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Automic Automation vs Fortra's JAMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 25, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Automic Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortra's JAMS
Ranking in Workload Automation
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of Automic Automation is 6.9%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's JAMS is 1.6%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

AnkitSrivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Good automation, handles complex jobs, and is easy to manage
We do use the solution for business-critical processes. We have a lot of complex jobs. They are using multiple databases to connect to one master. We execute jobs on multiple databases. I'm currently working with Broadcom and have created a few alert mechanisms for bug alerts. When we find bugs and report them, we can get hard fixes applied. The solution's ability to handle large volumes of data is very good. I've been happy with it. We can improve so many things by 20% or more. It's a very costly product, and the client who is paying for it needs to see results, and so far, they are. The GUI interface is very good. It's user-friendly, even for new users. Within a few days, they can learn the solution. It's easy to learn and not overly complex. In one console, we can run multiple executions and manage the load balancer, et cetera. It's very easy now to manage complex workflows using this product. We can maximize agent performance. We can execute a large number of jobs. Compared to other tools, it's much more efficient. The visibility and control is excellent. The predictive modeling provided by AI is very good. We can implement fixes automatically as well. Its predictive modeling has been very critical. Jobs are executing on this and that is very important. Even if the master is down for an hour, the company can lose millions of dollars, so having that predictability is key to managing downtime in advance. We can reduce our job workload failure rates across multiple cloud environments. For example, if we have servers and we are installing agents in the master, we can create agents on multiple servers and we can execute jobs on both agents at one time. That way, if one server goes down, there is no disruption. The jobs will execute on the second agent - and no human interface is required for the task. We've been able to save time. Previously, we were dependent upon so many team members, and it would take one week to create one console or one tool. However, now, within three or four hours, we are creating one master and agents. We save six days. It's comprehensive - but we do have an audit feature. We have a separate audit team and in the tool itself, we have audit automation so we can run audits on a quarterly basis. Sometimes we have big queries and the data is massive and difficult to manage. However, with this product, we can schedule a job and, in three months, we can get a report directly without wasting time. It's safer in terms of audit requirements. With the tool, we've been able to save on operational costs. With other tools, we had difficulty with management, and there were so many dependencies on so many teams. With one console, we can create multiple agents that run on Oracle and have one point of control with multiple features. We can run the solution on both cloud and on-prem environments. We're 90% cloud currently. However, 10% is still left on-prem. Our plan is to move 100% to the cloud.
Rob Grafrath - PeerSpot reviewer
We can scale up our organization's scheduling and automation without having to add staff to the department
The biggest area with room for improvement is the area that my organization benefits the most from using JAMS, and that is in custom execution methods. I happen to have a very good C# developer. Ever since we got JAMS, he has spent a lot of time talking to JAMS developers, researching the JAMS libraries, and creating custom execution methods. He's gotten very good at it. He is now able to create them and maintain them very easily, but that was hard-won knowledge. If I ever lose this developer, I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods as well as he can since there really isn't all that much help, such as documentation or information, available on how to create custom execution methods. I really think that they could benefit greatly by being much more transparent about C# development, maybe by making a JAMS cookbook or a developer portal where they could throw ideas at each other. One of my complaints with the marketing around JAMS is that it says things like, "It integrates with Teams". They talk about integrating with a lot of things, but marketing doesn't tell you that they are talking about JAMS running PowerShell jobs. Since PowerShell can automate things like SharePoint and Teams, that is how marketing gets away with saying it has so many integrations. JAMS doesn't have as many built-in integrations as they advertise. I think they should build more of them, and improve on the ones they have built.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"One of the big features that they did implement, that a lot of people, us included, were asking for for a long time, is the ability to do zero downtime upgrades. They have introduced that."
"It is the automation. Saving time and money is the key. We automate everything."
"Customers save a lot of money when they use this product, because of things like the scheduling tool."
"The most important and critical process business in the bank, including COB, close of business, which has to run on a daily basis, is automated."
"It's easy to train other people. A new developer could come in and learn it very quickly."
"The ability the system has to dynamically create groups, schedules, and workflows is crucial to us. In a fast-paced, agile environment, our teams are very lean. Monitoring and maintaining of all the approximately 2,000,000 executions of Automic jobs are managed by only three employees. The system has been designed to be as dynamic and versatile as the business processes and teams that own them."
"We use it to automate our business."
"JAMS is easier to use and cheaper than our previous solution. The installation is more straightforward, and JAMS has a graphical user interface, so it's more accessible."
"One of the things I like the most, as a SQL DBA, is the fact that we can manipulate tables in the background. Also, the fact that you can have your own views and work with the product the way it fits best is a very helpful feature."
"Previously, we manually managed file transfers by writing our scripts. The automated MFT feature is great for me and the company. It helps us know where the files are going and enables us to track errors if anything fails. It also makes the connection seamless for third-party vendors."
"The alerting in it is really targeted... you can set specific alerting so that if jobs in a given folder fail, certain people are alerted. You can also set security at the folder level, so that only people in those areas can go set them. That means that the alerting and security can be set at a very granular level."
"I didn't know about JAMS because I don't have a person with any challenges with the purchase administration. The feature or the user interface is user-friendly because of the readable icons or very descriptive icons. Though I'm a beginning user of JAMS, I had no issues using it."
"JAMS has improved our productivity immensely because everything flows. I don't think we could operate at our current staffing levels without it."
"The feature or capability to import a job is most valuable. We can import an existing job from different platforms, and all the configurations get migrated as well without modifying the code, job schedule, etc."
"The user-friendly and adaptable scheduler allows us to manage various scheduling scenarios."
 

Cons

"The forecast and long-term planning could be made a little better when you work with it in the future."
"During installation, some database elective issues popped up. These took some time to fix, but after some back and forth communication, these issues were resolved."
"Our recent experience with technical support has not been good, because it took a couple of months to get feedback. Traces and reports were sent, but were not analyzed for at least two months before providing feedback, and they did not give the right traces. This took two months to find out, so that was not too good."
"They need to refine the system basics instead of adding more features."
"Every time we have an upgrade for a new version, we have stability problems, because the versions are not as good as they should be."
"We occasionally encounter bugs when applying new agent versions, patches, or updates to Automic."
"They need to handle cross datacenter failover. 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."
"The SSH agent is missing in version 12.1. Maybe it would be a good addition to see on the web client of the next version of Atomic."
"The ACL or access permission area needs to be improved. When it comes to defining and providing security permissions, it's a bit confusing if you are new to JAMS. JAMS needs to improve the features for security access or permissions."
"I'm not sure if they have fixed it in a newer version, but there is no global search in the version I have. If I have multiple sub-folders that are named for business units, like HR or IT, and I have to search for a job, I cannot search from the top. I have to go to the HR folder to search for a particular job, or to the IT folder."
"JAMS handles exceptions fairly well but there are some areas where it might improve a little bit. It has to do with being able to automatically handle exceptions, out-of-the-box, rather than having to code them."
"It does validations when you try to delete an object and if there are any dependencies in place, the deletion process will not proceed... there is no information provided as to what it was that caused the validation to fail... it's quite a tedious process to find which object is getting in the way."
"The documentation is not super... It's not as quick and slick as I'd like it to be."
"Improvements could be made in the service desk's knowledge and communication skills among engineers to better address customer needs and ensure issues are fully resolved."
"The product does not allow the users to cut and paste the job names from the screen."
"When looking at a folder in JAMS with many jobs, it would be good to have better information in the list display of what's inside those jobs. We get some information, but other important details are missing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The cost of the solution depends on the number of systems that are being orchestrated."
"Automic Automation's pricing is excellent, especially in comparison to similar solutions."
"Automatic is heavily integrated in our organization. The cost to change would be a huge factor for us, and we have not found any other product that is better out there."
"We cannot use all the functions because they are too expensive."
"Do your own proof of concept. Make sure you know what you want. Be clear about what you want the product to do for you. Go out and meet with the vendor, then test it."
"Before I joined this company, Automic had a contract with its parent company, and their pricing was very competitive. However, when we split into multiple businesses, the contract increased significantly, becoming an expensive tool."
"Our company had paid around 5,000 to 6,000 USD per license for a month."
"It's expensive, to be honest, but it does the job."
"JAMS is priced competitively compared to similar solutions and offers flexible licensing options to cater to user needs."
"There are no additional costs other than the license for Fortra's JAMS which is affordable."
"For what it does, the product is priced very well."
"It's certainly a lot cheaper than Tivoli and Control-M. In comparison to them, you get a lot more bang for your buck. You get pretty much the whole functionality and more, in some cases, when compared to Control-M, but at a fraction of the price."
"I haven't been involved in the financial side for several years, but we buy one host and unlimited agents, and we get a reasonable price for that. We're happy with the amount we pay and the scalability it provides."
"Our licensing is pretty cheap because we have a state solution. So, we pay only $1,000 a year."
"The pricing is very fair. We have seen very minimal to no price increases over the years. We are not banging down the door of support all the time either. I would imagine if we were a company that submitted a dozen support tickets a week for the last nine years, then it might be a little different because we would be eating up everybody's time. However, for what we get out of it, the pricing is extremely fair. Back when we were originally looking and brought in JAMS, we were looking at a couple of the other competitive products that were in this space, but the pricing from JAMS was far and away better than what the other competitors could offer for the same functionality."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Automic Workload Automation?
It is easy to manage complex workloads and use electronic workflow automation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Automic Workload Automation?
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.
What needs improvement with Automic Workload Automation?
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 i...
What do you like most about JAMS?
I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?
Fortra's JAMS pricing structure has deteriorated significantly since its acquisition by Fortra. Previously, both Help Systems and MVP offered more favorable pricing and licensing terms. However, Fo...
What needs improvement with JAMS?
The error messages from JAMS need clarification, hindering our ability to resolve issues swiftly. The JAMS client requires attention. Its behavior can be erratic, and certain features lack intuitiv...
 

Also Known As

Automic Dollar Universe
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

ING, Adidas, 84.51, ESB
Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about Automic Automation vs. Fortra's JAMS and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.