Automic Automation Reviews

I mainly use this solution for batch job processing.

The most valuable features are the predefined templates for application-specific jobs and the access for different users.

The interface could be made more user-friendly in terms of job creation and scheduling, especially when doing bulk job creation and modification. Drag and Drop to create conditions dependency between jobs

I've been using this solution for three years.

This solution is stable.

This solution is scalable.

It can be very difficult to reach the support team, and they don't have support available in all locations, so you sometimes have to wait to hear back.

Positive

The initial setup was very straightforward and quick.

The implementation was done in-house using cloud automation, which provides the functionality to upgrade or install the agent and clients.

This solution is pretty well-priced. I would rate its pricing as four out of five.

Automic Workload Automation is a good, clear automation tool that's reasonably priced. I would rate it seven out of ten.

One of the uses that we decided to use it for is site switching. We have two data centers, and we have critical applications in both data centers. We site switch them twice a year just to make sure the DR is in place. It takes just an hour to move one system from A to B. It is so fast, quick, and effective.

The two main things about it are its versatility and stability. For versatility, we bought it to do one job, and we now use it now for several jobs on all different types of applications. In regards to its stability, it is very reliable. We have never had any unplanned crashes. 

The new user interface AWI could improve. It is quite easy to use and work around, but it has lost some of the functionality that we used to have in our Vim client user interface.

I have been working on it for about 12 years now. We have had three unplanned outages throughout the whole time, and all three were man-made errors (someone pulling the plug out).

With some of the newer features, we have been able to do new things with them. We are always in demand in our company, someone asking us, "Can you do this or can you do that?"

The technical support is very good. It can sometimes take a little long to get an initial response, but it is very good. They will persevere, and get to the bottom of whatever the issue is.

We bought this back in 2004. We were upgrading all of our systems to SAP systems, and we wanted a scheduler. We did not want to use the SAP scheduler, so we were recommended UC4 (as it was at the time). That is why we brought it in. It was for our SAP system, but we use it on all applications now.

The initial setup is relatively straightforward. There is an awful lot of planning because it is such a critical application for us. We have to test everything before we go ahead. It could take us up to three months doing all of the testing, maybe putting the infrastructure in place for an upgrade. The actual day when we upgrade only takes about an hour or so. It is very fast, and we have never had an issues.

Because of its stability and versatility, I give it a nine out of 10. I never give tens.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Support is very important. Also, if we are looking for a solution, we might go to Automic, and say, "We want to do this. Can you help?" They are always very good. They will come over, sit down, and talk with us, helping us where they can.

We have many use cases for automating different systems. In most cases, we use it to automate database application servers. We have over 2000 servers, so we need to synchronize jobs on various platforms, which is our most common use case.

So far, the performance has been okay.

Our environment is more stable. We have less downtime and some of our operations are much faster than they were before. We have seen a positive impact on efficiency. Tasks that used to take people one or two hours are now done in minutes.

In terms of whether using Automic has enabled our company to grow, it is possible. However, I have not been made aware of any examples.

The most valuable feature is that I do not have to wait for one job to finish, then manually click on the next one to start. Automation is the best feature.

My biggest complaint is that there is no list price. We work with Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, etc., and all of them have list pricing. Automic, right up until today, has never had list pricing. This makes things difficult, because we need to plan budgets for the next year and can't. The lack of list pricing is my number one complaint because it is very difficult to plan anything.

We have some systems where, every time we lose the network connection, the software, after five or 10 minutes, is inoperable. With Automic, we monitor what is happening, and if network connectivity is down, Automic deletes all the logs that caused the system to crash. Before Automic, we needed to handle these situations manually. Now, every time that logs crowd the system, Automic deletes them and solves the problem.

That means we do not have this type of downtime anymore. It is system crucial for us.

Scalability is fine. We have a cluster and two active-active nodes, so it is very easy to scale.

We used technical support in the beginning. The experience was very good. They were easy to reach and know their business. They helped us a lot during that time.

This is our first job management solution. My managers made the decision to buy it.

The important criteria when selecting a vendor to work with are

• Good support
• A good product.

Good support is very important for us.

The initial setup was straightforward. The installation took two days. We did not have any difficulties. You just click, click, and click.

As an engineer, I do not have access to this information regarding ROI.

The cost of arrays is high. If you want to buy an array for an application, and see value from it, you need about half a million dollars. That is too expensive.

Read the documentation.

We have many clients in financial services. We install, implement, and configure this solution for them. They use this solution to automate financial processes.

We have roughly 100 users, using this solution. We expect to increase the number of users of this solution.

There are some monitoring features that could be added. For example, when we have some external dependencies from processes that were run the day before or one week before, these dependencies are always complicated to configure.

Workload Automation should also have better RPA features, too. I think that would definitely improve this solution. Instead of having to have a separate solution for RPA, it would be nice if Workload Automation could handle it, too.

I have been using Automic Workload Automation for more than 10 years.

Both the stability and the scalability of Automic Workload Automation are great.

Usually, we only contact support when we have issues with bugs, etc. I think some users have support for installation and configuration.

I have used plenty of automation solutions. 

I made the move over to Automic Workload Automation as many other solutions weren't compatible with REST APIs. For me, it was a matter of evolution. The new solutions come with more features, more updated technologies that I can use. 

The initial setup, installation, and configuration are very straightforward.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight. If they added some additional features for monitoring, I would give it a higher rating.

If you're in need of RPA capabilities, this may not be the solution for you. RPA can be applied for some processes, but not for everything. 

We are currently doing a migration from Dollar U to ONE Automation for 815 applications for one of our clients.

We have used ONE Automation to make a platform for one of our clients using two clustered Oracle Databases and web services, with an Automation Engine. 

We made another platform for backup using Data Guard and two web services with two Automation Engines and one Oracle Database, so if there is a problem with the first platform, functionality can pass directly to the second platform.

I have found new methods for converting scripts from Dollar U to ONE Automation. For example, I take the dynamic library from Dollar U and put it in the dynamic binary library in ONE Automation. This enables us to use Dollar U scripts in ONE Automation.

It's easy for integration, not like BMC Control-M. It's clear when there are errors or bugs. We can just go to the logs and read the error code and find what needs to be done.

There were many bugs in the last version. For example, we could only use capital letters for searching for agent names. Also, we had a problem with ONE Automation where we couldn't use the PGA and SGA in Oracle Databases for resolving RAM because the last version didn't have this capability.

We can use ONE Automation with many other applications like ServiceNow and Jenkins. This is the scalability for me, that there are many possibilities with this tool. We can use it with many other technologies. It is really good.

The company where we are doing this work is looking at expanding into banking, and that would happen in many countries. Of course, this would give us more work with Automic Workload Automation. The objective is that all applications for this client are within ONE Automation.

I do not contact CA technical support but my colleague does for many bugs and other security and system requirements. We need to change many things in our platform for security needs. We open cases with ONE Automation to help us with the skills for integration, development, and administration. Tech support has been helpful.

I used Dollar U. There are really big differences. Dollar U has decentralized methods and tools. ONE Automation has centralized tools. It is really strong and really easy to use ONE Automation. For example, for organizing, for creating applications and clients, for manipulating the agents, for the servers, it's really easy. You just put the agent in the server application with the LI and it directly connects with the Automation Engine Server. It's amazing.

The initial setup required us to do an analysis of the Dollar U environment for conversion to ONE Automation. We have special tools for converting the session and the UPROCs from Dollar U to jobs and workflow in ONE Automation. We have developed macros with VBA to convert all the information in Dollar U to ONE Automation.

When we start an integration for the first time, we create the client and we attach the agent for the application, because every application is a "client" for us. We use Red Hat Servers for this. Of course, we use Windows servers, but 80 percent are Red Hat as well as iX and HPE servers.

Each application takes a different amount of time. For example, there are applications for factoring or financial applications. We need one year for their implementation. Smaller applications take a few months. We start with the small applications and then move to the more difficult applications. We have a team working on this and every person has ten or 15 applications to do.

You should know configuration and scripting in Shell because Automic only gives binary, which you can adapt for your environment. You can the Automic with PostgreSQL, but it's not good. I prefer to use it with Oracle Database and to use clusters to create a solid environment.

I have installed many packages, such as for WebSphere, for chat bots, for SSH, and for using programs like Excel, and Word. I'm trying to learn many things about development with ONE Automation.

It's a good tool, really strong. It needs some new features, it needs to evolve, but it's really good. I really like it. And now, with Broadcom in the picture, it's a strong company.

The primary use case is automation of our business processes within the bank along with several areas of process automation. We have been using the product for 10 years now and have built it up from scratch. We do a lot of stuff with it, of which, we are mostly satisfied, though there will always be problems with it.

It enables us to build automation which is flexible in a controlled environment. We have a lot of governance and compliance requirements as a bank that we can fulfill with this product. We can fulfill them because we have an environment where everything is monitored where you have an audit trail of the product and for the executions of the development. 

We can perform across platform automation with a product, and we are not bound to one architecture or system. We can bind together a lot of systems and ways of integrating systems. That is the most positive effect on our end. It is very flexible to program around your automation.

The stability needs improvement.

The stability is not as good as it was in former years. Stability has gone down from version to version, but it is probably due to the product's complexity and transitions in the company. Stability could be better, as it was better in the past.

The scalability is okay, as we are not scaling so much. 

Technical support is good. They are doing the best that they can, but it is a complex product with difficult requirements from a stability point of view.

The initial setup was 10 years ago, so it was easy at the time. With each upgrade, it will probably have more complexity, but it has been a little hidden because it is a step-by-step process. Though, the complexity is okay with the setup.

It is not so easy to give numbers. There are just a lot of things that you cannot do without this product.

We evaluated some competitors a decade ago, and Automic (UC4) was the best choice. We look at the product and features. We did tests and an installation of the product, then we decided on Automic.

The other competitors, 10 years ago, were CA and IBM.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• Product features (i.e., flexibility).
• It must fit the requirements.
• A partner that you can rely on.

The abstraction - I call it the "who, what, and where" of pieces of work that need to be done in the IT world. The who: the log-in, the credentials, all those things. The where: as far as the agents and those things. Then the what: the actual worker objects themselves. Having those abstracted and separated allows us to move things from one environment to the next, and it allows consistency and testing. We can abstract those three different layers. To me, that's one of the biggest advantages of the tool.

How technology agnostic it is. It works with all the different legacy solutions we have and it allows us to look at things in one location, as opposed to going to a lot of different places.

• More Hadoop native support for things such as Oozie jobs, Spark jobs.
• Native support for messaging architecture like with your RabbitMQ, your Kafkas. 

More native support for - we talk about the software factory with services and that new architecture - more native support for interacting with those things.

Very stable. The tool we had before this tool, we were nervous around patching cycles, and we were nervous for datacenter downtime because we didn't how that tool was going to react. But this tool, far better than the tool we had before and we probably don't even really have to think about the stability. It's sort of like a good piece of software is like a good referee. If it's doing good, you don't notice it. That's the good thing about Automic. We don't even notice that it's there a lot of the time. It's a very, very stable product.

Very scalable. I know they just talked about adding support for hundreds of thousands of agents, and I know it goes up to like a thousand clients per engine, so you can do a lot with that. It's a very scalable solution. We have a lot more capacity probably than we have use cases for it right now.

Technical support has been good. With any type of support structure, you're going to have challenges with geographies and things getting passed off, but generally Automic has been very supportive. Their Professional Services department: excellent, A1. And they really give you that "partner" feel, as opposed to the customer-vendor. We still have that relationship, but when there are actual issues, it feels more like a partner situation as opposed to a "You're the vendor, I'm the customer."

I give it an eight out of 10. The functionality is great, the scripting language is very powerful. They can adapt to most use cases. Very good community of different companies and a user base so when we have problems we can go to other people.

Why it didn't get a 10, there are too many windows. If you're getting deep into some of these workflows, you may have 20 different windows open and, if you didn't already have that deep understanding of how enterprise orchestration works, it would be very overwhelming to get up to speed on something like that. 

It needs some type of way - and I don't even know what that looks like, but I know when it doesn't feel good - to minimize the amount of windows and get it to where you could have all the information you need available on the screen; or more dynamic so you don't have this clutter on your screen.

Monitoring Oracle jobs.

Performance is great.

It's huge because I was a user in a subdivision that got bought or came into the single instance of Emerson. We brought, at the time, UC4 with us. We saw it was a value even for Emerson as a whole to have it.

Being able to script, create something I want the software to do for a specific job. This allows me to do that. Very powerful.

It's a scheduling tool on steroids. We can have a job run at certain times. If it fails, reset it a number of times and then send an e-mail. Send e-mails on any type of event. Calendar creation, schedule things on certain days, year-end stuff, period end. It's endless, really.

I don't know if they have it now, but a mobile version would be good so instead of logging in on my laptop to see something, I could just go in through an app and see if a certain job is running or not. That would be pretty slick.

Stability is good. We just upgraded, so there are a few things we're working on, but otherwise it's pretty stable.

The scalability is good. We've got more than Oracle jobs, we've got Windows and SQL Servers so we can do quite a bit.

They're responsive, because we've had the tech people on the phone during upgrades. They've also been teaching us, because we're learning the new version, so I guess I could say I've worked with them. They are very knowledgeable.

The older version wasn't performing as well because we pretty much maxed out what it could handle with our thousands of jobs we run a day. So, the Automation solution was brought to us and we said, "Well, this thing could supposedly handle it," so we've gone to it, and so far so good.

I'd say complex from the side that I don't know, where they have to set up, from our operations group, the servers and all that. That's beyond me.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor, I would say, are

• tech support
• the knowledgability
• their track record with other users 
• the size of the users too, to see where we compare with them.

Go for it. I love it because I can move around in it and I'm very comfortable with the software. So I'm not scared of it, you could say.