an existing. The web version has to be improved on various levels. 

Previously, we were using Solaris with Automic, but now I think it's Unix and Windows. I don't know what version you are going to provide for the cloud. The cloud always supports Unix and Windows, so it means the tool is cloud compatible.

In the web version, everything is moving from the on-premise server to the cloud. So in this scenario, the Automic tool has to be more cloud-oriented. We are not sure how it will work in the cloud. Since 2011 or 2012, we have been using Automic on-prem only. It would be nice to have more documentation about using the cloud version of Automic. The tool could be more user-friendly as well. Most people consider Automic to be a difficult tool to understand and use.

I've been using Automic for six years, but we just switched to another tool called AutoSys six months ago.

Automic is 99 percent stable. We've never had a problem with stability.

The scalability could be improved because we have three kinds of tools on our hardware itself, and we don't know whether Automic will accommodate the other two jobs as well. We have 200 direct users and probably 1,000 who benefit from the tool indirectly.

It depends on the terms of the support contract, but sometimes it will take two or three days to fix an issue. The impact is high because this type of job scheduling solution is used mostly for finance. For example, let's say there are 3,000 jobs scheduled, and four jobs fail. That could mean millions of dollars lost.

It should be fine If they provide support within eight to 16 hours, but they typically take three days to get a response. That won't work because on the impact side. On the other hand, it's highly stable, so we are generally okay, but we still face some bugs every six months or so. When that happens, we expect a speedy response.

The initial setup was straightforward, but it gets complex when you start using it. It will only be complex if you're a new user. The total deployment time for the original and web version was about three months. That includes installation and testing. During the testing, we found missing features, so it took three months to set the solution up, configure it correctly, and test it. 

The personnel needed to manage and maintain the solution depends on staffing and scheduling. For example, If you are providing 24-hour support 365 days a year, you need six at the most. We need one person per shift, and we have three eight-hour shifts. Including backups, that's three to six people. 

I don't have any numbers about the return handy. We didn't renew the license, and we've already onboarded the other solution and started using it. It's costly and our companies are cutting costs. They consider this an extra cost, so we didn't renew for this year.

The license for Automic is around $7,000 per year, which is somewhat costly, but it includes enterprise support. 

I rate Automic Workload Automation eight out of 10.

Right now, we are working with version 10 of the product, it is very good. We are very happy with it. However, we have to upgrade to a different version and there are a lot of things that are different, and we are not completely convinced how it will work. 

Our normal functions, what we had in version 10, are lost or not there. So, we will have to see how it will work in the future. As a company and as a product, though, we are ready to upgrade.

It is a batch application. We have a daily batch that we have to start. This application controls the batching. So, this application is essential to our company.

We have a lot of places in Germany. For example, if there was someone in Munich who wants to send data to someone in Hamburg, it is very easy to do a production application safely and quickly, because we have everything in one system. We just do a file transfer. 

It depends for me as an administrator. There are a lot of features which help us get a stable application. It is easy to have a stable production line, because this app supports us very well.

I hope in the next release that they will solve all the bugs which they have found in development. 

I hope going forward they will make some changes to the documentation. I hope they will write into the documentation what has changed and what the new names are. For example, some features have a new name. I hope they will make a translation the names in the old version to the names in the newer version. This would be a very important thing.

Version 10 is very stable. We have no problems with the product. 

Some problems could happen in the future because the current version does not seem to be stable. There are a lot of things which could bring danger into the stability of our work process, because things have been changed, and it is not possible to work the product in the same way. We have to accept the changes, and we are not sure if our employees will be able to accept the changes in such a short time frame and perform them the way they should.

There are so many possibilities to be used from this product, and every company is using it in their own very special way. Though, I don't think every company is using it 100 percent for all of its possibilities. There are a lot of areas that you can go with it.

When I came to the company, they were already using Automic. They had been using it for a long time.

The complexity of the initial setup depends on the person who is performing it. It was okay for me, but I have some colleagues who have had some problems with it.

We have increased efficiency with this application.

I prefer this product.

We use it to schedule our production workload.

We scheduled our database maintenance jobs through ASP and when we did this, we scheduled them in a certain defined way that we expected them to run. And when that was initially set up, there was no consideration for a database not being available so if the jobs tried to run when a database wasn't available, obviously they wouldn't work and an operator would have to intervene.

The plan was that people would open requests to have jobs held at that time. When there were only one or two databases, that wasn't hard to maintain and people did it. When we grew to many, it became harder to do that. Then with the change in how we're doing stuff, everything happens more, servers get booted more, more changes.

We use features of the product that allow us to determine if the database is available and to only allow the jobs to run when the database is available. So that saves a lot of manpower in the one group that was opening requests to hold jobs, and in the other group which had to implement the request to hold the jobs. It eliminated all that and provided a more dynamic environment for when these jobs can run, without operator intervention. 

That is something we started about two years ago. We fully implemented it last year and we've noticed a big savings in manpower.

It's easy to use. When you schedule jobs, if you can speak English you can schedule them easily and correctly.

There's a lot of flexibility because the product allows you to do many tasks, in multiple ways, so you can choose the way that works best for your environment.

How they handle cross datacenter failover, because they have a really good High Availability solution that works well within a single sysplex, but in our environment, since we have two main datacenter locations, we have two separate sysplex. And, while when everything is working ASP can control jobs both here and in the other location, the current product does not support High Availability across datacenters. That is something we would like to see the product have.

Currently, what we have is we have a homegrown solution, because we're required to have that kind of resiliency, because it's our enterprise job scheduler.

When everything's working, we're invisible. When it's not working: "Why aren't you working?"

Stability is a 10 out of 10.

Scalability is a 10 out of 10.

Tech support is a 10 out of 10.

When I started, we were already on this product, but I do know that they were using a competing product before and they felt that this product had more of what they wanted. So they converted from the competing product to this product.

When the company chose this product, it was actually pre-CA, and then CA acquired the product. But for the most part, they've kept it what it was. While it has a new owner, it's still the same product.

I believe it's pretty straightforward. It's a complex thing by nature so it's not going to be super simple, but it's not like you can't do it either.

I believe experience helps. And in our case, we had a lot of help from the vendor, so while we, per se, didn't have the experience, there were people helping to get us going that did have the experience. So maybe I'm underestimating how much that was important, because it was available, even though it wasn't coming from me or one of my team members, but somebody else was providing it.

I'm really the technical guy. Pricing is not something that I deal with so I can't answer that question.

That would have been 20 years ago, so the market is a little different than it was back then. There are solutions today that did not exist back then. Pretty much all of the big players still exist today. But we're definitely in a different place today than we were back then.

No advice other than the normal stuff that you would do when looking at any product: Does it fit what you need? 

I would recommend doing a proof of concept before signing any contract. Everybody's stuff sounds good on paper and everybody's stuff can do everything, but what happens when you bring it in your environment? Does it do what you need it to do? Those are the most important things. The other stuff, while it's nice stuff, if you can't do what the product is required to do, then there's no value to the product.

For us, it gives us what we need so it's a good value. Forget about the price, because if the product doesn't do what you want, it doesn't matter what the price is.

I would rate the product a 10 out of 10. We use the product everyday and it works and, for the most part, every time we have a problem, it seems it's never my product's problem. It's: I have a problem because there's a problem on the system, so guess what? We're not going to be working. I need a stable system to run. 

Or if it is our problem, maybe we didn't do something we were supposed when we found out that we were supposed to do this, and we reconfigure something and then we move forward and we don't have that problem any more. Or we re-architect how we do stuff, because we've had to make tweaks of stuff as we've gone along. We would do stuff and it would work and then we would do something a little differently, and what we did, it didn't work and we'd have to figure out what the problem is and fix it.

Again, the flexibility of the product allows us to do things multiple ways. We might have started doing it one way and that worked for a while and then either something changed -whether we had more volume or we did something a little differently or we had different issues - and then we would address them with different tweaks, solutions.

We are an insurance company, so we are using Automic Workload Automation to control all of the night processes, the batch processes, and also the EDW. It is for controlling the other databases that we are using. We take all the data from the S400 and move it to other databases in order to do queries and gather other information. We also use it to control between a lot of other systems because we do a lot of workflow between other computers, so we can control the time and flow and other things.

The feature that I have found most valuable is that we can control between a lot of operating systems and other products because we have a lot of old and new products in our environment. It helps us to control all of them together.

In terms of what can be improved, we are in Israel, so we work in Hebrew. Now they are starting to move it also from English to Hebrew and to support the language, but for us it has been very difficult because the Hebrew looks like gibberish. So there are language issues.

The price could always be improved.

Now we are starting to check the AI, which is a new product there which can give us more information like Iosoft and other things. I hope it can help us because right now we cannot know when we can improve or not because we only see part of the data. I hope that if we can collect all the data we can improve and maybe use less CPUs in S400, but at least we can improve by knowing what happened in our batch processes. Meaning, how much time and how much CPU it takes not only for one month but to see all the information for one year. This can improve our flow.

I have been using Automic Workload Automation for more than 15 years. Now I'm using the latest version.

It is not stable all the time. Just now, we upgraded and we found out that it does not support the requirement that is an important computer in our environment, so the new version is not stable right now. I spoke with them and I hope they understand that they have to fix this.

Automic Workload Automation is scalable.

I not remember the number using it because we are always adding more and more. We add a lot of servers to this because we took the daytime process and brought it to our other system. In the Automic, I think we have about 50 users or something like that and a thousand processors.

We only have four people for maintenance of the solution here, and that's all. It is not complicated.

We are using this product extensively and I think we have plans to increase the usage.

We added the new features and we are looking to make our environment do things automatically, less manually.

Our license is for three years, or something like that.

My advice to anyone considering Automic is to know how they will use it, because they changed the license type. Previously, we used to pay for each computer. Now we pay for all the environment, no matter how much we use.

We change the license for the processors, but it depends on the environment that you want to automate, so I cannot give any advice. It depends on what you want. If you only have a few computers that you want to use, you can use it by computer, by your agents. If you have a lot of processors, don't pay for the processors. It depends on the type of environment you use it in. Sometimes you prefer to do it with the scheduling if you have a lot of workflows.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Automic Workload Automation an eight. This is because of the language and stability issues.

One key point for our selling is our business's dashboarding. It was something very important and we used it at the beginning very much. 

It is an easy product to use, and we can use it for end-to-end process automation. We also have the capabilities to do dashboarding, therefore we have an analytics product that can provide other things and value for us.

We would like to see more dashboarding into the product, maybe an embedded Java API which we would be able to load on our own objects into the system. We were writing them on our own, but we would like this standardized.

The system is a stable product overall. We did something maybe a little bit wrong at the beginning, so we had a little bit of an unstable product. Since we have merged to version 12, it has become a stable system.

It is a very scalable product, not only for Workload Automation, but also for the other products provided by Automic or CA Automic. You can use the baseline, the automation engine, and scale up what you need.

Technical support is excellent from our past experiences with Automic. At the moment, we are facing a few issues with the merge of CA and Automic. We hope these will be resolved soon.

Our old solution was not able to deliver a real end-to-end automation. It was embedded in SAP. An excellent product for SAP so far, but it is not able to be scalable for the end-to-end. 

This was the reason why we did research at our company to do an end-to-end product assessment. In the end, the decision was to made to go with Automic.

During our PoC, I was the guy who was implementing and installing the product. I thought with the help of a consultant that it was an easy installation. 

On the shortlist, when we purchased the product, we had CA, Stonebranch, BMC Control-M, Automic, and our current vendor in mind. A few of them were kicked out during the first session because they were not able to deliver everything. In the end, we had BMC and Automic.

I would like to rate it as an eight out of 10, because there is room for improvement, and I would like to see this from Automic. They should continue to work on the product to improve the product.

If my peers are looking for a real end-to-end solution, not only some siloed solution, they should go for Automic because it is an easy product to use. It is easy to install. I can recommend this product to other customers.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: The partnership between a vendor and customer is very important. You should have a good account manager in place who is dealing with the customer. This is something very important for us. Customer service and support are also important.