Control-M Reviews

Control-M is used for file transfer and batch job scheduling.

Control-M provides a unified view where we can easily define, orchestrate, and monitor all application workflows and data pipelines. This is important because while running a robust environment, and managing and scheduling on individual servers are quite tedious. It has a centralized mechanism where it can schedule jobs on individual components within the environment. In this way, it helps with the ease of administration and achieving business requirements.

Control-M is used to integrate file transfers within the application workflows. Generally speaking, it has helped the business service delivery. For all applications, it has helped to notice bottlenecks, using its dashboard monitoring and alert mechanism. Therefore, immediate action can be taken in the case of failures. When compared to the traditional module or way of operating and scheduling, where the centralized monitoring alert mechanism is not available, Control-M helps in achieve having the application workflow run smoothly.

Control-M is useful to automate all critical and non-critical processes. Using Control-M, we can automate application workflows as well as file transfers involved in application workflows. We can also use it to run batches related to applications. Automating these processes reduces the RTO and RPO, which helps in the case of failures. It also helps to identify bottlenecks and take corrective measures.

1. File transfer.
2. It has an easy configuration. 
3. You don't need to create individual scripts for individual file transfer jobs. This reduces the load on the individual servers, when compared to a local task scheduler running on any OS.
4. The frequency at which it runs; it can be scheduled to run every minute. It is quite fast and quickly completes the job.
5. The online dashboard and job status. 
6. It has an alert mechanism for any failures.

These items are more useful when compared to the traditional way of doing or scheduling things.

It is on the web. This provides ease of administration, where we can manage the service from a central location. Also, can check or view all the jobs on a single dashboard, where we can manage and monitor them. 

In these three areas, I would like to see improvements in Control-M:

1. It is not giving us diagnostic logs during job runs. 
2. I would like them to beautify the dashboards, in terms of the number of jobs processed which have failed or are in progress. 
3. Control-M doesn't have any dynamic reporting facilities or features. 

I have been using it for about 1 year

If you implement Control-M, and configure it properly, it is quite stable. In the last year, BMC has been releasing a number of patches or updates to make it more stable. 

Initially, stability was not good. When BMC released quite a number of updates to fix some bugs, it became stable.

For any environment with about 80,000 of the jobs running per day, at least we require 10 people to monitor it and three people to administer it.

It is feasible to scale. We have not found any hiccups.

For an environment with about 80,000 jobs running per day, it requires at least 10 people to monitor it and three people to administer it.

Centralized monitoring and administration can be achieved

BMC support will be good level with more number or expertise available

BMC support is clueless on the new issues that arise. It seems like 90% of them are escalated to the R&D department, where they research and come back with a solution.

The guides or materials available are quite useful when exploring all the features.

No solution was used Previously, most of them use the traditional way of going through scripts.

Initially, the setup was a bit complex when trying to understand what all the features and settings do. However, when we explored it more, then we understood it and became comfortable with it.

Initial deployment took a couple of weeks. But once explored more the more convenient

The implementation is always with Control-M. Look at how to utilize all the features in Control-M, work out how to use them in subsequent reports, or while designing subsequent dataflows.

Work with BMC support for upgrades and for any issues encountered.

Looking at the rate of the usage, I can definitely see there is a gain. It is definitely profitable for any organization.

Control-M will help improve data transfers by approximately 80%. As an example, if you run any file transfer schedule in the local OS schedulers, compared to Control-M file transfer, Control-M will be better than the traditional schedulers. This is because of the number of features Control-M has and the frequency at which it runs. You can also choose the type of transaction data during a file transfer, which can be helpful for scheduling and troubleshooting.

Depends on business requirement

No other options available

I definitely recommend Control-M. It is quite stable, scalable, and the ease of administration is good as well.

Useful to automate batch scheduling. integrate within applications

Can be streamlined in data analytics applicaitons with Control-M.

I would rate Control-M as an eight out of 10.

Self Service, BIM features are most valuable. As no need to login to EM client and check the job status. From any where we can login to self service poral and validate the process status. Different Control modules.

5 years back, our organisation runs Control-M 6.2. After upgrading to ver 7, application team benefited with the new features and very to easy manage their application jobs. Productivity has increased, introduced Job naming standards, stream line the application based on the priority.. etc...,

All is well in Control-M tool . Thank you for new enhancements of tool . But for some issues, BMC will suggest to upgrade to new version which will not be feasible to standards of the organisation. Hence some work around should be shown to run the business until new version was upgraded.

I am working on Control-M tool from past 10 years in different organisations.

No, its very pretty simple to deployment and configure all the components.

No issues with stability. Its easy to switch PROD to DR and vise versa, if there are any issues.

No

10 out of 9.

10 out of 0

N/A

It's straightforward to use Control-M compare to other tools. Easy to migrate from other tools to Control-M.

Up-gradation from ver 6.2 to ver 7 was done in-house.

As technical personal. I am not able to answer this question.

Compare to other tools Pricing and licensing was more. It should be decrease.

In my previous organisation, I have refer Control-M for batch process. But due to pricing client has not agrees and then client has decided to go with Active Batch tool.

No.. Happy to work on Control-M and looking to upgrade current version Control-M ver 7 to 9. One suggestion after a stable version released there should be gap of 2 year of support.

Our organization works with the cloud and databases. Our primary use case for Control-M is automating orchestration and scheduling jobs across the cloud and on-prem. We use it to monitor and report on jobs. We also use the index to integrate with the cloud service. It leverages our ability to manage workloads across various cloud platforms like AWS and GCP. 

Implementing Control-M saved us time by reducing our manual intervention. We can divert more resources to meaningful work. It reduced the amount of manual intervention needed by 30 to 35 percent. 

In addition to improving efficiency, workflow orchestration enhances our integration with other tools. We can orchestrate across on-prem and cloud environments and reliably create and integrate data pipelines. Workflow orchestration is critical to our DevOps. Control-M is constantly surveying the network.

The most valuable features of Control-M are automation and orchestration. It allows a different schedule, and we can manage thousands of jobs. It ensures we can complete them on time accurately. This automation reduces our manual intervention, significantly reducing error.

Control-M should receive more notice when it releases new features. The user interface is also a bit complex, and the navigation should be streamlined. 

I have used Control-M for a year and a half. 

I rate Control-M eight out of 10 for stability. 

I rate Control-M nine out of 10 for scalability. 

I rate Control-M support eight out of 10. 

Positive

We used Broadcom before switching to Control-M. The migration was a little complex.

Deploying Control-M is somewhat complex. It's easier to convert to the other tool. We spent more than two weeks on the deployment and received some support from the Control-M side. We had almost five teams of people working on it. First, we set up the environment. Then, we ran the installation and reconfigured the database. After that, we did functional and integration testing. 

Switching to Control-M reduced our total ownership cost.

Control-M isn't cheap, but this is an enterprise model. 

I rate Control-M nine out of 10. I will recommend it. It's easy to integrate and has the flexibility we need. 

We use this solution to automate batch processing, create automated workflows to support various applications, and integrate various endpoints in the workflow to support business processes.

File transfer between our company and partner is critical for us. MFT has provided this solution and we are now using MFT for internal and external file transfers.

With version 9.0.18, which included new features, it has increased the usage of Control-M.

Introduction of Control-M-managed file transfer has increased usage in our organization. BIM is a good tool to monitor SLAs, and being a financial organization, this is a very good feature for us.

The most valuable feature is the Autoedit variable resolution in planning. This feature allows developers to better understand the schedule, and allow them to correct any potential issues in advance.

The MFT dashboard is also a useful tool to track all file transfers. It provides detailed information about both source and destination.

Control-M MFT and Control-M API both need improvement.

The Control-M MFT has to support checksums for FTP transfer between our own Control-M agents.

The Control-M API does not support SQL database-type jobs, where a job has been configured to use the SQL catalog to locate SSIS.

BIM needs further improvement to include any dynamic-type jobs with the workflow.

The support and bug fix timeline need improvement.

Technical support for this solution needs to be improved.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

We did not evaluate other options before choosing this solution.

• The ability to view a history of jobs\tasks that have run: This makes troubleshooting a breeze.
• The ability to proactively forecast the runtime of a workflow: Managing SLA expectations and proactively generate alerts when the SLA won’t be met.
• Having a flow diagram of all workflows and the relationship between jobs\tasks: This is a visual representation of the entire workflow estate, which is updated in real time.
• Control modules: These are add-ons that further integrate Control-M with other third-party products, eliminating the need to write any custom code. E.g., Control-M For File Transfers makes it effortless to SFTP files externally or within the organization.
• Mass update: This feature allows for multiple fields of job definitions to be updated based on certain search criteria, with a very user-friendly interface.

It has given the organization visibility into how various applications relate to and depend on one another. It has reduced scripting and coding time down to almost zero with the out-of-the-box plugins.

There are many areas that have room for improvement in V7:

• Specific to Control-M for Files Transfer: Have a broader list or custom pre & post commands when running a file transfer.
• Customizable HTML shout emails, for a better user experience.
• Out-of-the-box New Day Process per table\application (This can be done with a custom user daily but requires a job to run at the specified “New Day Time”).
• Include some sort of label object (similar to a job, but only performs shouts and doesn’t have a cost), so you can categorize work flows.

Control-M V9 improves on most, if not all, of the pain points in V7.

In my professional career, I’ve been using Control-M for 12 years.

No issues experienced with stability at all.

I have not encountered any scalability issues. The way the product is tiered makes it easily scalable.

I find the level of technical support (Blue Turtle Technologies) to be exceptional. Whether it is a small query or a large problem, you will always get a timeous response and often one of the support staff members will be present on-site.

Control-M was here when I started at this organization, so I’m not sure if a different solution was previously used.

The initial setup was fairly simple. Once all the servers and DBs were set up, the installation of Control-M Enterprise Manager, Control-M Servers and Control-M Agents was painless.

Task-based licensing (number of active jobs) can get very expensive. Bundle multiple functions within a batch\script file.

I’ve tried and POCed many other workload automation\batch scheduling tools out there; none of them come close to functionality and ease-of-use as Control-M.

Decide on bulletproof naming standards\site standards. This will make implementation and promotion of workflows incredibly easy.

There are many valuable features, including its ability to interface with so many applications and allowing complex scheduling to be done easily.

BMC provides control modules that interface with third-party applications such as SAP, DB, VMware, FileWatcher, AFT and many more. These are valuable features that allow jobs with those applications to be easily scheduled.

We are able to automate a lot of scheduling, and integrate the scheduler with many applications to automate business cycles.

Cost

Provide a little customisation based on needs; the capability for development at the user level should be available. The reporting facility is a GUI with some standard queries. I think the portal needs to allow us to do reports that reflect many possibilities, like selecting fields present in the DB schema and building our own reports using the reporting GUI, rather than using any of the standard templates it offers.

Also, I’d like to be able to build a custom module for some applications that cannot be interfaced, provided we give some standard variables to connect with the application. For example, we are currently using the Axway product for file transfer on a very, very large scale. We are not happy with Axway, and would want to see if BMC can provide us a remedy for it. Or, if we were able to do some customization on the AFT module to incorporate this requirement.

I have used it for 10 years, starting with version 6.1.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

I rate technical support 10/10.

I did not previously use a different solution.

Initial setup was complex. We have integrated Control-M with many applications using some complex scripts for meeting our business needs.

Pricing and license cost is high.

Before choosing this product, we evaluated Redwood, Autosys, and $U (Dollar Universe).

If you are willing to pay for it, the product is excellent.

We use the product as our primary application tool for workload automation. It helps monitor and manage client domains in terms of configuration daily.

The product has enhanced the interface with a clear visual display of data and process batches, showing the completion status of workflows. It makes it easier to understand our organization's progress at a glance.

The platform integrates with Jenkins, Ansible, Docker, and Kubernetes. It can schedule and manage container workflows.

Integrating new solutions into the DevOps toolchain with the right approach and resources is straightforward. However, sometimes it can be complex.

It offers excellent visibility and management capabilities. It provides a centralized platform for monitoring and managing workflows and job scheduling. It supports various scheduling options, including time-based, event-based, and condition-based scheduling, allowing users to automate complex workflows efficiently.

It has simplified the process by streamlining the data workflow. It facilitates data extraction from sources, transforms it as needed, and loads it into the destination database. This comprehensive support for data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL).

It is highly effective for building, scheduling, managing, and monitoring production workflows. For instance, it allows us to set up ETL processes to run at specific times, such as daily at midnight or in the morning. This precise scheduling ensures that all dependencies are met and tasks are executed in the correct sequence. For example, the transformation job is scheduled to start after the extraction job has been completed.

Operational efficiency is crucial as it reduces processing time. Faster data flow means job workflows are completed more quickly, reducing processing time. It is essential for meeting tight deadlines and maintaining smooth operations.

While numerous scheduling solutions are available, BMC's Control-M is highly effective for managing and orchestrating workflows across an enterprise.

The platform's best features are the monitoring capabilities. It is essential for tracking activities and ensuring jobs run smoothly. Additionally, the scheduling capability excels in building, scheduling, managing, and monitoring production workflows. These features are critical to our organization's operations and efficiency.

They could enhance the product's data flow, job processing speed, and efficiency.

Additionally, improvements are needed in real-time monitoring and alerts. Developing more robust real-time analytics capabilities to monitor and report the performance status of DevOps workflows would be beneficial.

I have been using Control-M for one and a half years.

It is a stable product. I rate the stability a nine.

Our organization has a team of 50 executives who use the product.

It is scalable. I rate the scalability a nine.

BMC's service team significantly supported the development of our migration plan for the Standard AutoCorrelation Controller (SGP). Their assistance involved several key steps. First, they helped us identify and map out the different requirements and dependencies, including how SGP jobs interact with one another and their integration within Control-M. The migration plan included phases for testing, fallback strategies, and execution. Post-migration validation was crucial to ensure that all SGP jobs were successfully migrated and were functioning correctly in the new environment.

Positive

The initial setup is easy. The deployment takes two months and involves a team of 50 executives.

The platform has helped us save 30% of operations time.

The product price is reasonable. I rate the pricing an eight.

I rate the product a nine out of ten.

It automates operations for all parts of the company. There isn't a part of the company that doesn't have jobs scheduled for Control-M.

The amount of work that gets done. We execute probably up to a million jobs a day. With Control-M, there is visibility into it. There are notifications when things go wrong. I don't think our company could run without it.

I am sure it has improved application reliability and SLAs.

Monitoring is a valuable aspect of it. The monitoring tool is very good, and it is easy for expert and entry level users to use on a short notice.

The reporting tool still needs a lot of improvement. It was supposed to get better with the upgrade, and it really didn't get better. Its reporting aspects are poor, and management always wants to know things. It is sort of hard to get at tangible numbers without doing a lot of additional work outside of the system. It needs help, because it's such a useful thing to have. It needs to be more powerful and easier to use.  

Our users always want access to the database directly, so they can do their own queries and pull their own data. However, there really isn't a tool that we can give them that does what they want, and we don't give access to our production database. Although, in our new infrastructure, we are setting it up so we have a mirrored one where they can run queries, because there has been so much demand. Though, it would be nice if there was a tool within Control-M so people wouldn't be asking for this.

I don't want to have to reach out to a third-party application company to do automated notifications of any form. Right now, we still have people manually calling people and emailing people. They should have built-in integration for better notifications using an API, similar to what xMatters offers.

The stability varies a bit. There are bugs that we run across. There are some issues that we have. However, when you think about the amount of work that it does within the company, it runs a million things a day, and it pretty much works. I'm not up in the middle of the night every night with problems. Overall, it's very stable, but it's not immune to problems. Considering the amount of work that it does, the problems that it has are very small.

The last upgrade took us three years. Up until the current version that we are about to go into, you had to build out a whole new infrastructure, then extract data and put it back in place. Now, it's a huge improvement, as upgrades do not need to build out a whole new infrastructure. 

We are probably one of the largest users of Control-M due to the amount of work that it does for us, and we could have it doing more. We are currently upgrading it.

We haven't had any serious outages in quite a long time, even through the large growth that we have had. We've doubled the work in the last year and a half to two years, and it's handled it seamlessly. 

Most of the time, we don't get the answers that we are looking for from the technical support. That is why we use a consultant company.

Sometimes, it's very good, and sometimes not. We have mixed feelings. It used to be better.

Oracle Database backup teams used to do this all themselves via cron. Now, they have automated cron to Control-M for a lot of our database backups where they used to do this outside of Control-M. Other than that, I think everybody is using it.

The initial upgrade setup (for basic functionality) is not difficult.

I would like a simpler setup. We have had some challenges implementing, having to play with some different settings. In order to get it to do what was wanted of it, not alerting too often nor giving false alarms, it takes a bit of setup. Maybe something a little easier to use for setup would be nice.

We've been using a consultant, for the last two upgrades, which first came to us through BMC Professional Services. Now, we use them directly and are very happy with them. Because there is not enough internal staff at our company for Control-M to do day-to-day and upgrading, we bring in help.

It has to save us time. Instead of 800 applications internally doing their own thing, it centralizes everything into one location where notifications, etc., take the power of economies of scale into one central point of focus. So, it saves us money for us and our customers, whose jobs we are scheduling.

We have a five-year contract with task-based licensing.

We had another solution in-house because it came to us through an acquisition of some business. So, I dealt with a title scheduler for a couple of years. It was different. It was not as scalable, robust, and more difficult.

I would recommend it for the scalability and dependability. The software is constantly being improved and new add-ons are being created. It is a robust tool that's stable. It is well-supported, especially compared to a lot of other options out there.

We have had massive growth in the last year to two because of company acquisitions. We have added a lot of big data aspect processing and a lot of other processing. It has handled this quite well.

We are just starting to go into a bit of the DevOps, Workload Change Manager, and Helix Chatbox.

Even though we don't chose to use their wide scope of products, it is one of the things that is a real positive about BMC. They can handle everything a corporation could throw at it, which makes the experience of working with them a lot better.

We learn things everyday about the product and its available features. We work in an IT environment with inquisitive people. There are millions of options available, parameter-wise, within the system. I learn something new everyday by working around smart, intuitive people.