Control-M Reviews

There are no specific features that I could say are more valuable than others. The whole product is valuable to us.

• Ninety percent or more of the batch processing is now centralized into a single scheduling platform. This helps the support teams so that they only need to go to one group for scheduling and monitoring the batch processing
• The operations support staff only has one platform where they can monitor almost all of our batch processing.

There aren’t any improvements that I’ve come across with the most recent release. If I had to note one improvement, it would be that jobs already in the system for a given day could be updated en masse. This could be the same on the database where the job definitions reside.

I have used the product for sixteen years.

I did not encounter any stability issues.

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

The level of support from BMC has been very good.

We already evaluated CA’s offering at the time because we were already using CA-7 on the mainframe.

Other than creating the jobs in Control-M once it was set up, I was not involved.

It is task based pricing. It is based on the number of jobs brought into the system daily and any that remain in the system from prior days.

For example, if you have 2000 new jobs that come in in for a new day, and you still have 500 left from previous days, you will need to have 2500 task licenses to cover them. This is the case, even if those 500 jobs are daily jobs that came in during the prior day and have not yet been completed.

We use BMC’s Control-M software for our open systems and SAP batch processing. We will be looking at converting the batch we are running via the solution to the same.

I’ve never used the mainframe version of Control-M before, so I don’t have any opinions about it.

Control-M has a huge number of features and utilities that assist users in monitoring their schedules, and developers to build schedules that interface with many technologies. Here are some that stand out:

• Cross-platform support. A Linux job can be dependent on a Windows job, which can be dependent on many other flavours of hardware/software. Your batch is therefore managed by a single tool, allowing you to monitor your entire flow.
• Great GUI. Easy to navigate. Customisable. Status at a glance.
• BIM (Batch Impact Manager). Proactively monitors a batch flow, against a pre-defined OLA/SLA and alerts as soon as an exception occurs that might threaten the target.
• Automated error handling. Depending on the exit status of a process, automated actions can be defined that might circumvent the need to callout.
• Forecast utility. Particularly useful after making changes to a batch flow, to see what impact those changes will have.
• Reporting utility. Generate reports for the business to track batch performance, usage, and so on.
• Mobile App. Business users can track the progress of their own batch flow, on the go.
• Control Modules. These allow you to define jobs that interface with databases, SFTP, SAP, and so on, directly, via secure connection profiles.
• Too many great features to list!

Previous scheduling solutions were platform specific, so when the overnight batch processes crossed between technologies, manual intervention was required. This was time costly and meant that it was not possible to get an overall picture of the flow/progress.

The ability to work offline would be an improvement. It is sometimes inconvenient that you cannot load and work on a schedule – unless you are connected to a Control-M Server. For example, when you are away from the office or on a train…

When you launch the application, the first thing that you need to do is 'log in' to a valid Control-M server. It would be nice if there was an 'offline' mode that would enable you to launch the application and then work on a batch schedule that can be 'checked in' to the appropriate server when you are next connected. This would enable users to be productive in environments where there is not a reliable network connection.

I have been working with Control-M for 20 years, using many versions; three years with version 8.

No.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support is sufficient. BMC have a group of specialists in Tel Aviv who will advise on the best solution to any issue. It can be a little painful, trying to send huge log files to the vendor, but they are very helpful.

I have had limited experience with Windows Task Scheduler, Cron and Autosys. These are very basic scheduling tools that do not offer anywhere near the functionality of Control-M.

Out of the box, most clients will be fine installing Control-M with all default options. You have a choice of the packaged PostgreSQL database solution, or you can opt to use MS SQL It is therefore a relatively simple setup.

Control-M is expensive, but you get what you pay for. Talk to your account manager and discuss licensing options.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options.

Do it.

We are a reseller. Our clients are from banks, retail, and pharmacy industries. We deploy versions 6, 7, 9, and 10 of this solution.

It is very easy to use. The HA feature is also very good.

Its installation can be better. Currently, we have to install it manually. The file transfer feature can also be improved. It is not very easy to transfer a file from business to business. 

In terms of new features, they can include new technologies. It can have API integration.

I have been using this solution for 11 years.

It is stable. There are no glitches. It has been working well from the start.

Its scalability is good. It is easy to scale. Our clients are medium and big enterprises.

They are perfect. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

The initial setup was easy. The deployment took two weeks.

I would recommend this solution. I would rate Control-M a nine out of ten.

It is primarily for batch job automation. It's working just fine.

It has certainly evolved over time. The latest versions have much better dashboarding and we can see what's happening. That is a significant improvement.

The automation of the batch jobs.

I would like to see automatic license management. And probably more importantly, some kind of machine learning to help identify the optimum automation path.

It's very stable.

It's as scalable as we've required. We haven't seen any problem.

Your process, standards, and control libraries: It's really important to have an advanced strategy around how development is going to take place. If each team is doing their own thing, it's hard to manage it.

My most important criteria when selecting a vendor, in this case, since it's a mature product, would be ease of migration and, obviously, reduction in cost.

I rate it a nine out of 10. What would make it a 10 would be a reduction in the cost and, even more so, the intelligent automation. The ability to do some machine learning and dynamically reduce the amount of time that the automation is taking is more important than cost at this point.

High availability through software, supported by an Oracle RAC with ASM, is a valuable feature. In operation, it is fantastic.

My clients are happy; the comment that gets repeated is, "Control-M is a very stable tool".

The web console consumes resources to my "high" point of view. Thinking about a totally web management environment is an opportunity for improvement.

• Operator = 2 years
• Scheduling = 3 years
• Administrator = 3 years

Implementation was easy and quick.

We have not encountered any stability issues. BMC Control-M is very stable in any version.

BMC Control-M is an easy-to-run, scalable, robust platform or architecture tool.

Customer service is the best.

Technical support is the best.

Previously, I had version 8, and I migrated to version 9 because of its high availability functionality.

You cannot be an airplane pilot without education; with the right education and training, the solution does what it has to do and makes it fantastic.

Providers implemented it; they were excellent.

I cannot mention ROI.

A good product always has a cost. I think the cost supports the efficiency of the product.

Before choosing this product, we did not evaluate other options.

Is a very good option for the WLA tasks within a company. There is a lot of information on the internet for it. Analyze the costs vs the benefits and if you have the option to invest in a solution that gives you automation of almost everything in IT, acquire it. You will not regret it.

The GUI interface is exceptional, beating any of the competitors’ products I have used. Also, the range of job types and integration with other products such as Hadoop, SAS, databases, etc. is very useful.

With the release of V9, we have been able to better use the features of the Hadoop product, allowing developers to use native Oozie workflows from within the product.

It is probably one of the most expensive solutions available and many of the extra functionality, such as Self-Service and BIM, are chargeable extras. It would be great if these were thrown in for free.

I have used it for 18 years.

Initially, we encountered stability issues with the V9 install, but this could be more to do with the VM infrastructure and networks than Control-M.

We did not really encounter any scalability issues; it is very scalable, especially with agentless technology.

Support has been very good in my experience.

I have used other products in other contracts, but the only experience I have of switching products was removing Control-M in favour of OPC, as it was a lot cheaper.

It is a complex product but for the most part, setup is reasonably straightforward. Some add-ins such as the BPI module can be quite challenging.

I have little experience with the licensing but I know it is expensive!

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options. As a contractor who specialises in Control-M, I tend to work for companies who already use it.

Use it. It’s the best out there from my experience.

Primary use case is automation, and it has performed fine.

I don't think it has actually maybe improved anything. It's a generic product. It just has some nice features. We could use a normal scheduler, like DOS, for the type of work we are doing but that would prevent self-service from users in the business, so that's why we are using BMC.

You can let users access the system and manage jobs: self-service.

I don't think that we're actually looking for new features. I think we are more looking for a better cost/license/performance model because BMC, while we could say it's the best, is also the most expensive.

It's just like anything else in that league. It's very stable. We are not experiencing instability or crashes. These are mature products.

The scalability is excellent.

Technical support is excellent. We called them two times in a year and there was a reply within 30 minutes, so that's good.

The only thing we would object to are the license costs. That is what we are probably most annoyed with. We are paying something like €1,000,000 over three years for having 4,000 jobs running. That's expensive.

If you can afford it, it's good. If you do have an unlimited budget, or budget is not the main concern, and you want stability then I would say go for this. It's easy to use, it's easy to install, it's easy to run, it's easy to operate. I have a student assistant who had six hours of e-learning and she can run the system. That's good. Yes, you need the right student assistant but she doesn't have any IT background. It's very easy to use but also an expensive product.

In terms of criteria when selecting a vendor, if I am to decide the vendor, it would be the biggest bang for the buck and then it would be quality, stability, and support. That is my job as manager of the IT department and therefore I have to ensure that we are getting the most value for the money.

The only reason I am rating it eight out of 10 is simply the cost. From a technical point of view, we could actually make the same jobs run from the DOS prompt, with the same stability. I think that we are paying a lot for having self-service, for having nice monitoring. I think we're paying a lot for that.

Enterprise workload automation across mainframe and mid-range environments for a medium-size financial institution.

Control-M has enabled true enterprise batch automation, which combined with the other BMC Control products on our mainframe platform, allows us to run a 24/7 site with the lights out.

Most valuable feature would be the ability to detect and notify when a process has not completed successfully.

The main area that could be improved would be documentation, just like every other software product out there!