I have used Control-M for batch recovery and job processing providing automation solutions for in-house IT teams and dependent businesses.
Database Security Specialist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
It works on agent-level architecture, hence the usability is enhanced
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The flexibility to schedule the jobs on various OS level platforms. It works on agent-level architecture, hence the usability is enhanced.
How has it helped my organization?
Control-M has been there on back of all automated work lists by providing consistency, timely execution, and removing chances of human errors.
What needs improvement?
Currently, I am not using this tool due to change of my role duties. Hence, it is difficult for me to comment over this. Though the tool is very resource intensive and has a few levels of performance issues when compared with VM and physical servers.
Buyer's Guide
Control-M
November 2024
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815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support was not required much as we had total in-house solution consultants. Though, in times of need, BMC had their regular support SLAs to support us.
How was the initial setup?
Yes, considering our then and there needs setup was bit complex and time consuming. As it was quite obvious due to the huge organizational size.
What about the implementation team?
It was an all in-house IT setup.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Production Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The deployment agent in this version was the most attractive thing I have found -- it's fast and very useful to upgrade in one go.
What is most valuable?
The deployment agent in this version was the most attractive thing I have found -- it's fast and very useful to upgrade in one go.
How has it helped my organization?
Usually, we have to raise a change request with each application owner to upgrade agents -- which was very time consuming since we had to login and do the installation. Now it's all in one go.
What needs improvement?
Area of improvement would be if it could attach anything other than .txt files as output files.
For how long have I used the solution?
It's been seven years now.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Few database errors.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
Excellent -- 10/10.
Technical Support:Excellent -- 10/10.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No.
How was the initial setup?
Straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
In-house.
What was our ROI?
N/A.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Planning is important.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
CA.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Control-M
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Control-M. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Consultant, Production Control Services at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
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
Pros and Cons
- "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."
- "Reporting in Control-M could use improvement."
What is most valuable?
Control-M has a huge number of features and utilities that assist users in monitoring their schedules and developers to build schedules which 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.
- 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; excellent product..
How has it helped my organization?
Increased batch performance.
What needs improvement?
Reporting in Control-M could use improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
Used Control-M for 10 years and version 9 for six months.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Not that I'm aware of.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Not that I'm aware of.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
None.
How is customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
BMC service was excellent.
Technical Support:Excellent.
What other advice do I have?
Excellent product.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Sr System Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Use of AFT, DB and other modules has reduced human error.
What is most valuable?
- AFT
- SAP
- DB
How has it helped my organization?
We use AFT, DB and other modules extensively. They have reduced a lot of human error and achieved our SLAs.
What needs improvement?
In each module, one or more improvements need to be made. However, that is out of scope for this review. In a sense, if anything cannot be done in batch mode, it requires online processing with middleware.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used it for nine years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not encountered any stability issues. Control-M is a bulletproof product and very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have not encountered any scalability issues. It is a very scalable product.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is 8/10. However, a lot of techies use the online forum. If you are knowledgeable, you can solve issues yourself; otherwise it’ll go to level 3 support, which makes tech support a middleman.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did not previously use a different solution.
How was the initial setup?
I have seen initial setups that are both straightforward and complex.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing is little complex.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Integration Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Modules easily integrate non-basic batch jobs with regular batch jobs.
Valuable Features
- No product downtime
- Easy to administrate and use
- A lot of integration tools and control modules
We use the BPI (Java and web services) DB integrator, AFT file transfer, CM for Informatica Control-M modules that easily integrated the non-basic batch jobs with the regular batch jobs. There was no need to script file transfer or SQL query jobs; all of that comes straight from the BMC Control-M box.
Improvements to My Organization
The knowledge of the jobs has become transparent and business users can monitor and manage their own jobs through the self-service portal.
Room for Improvement
The reporting overall should be better; right now, external report tools have to be used. Reporting should be end-user modifiable; and there should not be a need for a separate reporting client. There should be more reporting options, for example, scheduling of the table/jobs, with nice charts.
Crystal Reports based reporting tool, need to be installed in the same box where the EM client resides. Also there has to be control-M agent in the same server to be able to run the reports in batch mode. The better solution would be to run BMC in the house developed reporting and get the date from EM database in the server level (no need to windows Server, unix/Linux is better).
In the current reporting tool, there are predefined templates which are working ok but defining own it’s not easy or impossible. You can get the data out but it’s not usable to export to excel format without heavy modifications in the excel or qlickview for example.
Use of Solution
I have used it for about two years.
Stability Issues
I did not encounter any stability issues.
Scalability Issues
I did not encounter any scalability issues.
Customer Service and Technical Support
Technical support is the best among the biggest software delivery houses.
Initial Setup
Setup was very simple.
Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing
It is expensive; the smallest IT service providers can’t implement it.
Other Solutions Considered
We evaluated IBM TWS and UC4 before choosing this product.
Other Advice
Plan the hardware setup carefully, favoring *nix OS systems in the CTM-Server engine. Try to follow “best practice” instructions about the database considerations and software setups.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Automation Specialist at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Has enabled true enterprise batch automation, which allows us to run a 24/7 site with the lights out
Pros and Cons
- "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!"
What is our primary use case?
Enterprise workload automation across mainframe and mid-range environments for a medium-size financial institution.
How has it helped my organization?
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.
What is most valuable?
Most valuable feature would be the ability to detect and notify when a process has not completed successfully.
What needs improvement?
The main area that could be improved would be documentation, just like every other software product out there!
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Technical Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Plugins (Control Modules) are available for almost all of the widely used applications.
What is most valuable?
The GUI is very user friendly and also plugins (Control Modules) are available for almost all of the widely used applications.
How has it helped my organization?
It helped to automates batches in the best possible way.
What needs improvement?
They could improve the reporting.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for 10 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not encountered any stability issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have not encountered any scalability issues.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is very good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used another solution, but switched due to its limited functionality.
How was the initial setup?
Initial setup was easy to understand.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing this product, we also evaluated Autosys.
What other advice do I have?
The tool has many features; make sure you make use of most of them.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
App Support Sr. Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Provides visual linking of jobs, and shows when there is no link to other jobs.
What is most valuable?
Linking of jobs (visual, which other products don't have): It will give you a whole picture as to how other jobs are linked to each other (or if there's no link to other jobs).
How has it helped my organization?
The product was already in use when I was started working in the company.
What needs improvement?
There was an upgrade to the project, before it was moved to BMC. It could have been better if there was a demo on how / on the changes.
For how long have I used the solution?
I used it for around six months. I was using it around the middle of 2015.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There were no stability issues as such. There were only issues in the appearance, after the upgrade.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I did not experience any scalability issues.
How are customer service and technical support?
I didn't really call for help on the production with the technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used other products but BMC Control-M is far better than the others.
How was the initial setup?
Other teams are in charge of the installation process.
What other advice do I have?
Nothing to worry, as the product works well.
It is a good product compared to the other products in the market.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: November 2024
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