OPS/MVS Automation Intelligence Reviews

Automation is very important to any data center; just the ability to optimize things, run more efficiently. OPS/MVS does that tremendously.

I think from our standpoint, from automation, automation is central. We've reduced people from making mistakes. We've actually improved performance because now, OPS/MVS is doing things more efficiently than a person would do; they may make mistakes; finger checks here. OPS/MVS will do it automatically, and that's been working well.

I think, for me, I’d like to see more of its web base. The ISPF dialogue needs a little bit more features. However, the web base will be even more important for me.

We're a beta site for CA. I've been with the company 30 years, so I probably have been using it for about 19, probably about 15 years.

I've been utilizing it for, again, 15 years. I'm happy with what we've seen with CA OPS/MVS.

Interestingly, since we're a beta site, we had the old automation platform. Then, when they merged OPS/MVS to automate, they really improved things with the merge. And then they started building up on it, so it's been scalable for the past umpteen years now.

I get along very well with support. Thankfully, we have a good relationship over the years; just building a relationship with them. They've been responsive to every question that we had. I'm happy about that.

Initial setup and upgrades are pretty much straightforward. Now that we've had it for so long, pretty much, we're just adding on at this point. They're pretty much stable, as far as the initial setup and also upgrades.

We've been asked plenty of times about other vendors, but for us, we've had it so many years. We don't see anything out there that actually meets up to what OPS/MVS is doing for us, so we're comfortable with it.

When selecting a vendor, we look for a vendor that's stable; that’s one of the criteria. A vendor that's been around for a little while that has the future, vision. As far as OPS/MVS is concerned, they have that. They've been working on solutions, different solutions for OPS/MVS, promoting it to the customers, and even getting feedback. That's very important for me, as well: feedback from the customers; having the ability to communicate and say, "Okay. I like that idea. Let's implement that in the next release." So, that's been good.

With any company nowadays, senior people are being shipped out, basically retiring. New people are coming in and, in the mainframe industry, a lot of the newcomers do not know the mainframe. So, having that automation platform in place and having it learn throughout the years, we had to do something.

We started off as a beta site for CA, so we learned throughout the years that it's worked value for us and even reduced head count, so that was a good thing.

I'm happy with what we've seen with CA OPS/MVS.

We use it to monitor day-to-day activity in the system and to automate things like start-up, start a task. Basic overall health of the mainframe, and day-to-day business as usual.

It has performed very well.

It allows us to respond faster to issues. If there are issues that come out, we're able to capture a message and alert somebody about it.

The simplicity of it, as far as getting new people to use the tool.

It's very flexible. You can customize what you need to, which is good. For example, you can do your own coding inside the tool, make your own scripting tooling.

The scalability. We're able to use it across our whole enterprise.

It does everything we need right now, I can't know of anything else we really need at the moment.

If I really had to put my finger on anything, mainframe tools are pretty old as far as the pricing models. Maybe that could be improved. Should I be able to buy whatever I want, and then I pay for what I use? Or maybe I don't pay anything for the product, and I then pay for the support. More of an open-source model.

It's good. It's been very stable for us, for the 10 years we've had it.

Like I mentioned earlier, it goes across the enterprise, so it's been very scalable.

We use technical support all the time for it. We're a big shop, we have a large enterprise of system. So there are a lot of issues that come up, or sometimes it may just be a question about the product. Maybe we're doing an upgrade and you need to know, "Am I doing the right thing?"

They're good. We haven't had any issues. Responsive, absolutely.

The path we were going down was between IBM and CA, and we thought about which one we should go with. For us, the flexibility and scalability is what sold us on this.

Just IBM, in addition to CA.

Our most important criterion when selecting a vendor is how closely do we partner with them, that is the biggest thing for us. What kind of attention do they give us when we have issues? We're satisfied with that with CA.

I give it an eight out of 10. There is always room for improvement. To get it to a 10, I will know when they do it. Maybe it's cheaper, maybe it's some new flexibility in the product that we've never even thought about. If they anticipate the industry, what's going forward, what's out there, is it something that you would maybe use it in the cloud.

For the mainframe it's a really good automation tool. It's been really solid for what we needed it for, and it's been flexible and scalable across the enterprise.

• The ability to create your own automation
• Flexibility
• The reliability of constant, active monitoring

The benefits are the ability to do monitoring on your mainframe systems exactly the way you want to do it. It provides a lot of flexibility. That really improves the way our organization functions.

The only issue we have is when we try to integrate with common services. That's why it doesn't get a perfect rating. The OPS/MVS product itself is really good.

We have asked CA for things, including the ability to test multi-line WTOs. This is on their backlog. We have several of those that we would like to monitor and we can’t test our code before it goes in and actually runs.

This solution is very stable. We haven't had any issues with stability in a very long time.

So far, we haven't run into scalability issues. We can use the solution when scaling up or down.

I have used technical support and they are very good. They're very responsive to any issues we run into and even respond if we just have questions.

We didn't switch from a previous solution. In 1988 when we started, this solution was one of about three tools that were available. We evaluated all of them and this one was the best. It was the most flexible and the one that would work best in our environment.

Our initial setup was probably a little complex, but that was a long time ago in 1988. The new releases are reasonably good and do not require a lot of effort on our part. It's a pretty stable process.

At the time, IBM and Tivoli (a separate company at the time) were the two other options we considered. We chose CA because of the flexibility and the way the product worked. CA was easier to interface with and they knew our systems.

When selecting a vendor, the stability of the vendor, as well as the stability of the product, is very important to us. We want to make sure that the vendor will be around to support us. We also want the flexibility of the product to make sure that it will handle our unique situations.

I would advise others to go with OPS/MVS. We still occasionally review what's in the market to make sure that it's still the best product for us and we have never been disappointed by it.

• Rules
• OPS/REXX
• SQL
• SSM
• Global variables
• OPSLOG

We control our DR tests with OPS/MVS as a wrapper to IBM’s GDPS so our operations staff does not have to manage using their interface in NetView. We also have other “applications” like managing logical engines on LPARs.

Our last main complaint was having sysplex-wide variables (outside of OPSHFI), but this is now a reality.

If you look in the v12.2 command and function reference manual, there are sysplex variables. As in, their scope is sysplex-wide. If you update one on system A, it is accessible from system B.

Prior to sysplex vars, the only option was to use OPSHFI (also documented in that manual), which uses a dataset that is accessible from all systems. There are, however, still some restrictions with sysplex vars as far as which kinds of rules you can use them in, which is also the case for OPSHFI vars.

I have used it since 1997.

We have not really encountered any stability issues. We’ve had a few cases over the years where the product would shut down due to command or message rate exceeded but those have been mitigated.

We have gotten close in one or two cases with the size of global variables but no show-stoppers.

Technical support is excellent.

In a previous life, I supported NetView and also the old Auto-operator. OPS/MVS is much more intuitive to use, especially compared to Netview/SA/GDPS.

We have another team perform the install and we do some customization or test new features. From what I understand, there are no complaints about set-up.

- NetView

I would advise others to simply install it in a test environment first, then play with all the features. I know there are also many samples and tools provided, such as how to set up a table to start up your system tasks.

We use OPS to manage our workflow with jobs.

It performs great.

It does what it's supposed to do. What we need it to do is just bring our tasks up and bring them down, and in the right order.

It brings up the jobs. We can schedule them into different groups, so we can bring up the base system first and then the applications just run on top of the that; then the jobs that aren't quite as important after that. 

We can enter special commands. It can go out and see messages as the job comes up, and you can reply commands to the messages. 

Satisfies the dependencies. 

What I like about it personally is that I can go out and interrupt what's going on and bring a job down if I need to, and bring it back up. It works out really well.

Some of the commands are long. For example, to start a job, instead of just doing "s" plus space, to start a task, you have to type in "ssm", space, "sj", space, "job equals." That's how I do it. I use the commands. I know that you can go into a panel and kick things off in a different way. Maybe that would be easier.

As far as I know it's stable. I think we did have one crash. I'm a user of it, I don't support it. But there was a crash.

I believe it's scalable.

I have used technical support and it works great.

It works well. 

System State Manager and all the built-in functions.

It’s invaluable for expediting the shutdowns/IPLs of our z/OS LPARs and monitoring our z/OS LPARs for issues/problems.

It needs to have more compatibility/interfaces to other vendors’ products.

I've used it for more than 15 years.

Upgrading the product, either adding maintenance, or moving to a new release, is usually painless.

Some earlier releases crashed occasionally, very rarely with recent releases.

Adding OPS to a new LPAR or removing it from a decommissioned LPAR, hasn’t caused any issues.

Excellent – very helpful and knowledgeable.

When I first started using OPS, there were not any similar products from other vendors, with all the features OPS provided.

Once you're familiar with the product, it’s easy to use. The documentation is very good – coding some rules for console ‘message suppression’ is a good way to start.

The pricing for the base product is probably comparable to other vendor’s offerings. There are some optional applications/features, with separate pricing/licensing, that can be added to the base product. Get a trial license first to determine if any of the ‘optionals’ are going to be of use.

OPS was already in place here when I became administrator.

Ask the vendor for a demonstration of the product.

Mainframe: Everything from message suppression to posting jobs in CA 7 and opening tickets.

It is performing well.

It watches the slug, the BDIs, and the other systems that we have. It alerts the operators when it is time to repair the communications and the IPLs.

I do not have to keep recordings. It is there and is proactive. It helps the operators, human editors, and me.

I am not using all the stuff that I could use now, so I do not know. It is working very well for us.

There is just so much in there that I am not utilizing, though I might not need to utilize. It is just not knowing everything in the product.

It is very stable. We have had very few problems with the product itself. Mostly like parameter numbers, things change. It needs to figure it all out, and suggest parameter changes.

It is good. Variability with a lot of content. Not a lot of issues and it is automated. Easy to upgrade and easy to support.

The service has been wonderful. I like the people that I have had to deal with. The process is very straightforward. I call or use the website.

The follow-up surprised me. Making sure that I am happy with what I have gone to them on. They will call after I have made changes and verify that I am happy with the changes that I did have to make. If it did not fix the complete problem, they go back over it until I am satisfied.

I was not involved in the initial setup, though I have created and brought in new releases and stuff. The upgrades are pretty easy. When I do have questions, they usually walk me through it.

I don't know which vendors that we were looking at. I was before my time at the company.

I do believe we selected the solution because it was the most robust at the time and the easiest to maintain.

I would recommend the solution. It is a very friendly solution: Easy to upgrade and it is pretty self-contained. It does everything you need it to.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• Responsiveness of support. 
• Easy to follow instructions. A lot of times you open a manual and it is like a foreign language to you, if you don't have the knowledge upfront. You need a vendor there to explain it, and CA has been very helpful.

We like the flexibility that enables us to keep up with all the other products that are coming up and available.

It's very active at keeping our start tasks on the mainframe up and running for our business solutions.

I'm in a sprint review with the next version, so I've seen some of the things that they're coming out with. It's going to very nice. I like the things they're coming up with.

The mainframe TSO side still displays green screens. Today, people are more into web and things like that. I would like to see that type of interface available for them.

It's very stable. We have very little errors with it. It is easy to configure.

Scalability is good. I'd say it's up there in the upper range, 9/10 or 10/10 for scalability.

Technical support is very good. They are very knowledgeable and very quick in getting your answers, what you need.

We've been using the solution for quite a long time; 15 years or more.

Initial setup was pretty straightforward. It's very easy to install. The documentation they give you and also the product, the way they had it set up to install, make it easy.

I would say yes, definitely use it. The ease of using it and the training is useful. It's very good.