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IBM Workload Automation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 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

IBM Workload Automation
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (12th)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Configuration Management (1st), Network Automation (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Workload Automation and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Workload Automation is designed for Workload Automation and holds a mindshare of 7.2%, down 8.4% compared to last year.
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, on the other hand, focuses on Configuration Management, holds 17.8% mindshare, down 18.3% since last year.
Workload Automation
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ilhami Arikan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Surya Chapagain - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to manage and simple to learn
We use Red Hat a lot. I open tickets for the Red Hat cases, however, with Ansible, I haven't opened any cases. My manager worked with them a bit. If we have a problem with some file and we need to get Red Hat to analyze the issue and the file is 100GBs, we'll have an issue since we need to provide a log file for them to analyze. If it is around 12GB or 13GB, we can easily upload it to the Red Hat portal. With more than 100GBs, it will fail. I heard it should cover up to 250GB for an upload, however, I find it fails. Therefore, Red Hat needs to provide a way to handle this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of IBM Workload Automation is its holistic view, which helps me find technical solutions quickly. For instance, if a customer has an issue completing their workload within a specific time frame, the tool provides enough information to identify and resolve the issue. One of the main challenges is dealing with data infrastructure problems and pending updates. Workload Automation helps me leverage current AI capabilities to recommend architectural updates to avoid these issues. It also allows me to balance CPU usage effectively, ensuring service level agreements are met. The interface is user-friendly and facilitates this process smoothly."
"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 DWC, when configured correctly, is a great GUI tool to provide Self-Service Scheduling capabilities to the user community."
"The project we worked on involved the running of nearly 24,000 job instances in a single day, so I would say that the solution is stable."
"The whole product is valuable because it is a tool for batch automation."
"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."
"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."
"IBM Workload Automation provides good performance and monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don’t need an agent for it to work."
"One of the most valuable features is automation. We are doing automation infrastructure, which allows us to automate regular tasks. This solution provides us with a service catalog, like building new services and automating daily tasks."
"I like Ansible's ease of use. If you have Linux skills, you can create a reusable template for the dependencies and other configurations. I can store the templates in a repository and share them with my customers or other developers. It's a popular solution, so there is a large user base that can share templates."
"Some colleagues and other companies use it and comment that it is easy to use, easy to understand, and offers good features."
"The capacity to install products on the operating system is very valuable."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its configuration management, drift management, workflow templates with the visual UI, and graphical workflow representation."
"We can automate a few host configurations using the product."
"The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors."
 

Cons

"It is missing some features and can improve in areas where the competition is somewhat better like linking job dependencies."
"The configuration of IBM Workload Automation has some challenges. We have a difficult time customizing it, but it is similar to other solutions."
"There should be more custom documentation, specifically around Java APIs. There should also be more training. In terms of features, we are currently using only 50% of its features. We don't use all features that are available, but there is always room for improvement in all of the tools."
"IBM needs to move away from its native terminology and adopt a more cloud-centric approach."
"It should support other schedulers that aren't IBM products."
"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."
"It would be helpful to have a mobile app that could be used to follow the job schedule."
"Scalability-wise, it can be a little bit challenging."
"Documentation could be improved. Many times, if I'm looking for something, I have to Google it in a lot of places, then figure out what the best approach will be. There are some best practices documents, but they don't give you the information."
"It would be helpful to have templates for common configurations. It would make it much easier and faster rather than creating a whole script. The templates would decrease the learning curve as well."
"When you set up Playbooks, I may have one version of the Playbook, but another member of the team may have a different vision, and we will not know which version is correct. We want to have one central repository for managing the different versions of Playbooks, so we can have better collaboration among team members. This is our use case for using Git version control."
"Some of the modules in Ansible could be a bit more mature. There is still a little room for further development. Some performance aspects could be improved, perhaps in the form of parallelism within Ansible."
"Accessibility. Ansible uses a CLI by default. Those accustomed to it can find their way and adopt the YAML files easily over time. But, some users are more comfortable using UIs..."
"I would like to see improvements in the dashboards. More detailed dashboards would be beneficial because there is a lack of dashboards on Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform."
"If we have a problem with some file and we need to get Red Hat to analyze the issue and the file is 100GBs, we'll have an issue since we need to provide a log file for them to analyze. If it is around 12GB or 13GB, we can easily upload it to the Red Hat portal. With more than 100GBs, it will fail. I heard it should cover up to 250GB for an upload, however, I find it fails. Therefore, Red Hat needs to provide a way to handle this."
"The scalability of the solution has some shortcomings."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The contract is with the customer with whom we are working, so IBM is not directly involved in this."
"Pricing depends on the number of agents that you install."
"It is about one-third of the cost of a controller."
"The solution's pricing is affordable."
"The solution is a little bit expensive."
"We transitioned from a server license to per job license, and that saved us a lot money."
"To my knowledge, IWA is the only WLA product that will provide "parallel tracking" capability to assist in upgrading from one platform to IWA."
"Users have to pay a per-node cost of around $ 100 per node."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"Like many Red Hat products, they have a no-cost version of the web application (AWX, formerly Ansible Tower), but you are on your own to install and it is a little more complicated than just installing Ansible."
"We're charged between $8 to $13 a month per license."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution."
"The cost is determined by the number of endpoints."
"The pricing is pretty standard."
"Ansible is a lot more competitive than any of the others. Its setup was also straightforward. In fact, we just implemented Ansible on OpenShift, so that is how we are running the Ansible Automation Platform now."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
33%
Computer Software Company
9%
Retailer
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Educational Organization
29%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is the difference between Red Hat Satellite and Ansible?
Red Hat Satellite has proven to be a worthwhile investment for me. Both its patch management and license management have been outstanding. If you have a large environment, patching systems is much ...
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
 

Also Known As

IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, IBM TWS
Ansible
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Standard Life Group, Banca Popolare di Milano, A*STAR, ArcelorMittal Gent
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, Broadcom, Redwood Software and others in Workload Automation. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.