Improvements could be made in naming conventions, such as adding dates and timestamps to filenames after replacing them. While the auto-delete function exists, enhancing it further could be beneficial. For example, when using SSH or WMA connections to transfer files, more detailed logs could be provided, specifying exactly where issues occurred. A pre-transfer check that warns if the file size is too large for the available target server space could be useful. These enhancements are expected to be included in the upcoming 9.0.22 version of BMC Control-M.
I don't see any area where improvements are needed in the product since the tool has a lot of capabilities. One can opt for either a job-based license or a job execution-based license, which sometimes can be troublesome. If the job count exceeds a limit, you may need to procure additional licenses from BMC. I don't see any issue with the product's capability or functionality apart from the aforementioned issue where improvements are needed. The price of the product is an area with certain shortcomings that stem from the expensive nature of the product and can be considered for improvement by BMC.
The solution should improve the out-of-the box conversion tool for migrations so the percentage result isn't so low. We have many use cases where we migrate from different vendors like Otter. When we see the result for main frames, the percentage is low. A higher percentage would give us more confidence. We want to share good results with our customers. There is no option to deploy agents from Control-M itself so they have to be installed manually and that is time consuming. BMC does provide a separate tool to deploy the software but it would be easier to do from the solution's controller.
Enterprise Operations Manager at University of Alabama at Birmingham
Real User
Top 10
2023-01-31T16:24:32Z
Jan 31, 2023
It's not something that I use every day. The supervisor of operations uses it, and as long as he's not complaining about it, I'm good. We're only using the functionality that we need to use. However, we've had an opportunity to work with one application owner here who wanted to do some transfers in the cloud and things like that. I know that there were some challenges on that, but they finally got all that set up. There was a learning curve though.
IT manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
2023-01-03T14:47:41Z
Jan 3, 2023
The solution can be improved by upgrading its features to compete with premium software in MFT. Additionally, Math and dollar features, along with product samples and VR functionalities, can be included in the next release.
Learn what your peers think about BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
Before we transfer files we have to make the connection profile first for MFT. If we did not have to do this and send the transfer files directly, that would be useful.
We need the updates to be able to maintain interoperability. We still want to be able to verify testing in production and the environment and want upgrades to go smoothly so as not to disrupt our applications. The more seamless it can be, the better remediation will go. We'd like it to be easier to maintain the administrative side. Transferring files should be easier. There are a lot of dependencies. We'd also like there to be less space consumption. There's a bit of a learning curve for new users. When we pull job applications, if we configure multiple tenants under multiple environments with a single frame while we are logging into the applications, it sometimes freezes and takes too much time.
Senior System Specialist at a recruiting/HR firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
2022-05-26T13:01:00Z
May 26, 2022
It can be difficult to stay on the right side of the licensing structure. Obviously, BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer wants to profit from it, so it's difficult for us and not cheap. It's probably more expensive than many of its competitors, but technically, there's really no downside. They have caught up with most things at the moment; for security, they added SSL a few years ago, which helps a lot, and for file transfer, they will probably have to keep upgrading to add new protocols. I am familiar with the password vaulting interface; they could probably add something for that because user IDs are a major issue in Control-M. You can now get systems that identify where the user IDs are, and you have to go there, and if you have the appropriate authorization, you can simply select a user ID and use it for the Control-M job. An interface to password vaulting would be useful, but they may already be doing so. I don't want to say this is a big missing piece only to discover that you did it two years ago. Password vaulting would be a feature that should be included.
This solution could be improved by making it possible to better control GUI when interfacing with other systems. Secondly, this solution is very expensive compared to others in the market. Previously it was the only solution in our country to offer this kind of functionality. However, technology has caught up and many competitors offer the same at a lower price.
Manager Application Services at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
MSP/MSSP
2021-12-14T11:19:00Z
Dec 14, 2021
Managed File Transfer could be improved with some more cloud features. Things have been moving to cloud, and the modules of AWS and Azure are there in Control-M, but we still end up writing codes to do that. If there were some embedded modules, it would be really helpful. As for additional features, we have been looking to integrate with SharePoint. This feature is not available.
The only improvement I would suggest is the license pricing should be a little reduced. Apart from that, I don't see anything else as a major concern with the tool right now.
Sr Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
2021-10-22T22:44:23Z
Oct 22, 2021
The solution used to have a graphical user interface for reporting. That is lacking now and it's unfortunate because customers liked it and it's no longer available. In order to compete with IT service desk management, they need to make the product more lightweight, more of a SaaS-based offering. If that were implemented they'd get back to the top. Currently, authentication and authorization portals are provided only in the case of external uploads but that should change.
Systems Engineer at a insurance company with 201-500 employees
Real User
2020-02-20T06:38:03Z
Feb 20, 2020
At this time, you can receive file transfers but it is not possible to send them. Ideally, we also want to be able to send files using this solution. Scalability is something that needs to be improved.
Senior System Specialist at a recruiting/HR firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
2019-12-03T10:44:00Z
Dec 3, 2019
The structure between the Control-M/Server and Control-M/Agent could possibly be improved. It would also be helpful if the deployment of Control-M/Agent could be simplified. Sometimes you can spend a lot of your day just doing the maintenance work to keep the system running. So that's something that could be improved. I think they could also improve the basic engineering of the server. The product has been around for a long time now, it's 30 years old, so most of the big issues were fixed a long time ago. Any issues now are not serious. The API that they recently introduced is very good and lots of people are using that. It's really about development for the future, which means improving the API. I would go back to the API in terms of additional features, in that they should expand the possibilities of the API. Not everything is possible with the API, and you've got utilities in all the controlling systems that are very powerful, but they're not all opened up to the API yet. I think they should really just expand the API to catch up with the rest of the system.
Control-M Managed File Transfer is a market leader in the field of building, scheduling, and managing internal and external file transfers. Users of this solution are able to automate whole portions of the transfer process. They can set up a dynamic scheduling feature, which will activate once a transfer operation has concluded. This automatically updates the schedule of activities that your system is supposed to perform. However, this feature does not stop with simply setting a schedule....
Improvements could be made in naming conventions, such as adding dates and timestamps to filenames after replacing them. While the auto-delete function exists, enhancing it further could be beneficial. For example, when using SSH or WMA connections to transfer files, more detailed logs could be provided, specifying exactly where issues occurred. A pre-transfer check that warns if the file size is too large for the available target server space could be useful. These enhancements are expected to be included in the upcoming 9.0.22 version of BMC Control-M.
I don't see any area where improvements are needed in the product since the tool has a lot of capabilities. One can opt for either a job-based license or a job execution-based license, which sometimes can be troublesome. If the job count exceeds a limit, you may need to procure additional licenses from BMC. I don't see any issue with the product's capability or functionality apart from the aforementioned issue where improvements are needed. The price of the product is an area with certain shortcomings that stem from the expensive nature of the product and can be considered for improvement by BMC.
The solution's price could be better.
The solution should improve the out-of-the box conversion tool for migrations so the percentage result isn't so low. We have many use cases where we migrate from different vendors like Otter. When we see the result for main frames, the percentage is low. A higher percentage would give us more confidence. We want to share good results with our customers. There is no option to deploy agents from Control-M itself so they have to be installed manually and that is time consuming. BMC does provide a separate tool to deploy the software but it would be easier to do from the solution's controller.
It's not something that I use every day. The supervisor of operations uses it, and as long as he's not complaining about it, I'm good. We're only using the functionality that we need to use. However, we've had an opportunity to work with one application owner here who wanted to do some transfers in the cloud and things like that. I know that there were some challenges on that, but they finally got all that set up. There was a learning curve though.
The solution can be improved by upgrading its features to compete with premium software in MFT. Additionally, Math and dollar features, along with product samples and VR functionalities, can be included in the next release.
Before we transfer files we have to make the connection profile first for MFT. If we did not have to do this and send the transfer files directly, that would be useful.
We need the updates to be able to maintain interoperability. We still want to be able to verify testing in production and the environment and want upgrades to go smoothly so as not to disrupt our applications. The more seamless it can be, the better remediation will go. We'd like it to be easier to maintain the administrative side. Transferring files should be easier. There are a lot of dependencies. We'd also like there to be less space consumption. There's a bit of a learning curve for new users. When we pull job applications, if we configure multiple tenants under multiple environments with a single frame while we are logging into the applications, it sometimes freezes and takes too much time.
It can be difficult to stay on the right side of the licensing structure. Obviously, BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer wants to profit from it, so it's difficult for us and not cheap. It's probably more expensive than many of its competitors, but technically, there's really no downside. They have caught up with most things at the moment; for security, they added SSL a few years ago, which helps a lot, and for file transfer, they will probably have to keep upgrading to add new protocols. I am familiar with the password vaulting interface; they could probably add something for that because user IDs are a major issue in Control-M. You can now get systems that identify where the user IDs are, and you have to go there, and if you have the appropriate authorization, you can simply select a user ID and use it for the Control-M job. An interface to password vaulting would be useful, but they may already be doing so. I don't want to say this is a big missing piece only to discover that you did it two years ago. Password vaulting would be a feature that should be included.
This solution could be improved by making it possible to better control GUI when interfacing with other systems. Secondly, this solution is very expensive compared to others in the market. Previously it was the only solution in our country to offer this kind of functionality. However, technology has caught up and many competitors offer the same at a lower price.
Managed File Transfer could be improved with some more cloud features. Things have been moving to cloud, and the modules of AWS and Azure are there in Control-M, but we still end up writing codes to do that. If there were some embedded modules, it would be really helpful. As for additional features, we have been looking to integrate with SharePoint. This feature is not available.
The only improvement I would suggest is the license pricing should be a little reduced. Apart from that, I don't see anything else as a major concern with the tool right now.
The solution used to have a graphical user interface for reporting. That is lacking now and it's unfortunate because customers liked it and it's no longer available. In order to compete with IT service desk management, they need to make the product more lightweight, more of a SaaS-based offering. If that were implemented they'd get back to the top. Currently, authentication and authorization portals are provided only in the case of external uploads but that should change.
Their support can be improved. I would like them to provide support in Spanish and have more knowledge.
At this time, you can receive file transfers but it is not possible to send them. Ideally, we also want to be able to send files using this solution. Scalability is something that needs to be improved.
The structure between the Control-M/Server and Control-M/Agent could possibly be improved. It would also be helpful if the deployment of Control-M/Agent could be simplified. Sometimes you can spend a lot of your day just doing the maintenance work to keep the system running. So that's something that could be improved. I think they could also improve the basic engineering of the server. The product has been around for a long time now, it's 30 years old, so most of the big issues were fixed a long time ago. Any issues now are not serious. The API that they recently introduced is very good and lots of people are using that. It's really about development for the future, which means improving the API. I would go back to the API in terms of additional features, in that they should expand the possibilities of the API. Not everything is possible with the API, and you've got utilities in all the controlling systems that are very powerful, but they're not all opened up to the API yet. I think they should really just expand the API to catch up with the rest of the system.