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BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench vs BMC Compuware Xpediter comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench
Ranking in Mainframe Application Development
1st
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
BMC Compuware Xpediter
Ranking in Mainframe Application Development
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Mainframe Testing Tools (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Mainframe Application Development category, the mindshare of BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench is 29.3%, up from 24.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Compuware Xpediter is 7.7%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mainframe Application Development
 

Featured Reviews

JS
Oct 8, 2018
File editing/browsing and the debugging features help onboard developers who are new to the mainframe environment
Initially, it was fairly complicated. Topaz leverages the functionality from other products quite a bit, and the setup issues were attributed to those other products: things that we didn't have in place, we didn't have installed, we didn't have configured. I spent a lot of time going through the features of Topaz that were not working, trying to find which product it was that was missing a configuration step or a setup step. That took me the better part of six to eight months to get it all ironed out. It was fairly complicated to get all of the features and functions working. As far as Topaz itself goes, they're just built-in and expected to work, but as I said, those features are really attributed to other products, the setup and configuration that's required for those products. But since we've gone through those initial setups, doing upgrades and doing maintenance has been really straightforward. There has really not been a lot to do in the configuration and setup portions.
it_user448059 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 26, 2016
From a development perspective, it allowed me to validate every line of my logic if necessary, most times in one pass.
From a development perspective, it allowed me to validate every line of my logic if necessary, most times in one pass. In other words, Xpediter allowed me to churn out quality code more quickly than I would have been able to without it. Better quality means less rework, so reduced support costs. Being able to deploy code faster means I could get more projects done, which translated in to an increase in revenue. From a support perspective, Xpediter helps you to figure out where things are going awry without having to be an expert in the business function that is being performed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Once we got the configurations and deployment rolled out, it was very stable. I haven't had any major issues with Eclipse or the Topaz Workbench plugins."
"From a user perspective, the GUIs make it easier for people to see and interact with files on the mainframe."
"It's a modernized development portal and helps reduce the learning curve for younger people coming in to work on the platform,"
"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 can develop in parallel today on ISPF, but it's giving us the advantage of the newer interface into the mainframe programming languages that younger programmers can use and are familiar with, rather than using the ISPF green screen."
"The most valuable feature of Topaz is Xpediter. It's more flexible than Xpediter through MVS."
"It helps our staff work by speeding up their documentation process."
"I like the ability to flow through the source and see what happens to the data as the statements are executed. If there is a fault, it will track the event, and we can then look back to see why it may have caused the fault. You can also reverse engineer your test. You can set it so that you can go backward as well as forward in your test. This is something that I haven't done here at my company. Compuware Xpediter is one of the best debugging tools for mainframe software development. We have currently licensed only the COBOL language for Xpediter, but I know they have other languages, including Assembler, PL/I."
 

Cons

"It's not as intuitive as it should be. In terms of navigation, there is a large training curve for using it. For a millennial it might be better, if they're used to Eclipse. But coming from a non-Eclipse environment and using Eclipse, though I have experience with Eclipse, it might be cumbersome."
"It often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment."
"It would be nice to have an audit trail to see what mainframe developers are using what."
"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."
"The area for improvement is related to the testing tools that are available for unit testing or acceptance testing. I know they have some out there that we are not licensed for at this time, but it seems like some of the Eclipse tools that are used for other programming languages, they're all just built-in and they're a little more intuitive to the developers. Making those testing tools as intuitive as possible, and as integrated as possible into the workbench, would be really beneficial."
"The ability to edit source code that has special characters is limited. The ability to incorporate or convert REXX into macros that are usable under the Topaz software is not there. And the REXX macros that I have developed over 40 years of work are useless, so I have a toolbox I can't use or deploy using the Topaz technology, while I can use it under MVS."
"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."
"It would be good if the vendors would work together or at least have some collaboration between them, so they would know what would work and what wouldn't work. Right now, the way things are working, they're relying on the customer to make everything work."
"Their technical support could be better. There were times where, when we reported bugs, they would fix one bug but add another one. That's probably because of their support model. A lot of organizations are developing software using Agile rather than the Waterfall method, so things are happening all over the place. You get things quicker, but sometimes one fix will break another one or add other bugs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, Compuware tools are very competitive."
"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."
"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Insurance Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Erste Group
Credit Union, IMT, Chunghwa Telecom, Pitney Bowes, Helvetia
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench vs. BMC Compuware Xpediter and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.