ActiveBatch by Redwood vs IBM Workload Automation comparison

ActiveBatch by Redwood and IBM are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. ActiveBatch by Redwood is ranked #6 with an average rating of 9.5, while IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.7. ActiveBatch by Redwood holds a 2.1% mindshare in WA, compared to IBM’s 8.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ActiveBatch by Redwood users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of IBM users who would recommend it.

ActiveBatch by Redwood

Read 35 ActiveBatch by Redwood reviews

2,285 Views
755 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Workload Automation

Read 32 IBM Workload Automation reviews

4,153 Views
2,801 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

ActiveBatch by Redwood

IBM Workload Automation

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 30, 2024

We performed a comparison between ActiveBatch Workload Automation and IBM Workload Automation based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

Features: ActiveBatch Workload Automation provides a wide range of valuable features such as versatility, ease of use, prebuilt jobs, real-time scheduling and monitoring, intelligent automation, scalability, REST API adapters, and an exceptional user interface. IBM Workload Automation prioritizes client voting for additional features, triggering jobs in multiple nodes, and batch application tracking.

ActiveBatch Workload Automation has areas that could be improved, such as licensing, user interface, trigger reliability, monitoring dashboard, documentation, support services, and integration capabilities. IBM Workload Automation has faced performance problems in past versions, difficulties with navigation, and limited reporting visibility.

Service and Support: ActiveBatch Workload Automation has been praised for its excellent customer service, particularly its reliable technical support. However, there are concerns about the service model and the availability of the hotline. IBM Workload Automation is highly respected for its support, with customers recommending its lab advocacy program for detailed code support.

Ease of Deployment: The setup process for ActiveBatch Workload Automation is straightforward and uncomplicated, without any significant challenges. However, there is a minor requirement for additional documentation during the file import. The initial setup for IBM Workload Automation can be difficult for individuals who are not familiar with IBM tools, however, with help, it becomes relatively easy.

Pricing: ActiveBatch Workload Automation offers a versatile licensing structure that eliminates the need for agents on all servers, whereas IBM Workload Automation's cost is based on the customer's agreement.

ROI: ActiveBatch Workload Automation has received positive feedback for its ability to generate positive results and financial benefits. Users have reported a significant increase in net revenue. There is a lack of specific user reviews and ROI data for IBM Workload Automation. However, it is known for its focus on optimizing workload management processes and enhancing efficiency.

Comparison Results: ActiveBatch Workload Automation is highly recommended over IBM Workload Automation. Users appreciate ActiveBatch's straightforward setup process, adaptability, ease of use, ready-made jobs, intuitive interface, real-time monitoring, scalability, and an extensive collection of prebuilt job steps.

To learn more, read our detailed ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. IBM Workload Automation Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. IBM Workload Automation

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

ActiveBatch by Redwood

Ranking in Workload Automation

6th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

8.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Process Automation (7th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (6th)

IBM Workload Automation

Ranking in Workload Automation

12th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 2.1%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Workload Automation is 8.4%, up from 8.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Shubham Bharti

Senior Analyst at Capgemini

Flexible, easy to use, and offers good automation

Occasionally, I find myself contemplating if there is room for improvement in the user interface (UI), and envisioning that with certain enhancements. The UI could potentially offer a more refined and user-friendly experience, fostering smoother interactions and facilitating easier navigation for users engaging with the application. New users might encounter a minor setback due to the absence of readily accessible training videos, which could have otherwise proven to be an invaluable resource in aiding their initial familiarization with the platform, potentially hindering their seamless onboarding process and delaying their ability to harness the software's full range of capabilities to its utmost potential.

Read full review

Ilhami Arikan

Cloud Services Automation Technologies Manager at Garanti Teknoloji

With an easy setup phase in place, agent-based installation can be done in minutes

Sometimes we have issues with the solution's stability. So, stability can be improved. Reporting and visibility of the solution need improvement. These days, we need more visibility. We need to access the logs and databases easily. You need to keep track of the running number of logs, like which ones are executed, completed, etc. So if there would be a good reporting dashboard, then it would be good. There's room for improvement in the solution since it is a challenging thing when we want to use the solution's technology with our new technologies. For example, if we need to use TWS on our OpenShift platform, the solution's API is not capable enough. So the product itself needs to be aligned with new technologies.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the valuable features is the ability to trigger workflows, one after another, based on success, without having to worry about overlapping workflows. The ability to integrate our BI, analytics, and our data quality jobs is also valuable"

"The REST API adapters and native integrations for integrating and orchestrating the software stack are very flexible."

"What ActiveBatch allows you to do is develop a more efficient process. It gave me visibility into all my jobs so I could choose which jobs to run in parallel. This is much easier than when I have to try to do it through cron for Windows XP, where you really can't do things in parallel and know what is going on."

"Easy to configure and simple to develop new features."

"We leverage the solution's native integrations regularly. We have to get files from a remote server outside the organization, and even send things outside the organization. We use a lot of its file manipulation and SFTP functionality for contacting remote servers."

"The Jobs Library has been a tremendous asset. For the most, that's what we use. There are some outliers, but we pretty much integrate those Jobs Library steps throughout the process, whether it's REST calls, FTP processes, or file copies and moves... That has helped us to build end-to-end workflows."

"From a scheduling point of view, it is pretty good."

"ActiveBatch has reduced work by providing automated workflows across several different applications."

More ActiveBatch by Redwood pros

"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."

"IBM Workload Automation provides good performance and monitoring."

"The support from Cisco is very good. I was with them as a company for 40 years"

"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."

"It offers features like MDM and a Windows workstation, although there are some technical dependencies. It is more user-friendly and also includes failover and failback capabilities. While both systems offer high availability, Control-M's high availability is superior to AWS's."

"The initial setup is easy."

"Technical support from IBM is very good."

"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."

More IBM Workload Automation pros

Cons

"They should offer pricing that is more affordable."

"The product should be improved by providing a customization option."

"Between version 10 and version 12 there was a change. In version 10, they had each object in its own folder. But on the back end, they saw it at the root level. So when we moved over to version 12, everything was in the same area mixed together. It was incredibly difficult and we actually had to create our own folders and move those objects—like schedules, jobs, user accounts—and manually put those into folders, whereas the previous version already had it."

"The UI could potentially offer a more refined and user-friendly experience, fostering smoother interactions and facilitating easier navigation for users engaging with the application."

"It could be easier to provide dashboards on how many jobs are running at the same time; more monitoring."

"There are some issues with this version and finding the jobs that it ran. If you're looking at 1,000 different jobs, it shows based on the execution time, not necessarily the run time. So, if there was a constraint waiting, you may be looking for it in the wrong time frame. Plus, with thousands of jobs showing up and the way it pages output jobs, sometimes you end up with multiple pages on the screen, then you have to go through to find the specific job you're looking for. On the opposite side, you can limit the daily activity screen to show only jobs that failed or jobs currently running, which will shrink that back down. However, we have operators who are looking at the whole nightly cycle to make sure everything is there and make sure nothing got blocked or was waiting. Sometimes, they have a hard time finding every item within the list."

"I have faced struggles to understand, set up the tool, and implement it in my early days as a new user."

"Any product is going to have some room for improvement, no matter what. I see the company has already ventured into AWS and they're constantly trying to improve the managed file transfer which they have recently improvised. I think they bought a software called JSCAPE and they're trying to improve it, which is good. I am not sure if JSCAPE would be part of the base product but currently, you have to buy a separate license for it, which doesn't make sense. If it was Microsoft, ServiceNow, or integrating with other software vendors, I would understand but JSCAPE is now in-house and I'm not sure if they can justify having a separate license for JSCAPE. I would probably expect them to be packaging JSCAPE into the base product. They did switch over from a perpetual license model to a subscription model, which hurt the company a little bit. Nobody is offering the perpetual model anymore. As long as the transition is fair for both the companies, I think it should be fine and not burn us out."

More ActiveBatch by Redwood cons

"To improve IBM Workload Automation, I suggest enhancing automation features further, as more automation would be beneficial. The product is good enough for my current customers, but improving technical support and pricing would be welcome. We often need quicker responses and better solutions than we can manage manually. These improvements would make the product even better."

"The solution should offer more free technical sessions to customers so that they can gain more experience or learn more about how to use it."

"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."

"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."

"IBM needs to move away from its native terminology and adopt a more cloud-centric approach."

"It would be helpful to have a mobile app that could be used to follow the job schedule."

More IBM Workload Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't think we've ever had a problem with the pricing or licensing. Even the maintenance fees are very much in line. They are not excessive. I think for the support that you get, you get a good value for your money. It's the best value on the market."

"The pricing was fair. There are additional costs for the plugins. We have the standard licensing fees for different pieces, then we have the plugins which were add-ons. However, we expected that."

"ActiveBatch is currently redesigning themselves. In the past, they were a low cost solution for automation. They had a nice tool that was very inexpensive. With their five-year plan, they will be more enhancement-driven, so they're trying to improve their software, customer service, and the way that their customers get information from them. In doing that, they're raising the price of their base system. They changed from one pricing model to another, which has caused some friction between ActiveBatch and us. We're working through that right now with them. That's one of the reasons why we're why we were evaluating other software packages."

"It allows for lower operational overhead."

"I like ActiveBatch Workload Automation's licensing model because they're not holding you down on an agentless model or agent model, where every server needs to have an agent. That's the main selling point of the solution and I hope they stay that way."

"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."

"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."

"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."

"Pricing depends on the number of agents that you install."

"We transitioned from a server license to per job license, and that saved us a lot money."

"The solution's pricing is affordable."

"The solution is a little bit expensive."

"To my knowledge, IWA is the only WLA product that will provide "parallel tracking" capability to assist in upgrading from one platform to IWA."

"The contract is with the customer with whom we are working, so IBM is not directly involved in this."

"It is about one-third of the cost of a controller."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

32%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

Managing the workload and monitoring the tasks were very difficult with manual interventions. Now, by using ActiveBatch, the process is automated and it runs tasks on a scheduled basis.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

I'd advise users to start by knowing what the actual requirement is and thoroughly assess the automation needs. New users should take advantage of the demos and trial versions so they get an idea o...

See all answers

What needs improvement with ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

After upgrades we are facing a few issues and errors triggered, so focusing on this would be appreciated. Some of the advanced features in the user interface are a bit confusing even after referrin...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Workload Automation?

The initial setup is easy.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Workload Automation?

IBM needs to move away from its native terminology and adopt a more cloud-centric approach. For example, IBM still refers to machines as 'workstations,' whereas other systems, like Control-M, use m...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Workload Automation?

We use the solution for network automation.

See all answers

Comparisons

Control-M vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 30% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 25% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 10% of the time

Tidal by Redwood vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 9% of the time

VisualCron vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

More ActiveBatch by Redwood Competitors

Control-M vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 35% of the time

HCL Workload Automation vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 16% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 15% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Workload Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood

November 2024

Download ActiveBatch by Redwood product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Workload Automation

November 2024

Download IBM Workload Automation product report

Also Known As

ActiveBatch

IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, IBM TWS

Learn More

ActiveBatch by Redwood

IBM

Overview

ActiveBatch by Redwood automates and manages batch processes, data integration tasks, and workflow scheduling. It's used for file transfers, data processing, server monitoring, and report generation, supporting both on-prem and cloud environments.

Organizations implement ActiveBatch by Redwood to automate complex job scheduling and data workflows, integrating seamlessly with FTP, SQL, PowerShell, and other systems. With features like real-time monitoring, error handling, and centralized management, users can significantly boost productivity while minimizing manual intervention. Its flexibility in supporting on-premises and cloud environments makes it adaptable for diverse IT landscapes. The tool simplifies workflow orchestration with an extensive library of pre-built steps and robust API integrations, ensuring efficiency in handling various workloads.

What are ActiveBatch by Redwood's key features?

Job automation: Automates routine and complex jobs.
Real-time monitoring: Offers instant insights into job performance.
Customizable workflows: Tailors workflows to specific business needs.
PowerShell integration: Supports advanced script execution.
Job triggering: Initiates tasks based on specific conditions.
File handling: Manages file transfers and processing efficiently.
Server management: Monitors and handles server tasks consistently.
API integration: Connects with various applications for streamlined operations.
Alerting: Provides notifications for critical job events.
Flexible scheduling: Enables detailed and adaptable job scheduling.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Centralized management: Simplifies oversight of all processes.
Productivity boost: Reduces manual effort and errors.
Time savings: Accelerates task completion and workflow execution.
Comprehensive visibility: Enhances monitoring of all job activities.
Reliable performance: Ensures consistent task execution.
Scalability: Adapts to growing business and IT needs.

In various industries, ActiveBatch by Redwood is used to streamline operations, whether in finance handling large-scale data processing, healthcare managing patient records, or retail optimizing supply chains. It addresses specific needs by offering robust automation, efficient job scheduling, and seamless integration with existing systems, driving operational excellence and efficiency.

IBM Workload Automation helps companies manage operations, portfolio management, resource collection, and dependency scheduling. It facilitates transitions from legacy apps to web services, executing batch processing for tens of thousands of jobs daily with hundreds of users.

Teams rely on IBM Workload Automation to optimize backend workloads, maintain service levels, and offer support in remote environments. Its interface and job scheduler are appreciated for their value and effectiveness. Users benefit from batch automation, multiple node job triggering, stability, and batch app tracking. It provides a holistic view to resolve technical issues and leverage AI for updates. Its user-friendly interface simplifies workload management. Performance, monitoring, request features for adding functionalities, and workload management are key advantages.

What are the most important features?

Interface and Job Scheduler: Highly valued for managing processes efficiently.
Batch Automation: Facilitates the automation of batch processing tasks.
Multiple Node Job Triggering: Enables triggering jobs across multiple nodes.
Stability: Ensures a reliable and consistent performance.
Batch App Tracking: Allows tracking and monitoring of batch applications.
Holistic View: Helps in resolving technical issues and leveraging AI.

What are the benefits or ROI items to look for in reviews?

Performance: Enhanced system performance and monitoring capabilities.
Workload Management: Effective management of various workload types.
Request Feature: Ability to add new functionalities as needed.

IBM Workload Automation is implemented across several industries for diverse tasks. Companies executing high-volume batch processing, managing complex job dependencies, and transitioning from legacy systems find it valuable. Industries such as finance, healthcare, and manufacturing utilize it to maintain operational efficiency, enhance system performance, and automate critical processes.

Sample Customers

Informatica, D&H, ACES, PrimeSource, Sub-Zero Group, SThree, Lamar Advertising, Subway, Xcel Energy, Ignite Technologies, Whataburger, Jyske Bank, Omaha Children's Hospital

Standard Life Group, Banca Popolare di Milano, A*STAR, ArcelorMittal Gent

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. IBM Workload Automation

October 2024

Free Report: ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. IBM Workload Automation

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