Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

OpCon vs Rocket Zena comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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

OpCon
Ranking in Workload Automation
7th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rocket Zena
Ranking in Workload Automation
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of OpCon is 2.0%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocket Zena is 3.5%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Rivera Hernandez - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps automate all kinds of jobs and it's worth the price because it saves a lot of time and money
One problem that I had with them when we got SMA Technologies is that sometimes the jobs fail, but they automatically restart. SMA Technologies automatically gets a notification that the job has failed, and they restart it on their end, so now, we have the job restarting twice. There were times when we came into the office in the morning, and we had two files because the job ran twice. I do not know if the system can prevent a job from running the second time. If a job has run successfully, or it is running, it should not run again.
JuanGonzalez6 - PeerSpot reviewer
A continuously evolving, stable solution, with responsive support
The visual whiteboard for design and execution included with the solution is very crucial to those who are new to Rocket Zena, especially so that the learning curve is minimized and they can focus on accomplishing the task. We process our system's payroll through Rocket Zena. The fact that it's a multi-process, multi-layered application, means that we can rely on the solution for kicking off processes, notifying user vendors of the steps, completions, error logging, and historic events from the previous run times. Rocket Zena's ability to automate jobs on the mainframe as a distribution workload automation solution is good. The solution continuously improves over time. We're eager to start the latest upgrade this coming year that'll put us on the cloud. Hopefully, this will improve the product even more. We can run things natively without the scheduler if needed. The solution working properly and up to date without the need for a mainframe scheduler is crucial. We use the solution to manage a few complex operational workflows end-to-end across multiple technology stacks. Rocket Zena does a great job of simplifying our cross-platform processes through automation. The solution helps speed operations up and keeps them automated allowing us to focus on other priorities. The solution helps increase our completion rates by working overnight to meet our SLAs. Rocket Zena completes 30 percent of our workload outside of our standard work hours. Rocket Zena's cross-platform job scheduling helped us save around 40 percent of programming time by automating repetitive tasks. We use the solution to transfer our current files and keep up with our infrastructure on a few automated jobs, such as refreshing our database which happens overnight. The solution helped free up around 15 percent of our engineer's time to focus on more value-added work.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Reliability is always important, and the reliability of the system is outstanding."
"It's very scalable. Right now we're barely scratching the surface of what it can do. I've looked at Symitar's instance of OpCon and they're running something like 13,000 jobs a day with all the clients that they have. So it can go from small use cases like ours to enterprise-level."
"The greatness of it is the flexibility of the scheduling and the integration of all platforms and processes. We have integrated it with everything from AIX to Microsoft Servers; with pretty much anything that we can."
"I rate OpCon support 10 out of 10. I've never had a problem with them. I've always been able to get answers quickly and always seem to find a knowledgeable person to assist with any questions."
"The core system is the most valuable part: being able to view the processes that we've never really been able to view as a whole before. That is super-helpful, as is being alerted when issues arise."
"There are a lot of valuable features. The version that we're currently casting, Self Service, is going to be the most valuable to us. It is going to allow us to open up the doors, broaden our automation capability and help other business units to be able to automate a lot of the little things that they do from day to day. I'm really looking forward to being able to help other areas with their automation needs. Self Service is really key."
"Thus far we have only had a few minor problems, all of which the vendor addressed quickly. We have not encountered any major problems. The product is very stable and reliable."
"One of the advantages of OpCon is the ability to use the API and web services. We couldn't do that with our previous solution. We have been able to change our procedure for ticketing. When a job is down, we can immediately create a ticket from OpCon in our ticketing solution, which is ServiceNow, using the web services."
"We haven't had any problems since we installed it. It runs as expected, we haven't had any critical problems. It helps keeps the business running 24/7."
"You can click Ctrl-G and bring a diagram view. You're able to view in a diagram format. The view that it provides is easy, and you can move to the left, up, or down. You can double-click on a certain process. It'll drill into that process and all of its underlying components. You can double-click on an arrow or a component, and it'll bring up a screen that'll have all the variables that are assigned to that particular piece, as well as the values at run time. So, the diagram feature of it, at least for me, is pretty valuable."
"In the latest upgrade, Zena added a web-based client. The more I use it, the more I like it. It's an excellent interface. They do a good job of steadily improving the solution to make it more useful."
"I have found the scheduling feature the most valuable. I can map dependencies by using ASG-Zena. It gives a nice, quick visualization as to where things are."
"From a Linux configuration point of view, Rocket Zena is straightforward. It's fairly easy to set up the server and agents once you know how to do it."
"The most valuable feature is the FTP file transfer."
"Its FTP feature is very good, as is scheduling any process or task with the Zena client. I have found it to be very helpful. If a task fails, it gives you a prompt."
"I like the whole product, but specifically, I like the license part. It's very easy to acquire a license for this product."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement needed around setting up the calendars and frequencies. I would like more flexibility in what jobs run. Sometimes, with frequencies, I can't find what I want to without putting a little more labor into it."
"I would like to see OpCon being accessible using a mobile app."
"The GUI is very old-fashioned compared to Control-M, for example. They should prioritize the GUI."
"I'd like to see the product include a view where you can see everything about a specific job on a single screen."
"What can get complicated is if you're doing anything more than just the built-in jobs. If you're using the more advanced features, troubleshooting becomes extremely complicated."
"We have not explored the possibility, but one of the areas for improvement would be more integration into Active Directory, to where it could do the creation of user accounts and the additional work to integrate third-party systems into payroll systems."
"There is some difficulty with the ease of use when I don't have some of the templates that were already created. More templates would be great. Non-core featured templates are my biggest struggle."
"Stability is an area for improvement. There are FTP agents that run on the MCP and they are there so that we can transfer a file from the MCP to the Windows environment or vice versa. Sometimes, and nobody has been able to figure out why, it just goes down, and all of my jobs that need it are hanging or failing... It would be very helpful if they could figure out what in the world is happening with that FTP client that's on the MCP."
"One area where it could be improved is communication between the different servers. Sometimes there are processes that have already been completed but we get a status notification that they're still active."
"In the web interface, it stacks the tasks across the top, and they accumulate until you close or clean those out. That seems a little cumbersome. You must right-click and close all tabs constantly to keep the console clean and manage your views."
"Rocket Zena is a mainframe-based job scheduler. I would like it to be more open so that we can use it on a distributed platform."
"The scheduling mapping is a little disjointed. There is no wizard-type approach. There are a lot of different things that you have to do in completely different areas. They could probably add the functionality for creating all components of a mapping or an OPA schedule. The component creation could be done collectively rather than through individual components."
"In the next release, I would like the user experience to be improved. The user interface should be more appealing to gen-z."
"The documentation has room for improvement."
"Another one that is probably a little bit bigger for me is that when there is an issue or there's an error, it writes on a different screen. I have to find the actual process name and go to a different screen to view the alert that got generated. On that screen, everyone's processes, not just the processes of the folks in my department, are thrown. It takes me a while to find the actual error so that I could go in there and look at the alert. It could be because of the way it was set up, but at least for me, it isn't too intuitive."
"The UI is not intuitive, and it would be nice if there was a web interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Yearly, we're paying about $62,000. OpCon has an all-inclusive feature and module license, but you pay per task."
"We currently renewed with one of their new technology bundles. It's around $36,000 annually. We run a query of our SQL in our SQL database to see how many jobs we run. They're charging us per usage and whatever add-ons you want to use with OpCon."
"While the base pricing is reasonable, the à la carte options are making the overall cost more complicated and potentially problematic."
"The cost is based on the number of jobs. You pay for what you use. For us, the support cost is between €20,000 and €30,000 per year. It's too expensive."
"Yearly, it's around $30,000."
"I am the one who signs the contract. In the beginning, when I started working here, it seemed very expensive, but after I learned everything that it does, I found it worth the price."
"Compared to AutoSys and ISE, OpCon was a lot cheaper to put in. AutoSys is hundreds of thousands of dollars to just install it because they don't have an interface into our system. You have to teach them what your system does."
"This solution is slightly more expensive than our previous solution. Right now, we are paying about $40,000 a year. However, we think it's well worth the cost to keep things automated, reducing our staff."
"The pricing and the licensing are good. It is affordable and can be used to improve and optimize productivity."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Workload Automation solutions are best for your needs.
831,791 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
40%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Healthcare Company
5%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about OpCon?
My favorite feature is the dashboard feature, which shows jobs that are running, and completed, any failures, and provides dashboard reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpCon?
I am the one who signs the contract. In the beginning, when I started working here, it seemed very expensive, but after I learned everything that it does, I found it worth the price. I would recomm...
What needs improvement with OpCon?
One problem that I had with them when we got SMA Technologies is that sometimes the jobs fail, but they automatically restart. SMA Technologies automatically gets a notification that the job has fa...
What do you like most about Rocket Zena?
In the latest upgrade, Zena added a web-based client. The more I use it, the more I like it. It's an excellent interface. They do a good job of steadily improving the solution to make it more usefu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rocket Zena?
The pricing and the licensing are good. It is affordable and can be used to improve and optimize productivity.
What needs improvement with Rocket Zena?
In the web interface, it stacks the tasks across the top, and they accumulate until you close or clean those out. That seems a little cumbersome. You must right-click and close all tabs constantly ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
ASG-Zena
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LOHR, Carnival Cruise Lines, Herbalife, Digital Federal Credit Union, Synergent, Frandsen Bank & Trust
Fraternidad Muprespa
Find out what your peers are saying about OpCon vs. Rocket Zena and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,791 professionals have used our research since 2012.