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BMC AMI DevX vs IBM Rational Synergy [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

BMC AMI DevX
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (2nd), Debugging (9th), Database Development and Management (19th), Mainframe Application Development (1st), Test Data Management (5th), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (6th), AI Software Development (221st)
IBM Rational Synergy [EOL]
Average Rating
3.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

PM
Developer at Selfemployed
Good for large amounts of data and has a variety of use cases but can be complex to use
It's a very complicated tool. Sometimes the customer wants better, faster transaction times. They want the solution to move as fast as possible. We're trying to scale and grow our application with more servers to get the level of speed desired. Everything from small processes to big batch processing needs to be faster.
OA
Software Methodology Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Users must go through a lot of steps to properly manipulate this solution, which can interrupt workflows and cause unnecessary downtime
We are required to use this tool by DO-178 guidance. We have to use a configuration management tool and this is the one we have been using. People see this tool more like a constraint than a benefit. Users really have to know how to use this tool and how to set the baseline functionalities for their case. The user must go through a lot of steps to properly manipulate this solution, which can interrupt workflows and cause unnecessary downtime. Synergy requires user training and development. It's not user-friendly. You have to perform a lot of manipulations; it's a bit archaic. Some people are reluctant to use this tool because they are familiar with and proficient in using Windows Explorer to navigate through directories and use WinZip to archive data. It is not a very good tool for document management. I would rate this solution a three out of ten because it's an old tool. It was a good tool 15 years ago. To get a ten out of ten I would need to see a more integrated user-friendly tool and it should be competitively priced as it is it's too expensive. I don't recommend using it because it's obsolete.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It speeds up processes, makes things easier, more efficient, and from a mainframe perspective, the way the mainframe is utilized has become that much easier."
"The smart editor helps because it will code-complete for me. I can see code working a lot faster and I'm able to get things coded in less time."
"We have seen an improvement in the rate and level of quality at which we deploy changes."
"The visual ability to see potential downstream impacts to changes being made assists our developers in understanding the impact associated with their change."
"I think the most valuable features are code management, code deployment, and code generation. The fact that those three features are included makes BMC Compuware ISPW a robust product. If one of those features was missing, it would be less robust and less interesting. But because it has those three features, it is a very good solution for code development and management."
"It's a modernized development portal and helps reduce the learning curve for younger people coming in to work on the platform,"
"BMC Data Management improved our data recovery process by simplifying it."
"One of the features that the developers like is that they can retrieve what they need with the tool. They don't have to go through some process or request something be done by another team. They can get the programs they need, compile them, retrieve the JCL and alter the JCL if they need to, and put these programs wherever they need to go for their testing."
"Managing source code, tracking modifications, and being able to analyze evolutions of source code are the most valuable features."
"Managing source code, tracking modifications, and being able to analyze evolutions of source code are the most valuable features."
 

Cons

"It would be nice to have an audit trail to see what mainframe developers are using what."
"I'm always looking for improvement in things like the documentation, to make things a little bit easier and simpler to understand, a place where people can go to troubleshoot issues."
"I'm always looking for improvement in things like the documentation, to make things a little bit easier and simpler to understand, a place where people can go to troubleshoot issues."
"DB2 is a hard tool to grasp. It's hard for users to learn how to use it. It's not easy to see how it works."
"Technical support has gotten better over the years, though there's always room for improvement."
"Their technical support could be better."
"I'm waiting to see what 19.2 for Topaz looks like, but I have a problem with the JES Explorer right now. It limits you to a certain prefix for job names and there are some groups that have multiple prefixes that they'd like to see all at once in their job names, because of how they work in a group. And they can't see that in the JES Explorer."
"Initial setup can be tricky in some cases."
"I don't recommend using it because it's obsolete."
"I'd like to see more integration with respect to requirement management, though this is not possible with this Synergy solution. I know that PTC enables this feature as well as Polarion. We need to have full trustworthiness and accountability in knowing that the tool will track every modification from specification through to the source code, with Synergy this isn't possible. The solution requires additional tools like rectify, desktop system solutions, to enable trustability between requirements, from one specification to another."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, Compuware tools are very competitive."
"In terms of pricing, there isn't an extra charge for the parts of it we use. It comes with the licenses we purchased for other products, so no complaints there. The licensing is built in with the other products that you purchase from Compuware."
"The price point is great."
"I like the seat-based licensing much more than MSU-based licensing, and that the cost has been competitive."
"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
"The only thing I would mention related to the licensing and/or the pricing, is that they have some visualization features in there that are licensed by concurrent users. We're starting to trip up on that. We're looking to probably increase the number of concurrent licenses that we have. But those types of licensing strategies, where they license by concurrent users or the number of seats is confusing for some people. They don't understand why it works sometimes and doesn't work other times."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with BMC Compuware Topaz Enterprise Data?
It's a very complicated tool. Sometimes the customer wants better, faster transaction times. They want the solution to move as fast as possible. We're trying to scale and grow our application with ...
What is your primary use case for BMC Compuware Topaz Enterprise Data?
We do development for our customers and we use Topaz to do backend systems for some Latin American banks. It's for enterprise data. It runs on AWS. I'm working on performance testing to do batch pe...
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Also Known As

File-AID, Data for Db2, Code Debug, Data Studio, Workbench for Eclipse, Code Pipeline
IBM Synergy, Rational Synergy
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Helvetia, The IMT Group, Hapag-Lloyd, Royal Bank of Canada, Chunghwa Telecom
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