Automic Continuous Delivery Automation [EOL] Reviews

Indirectly, we are providing solutions for our clients. We are consultants for our customers and act as system integrators.

I like that really complex deployments are possible with it.

It's very good. You have everything you need.

You can design your workflows for your needs. You can do so much more, it's not just an automatic installation tool. It's a real deployment tool. I can do the complete deployment with everything that is possible.

The initial setup can be simplified. It's a bit complex.

The stability of the solution can be improved.

I have been using Automic Continuous Delivery Automation for four years.

There are some bugs. For example, during the design of a workflow, important information is lost, it vanishes. We thought that we were ready, only to find that the information wasn't completely saved as we expected.

We have less than ten people using this solution in our organization.

Personally, I have not contacted technical support.

Getting started and working took some time. It was not easy.

There are many concepts behind it.

We have an in-house team to maintain this solution.

We had the help of a consultant to help with the initial installation.

Customers often complain about the price.

There are several open-source tools available that can be used, but they don't have all of the capabilities.

There are other tools also available with similar capabilities but are commercial tools.

Both Ansible and Atomic are good. Automic is more for complex installation for the enterprise. If I want to deploy applications such as Linux, AIX, Windows Server, and a Database and I have a complex environment, it's better to use Automic.

If I just have a Linux machine, it is best to use Ansible. I have heard that Ansible has improved its capabilities in the last couple of years.

We are very happy with this solution but the customers are not happy with the price, therefore I would rate Automic Continuous Delivery Automation an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for job run file transfers.

We are able to integrate all used platforms including IBM Mainframe for file transfers.

The agents are one of the solution's most valuable features. I like agents for file transfers so you can transfer the files from agent to agent on the different platforms.

The event monitor is very good. You can monitor when the file is created so you can pick up the file once it's done.

The interface is good.

The cut/paste translation can be improved. I've found that sometimes it's difficult to copy exactly between different platforms. Sometimes it takes some manual changes.

The solution's implementation processes could be simplified.

File transfer is not very efficient. It takes a bit longer than some other methods and when you send the file from one platform to another, especially from the mainframe, the results consumption is quite high compared to other methods.

There needs to be better error handling and error descriptions. It should be more clear what the errors are and what we can do to fix them.

Limitations in character conversions - sometimes special characters are translated differently comparing to regular FTP transfer, even if the same code page definitions are used. It would be useful to prepare manual and instruction on possible conversion problem solvings and extended settings.

I've been using the solution for three years.

From what I have experienced, the solution's stability is good.

Running the solution on the cluster goes well even if it is a big cluster. From that point of view, I'd say the scalability is okay.

It seems to use more CPU on IBM Mainframe for file transfer than FTP embedded in IBM z/OS solution. That needs to be improved.

We had calls for technical discussions and problems resolutions. The response and involvement is correct. Once the recommendations were not accurate.

The initial setup is complex. Deployment varies from platform to platform, but the longest it took was up to two weeks especially when you are not sure what settings you should implement on the mainframe.

We handled the implementation ourselves.

There are no extra costs above the standard licensing fee.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I'd rate it higher if the installation was easier and if their file transfers were faster.

Our primary use case is for the deployment of web service applications.

The IT process automation is the most valuable aspect of this solution. 

We have been using Automic Continuous Delivery Automation for three years. 

It's stable.

It has never-ending scalability. It depends on the hardware. 

Their technical support is very good. 

The initial setup was straightforward. The time it takes to deploy depends on the complexity of the deployment. An easy deployment takes one or two hours.

We have seven users using this solution in my company. 

We chose this solution because we have a good license agreement and because it's a product where I can process my job centrally.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

Not a perfect ten because the user interface is brand new and it needs improvement. 

My advice to someone considering this solution is to be very flexible with this product. You can automate everything you want.

The naming of the object is very important because the user's rights depends on the naming of the object.

In the next release, I would like for them to include a workflow engine that I also can automate business processes and not just IT processes.

It gives us the advantage to release and deploy, so if there are packages of different systems within a release plan, we are able to control and steer our releases so they are stable. This is very beneficial for us.

What we like about the product is that it is more or less an umbrella system that allows us to integrate many different systems into our heterogeneous environment. 

It would be very beneficial for us to see integrations into cloud environments, especially into the Google Cloud environment because we are heading towards cloud. This would be very interesting for us to see.

In the past, when we did not use the product, we quite often had problems due to stability of the deployments. Since we started using the product, it works better and the solution is quite stable.

We have not had any issues due to scalability so far. So, I am assuming it is okay.

Technical support is very good for us. We are working very tightly with our support from CA. We have implemented this solution together with the support, and we are very satisfied with it.

We were not using anything before. We were planning to do this solution by Automic at that time because the product was by Automic. They gave us a product overview and showed us what we could do with the tool. That was the start of us making a proof of concept and investing in that direction.

We did not have any issues with the implementation process. More or less, they did the job for us.

I would rate the product as an eight out of 10.

We use a single application and are trying to deploy it with Automic Release Automation (ARA). It works for one component, so we decided to spread the tool to all our applications and make it the status quo. Today, we are still trying to deploy more applications with this tool.

The main benefit is you can deploy everything with it, but everybody has to need to use this tool in the organization. If some organizations have their own tool, it is hard to make it clear that ARA would be better if everyone used it, because it provides a benefit when you can monitor all the users.

The parameters in this tool are valuable, but there are also some mistakes with the management of its parameters. This tool needs more user management for its parameter. What it has is not enough. 

• I need a better way to manage users. I need user groups and dynamic properties in Release Automation. 
• I want to access separate users in different folders. That would be good.

There is an issue with the stability in the tool. The process of agent will stop, then the monitoring agent can't be recognized because the process is running, but you can talk with the system. This is a big issues with the tool because the agent has to run. If it does not run, then the process has to stop, so the monitoring tool can see that the process is not running, and that does not always work.

It depends on the contract that you have with Automic. If you have a fixed contract, it has limits to spreading out. If you have a flexible enterprise license contract, then you have a lot of scalability for this tool. Then, you can use everything. So, it will depend on the contract that you will make with Automic.

For Automic, we use the typical support, not any specific technical support. We make a ticket, state what we want, label it: Automic, and they answer.

If you have a technical problem and need development of the tool, the support team is terrible, because they cannot help with the technical details. They ask the development and the answer doesn't help. They say "We can see the problem, but the customer will have to do a workaround." That is a typical answer.

In the past, we used a mainframe system BS2000 and UC4. We used this before and was able to use BS2000 with 2000 agents, which was very important for us. We decided to use UC4 before so we are in contact with Atomic the whole time.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Nowadays, it costs more than before, because of the conception work you have to do and not every team uses it. So, we have more costs.

In the future, when everybody uses it, then we can lower our costs because of agile, and it will be more efficient than before.

I would recommend not using ARA, but Automatic Workload Automation (AWA) because it is a more flexible tool. You can deploy and do release stuff on it.

We use it to installing a complex application in a legacy world. 

• It supports our legacy, complex environment. 
• It gives us good feedback on visualizations and on how our processes have progressed. 
• We use it as a way to communicate during installations of complex environments to stakeholders.

It can support the following:

• Very complex environments
• Very complex dependencies
• Legacy environments.

At the moment, the version that we are using (version 12.0), the environment is complex with multiple installations. Therefore, the monitoring is not scalable, but this should be improved in 12.1 and 12.2.

It is very stable. That is also one of the core benefits that we press a button to do the installation. We can rely on that it is finished after eight hours, and that is a very good situation. Before, it was a manual installation, and we had a lot of issues afterwards. Now, there is a full stack installation and automatic insulation, and we can rely that the installation is working.

The solution is very scalable. 

Right now, we have formal direct contact with the Automic people from the Netherlands. We also have a contract with their consultants, who are supporting us. The support is very good.

The initial setup was very complex. It was underestimated at the beginning. There is on one hand the technical aspect of the solution. On the other hand, we underestimated the organizational aspects in the company, because we also touch on processes. This was more complex in the end from a technical sense.

It is a three week manual installation for a complete server farm. Now, we have moved to an eight hours for this installation. That is the main benefit at the moment. 

We save a lot of work on a lot of installations and have additional resources working on these manual installations. These resources can improve other things than the installation.

I can save time and money more quickly.

Before we started, there was a evaluation. An interesting point was that CA was approached as one of the two solution and Automic was the other. Then came the merger, and it was clear after the merger, we would be using the Automic solution and going with CA. 

It is a good solution. It is very stable and supporting for legacy environments. For complex environments, which have to be installed or managed, then it is a perfect solution.

We are at the starting point of our digital transformation and the speed up is just starting as everybody knows it is necessary. We can't stay with this manual installation, especially as the competition is not. 

Main criteria when selecting a vendor: A simple installation that they could use. 

They wanted a tool which could handle very complex environments with many dependencies and difficult workflows, but focus on installation first.

We deploy contained releases. This means we deploy every three months, nearly 160 applications, to our customers.

The measurement and the display functions make it easy to report all the statuses up to management.

It has helped our customers with their time, costs, and resources.

The most valuable feature is the ability to see which problems have been resolved from deployment. The monitoring is easy because of the colors and statuses, which are shown by colors on the report.

We hope that we can integrate the new CD Directive into our portfolio, so we can bring the deployment and release management closer together.

It is stable.

We can easily scale.

We are the developers and support team for this product.

The first time setup can be very complicated. It is not so easy for a non-technical customer to set up, but with time and training, it does get simpler to work with.

I would absolutely recommend this product.

This product has been chosen for automating application releases at a bank, who is our customer. The primary reason was to increase the patterns of releases from 12 a year to more.

It performed really well. The pilot application that we implemented with them at the beginning of the year has been chosen to be a level up agile methodology, and within the three months that they used from the start of the project to going live, they have done approximately 600 deployments. This would have been impossible, given their present capacities.

The bank that we work with happens to be the most innovative bank in Central and Eastern Europe. They describe their main business justification for looking for a product such as this was to maintain a competitive edge and stay on the leading edge of innovation. They have gained efficiency that they cannot achieve in any other way.

• Speed and reliability of the process.
• Self-service for developers, because they are able to deploy to development departments on their own, without needing people from operations.
• The product provides efficiency, in terms time, cost, and resources.

The dashboard should allow you to see the current state of packages in each environment, not only on an individual application basis, but across the entire application platform. While this has already been resolved by the in-house development team of the customer, it would be nice if it was improved going forward.

The stability is fine. Our customer appreciated during the PoC phase that this is truly an enterprise class tool. It has the reliability, stability, and the performance that they need going forward.

In terms of number of applications and deployment targets, the scalability will satisfy the bank's current needs. They have space to grow. 

In terms of technical support, there was one minor incompatibility and license issue when we upgraded to the new version, 12.1, that we worked with them to resolve.

From my point of view, it was very straightforward.

The customer was ready and prepared. The experience from the PoC was so impressive that knew what to expect. Automic worked really well with us, and the pilot application was deployed within a couple of weeks.

In the beginning, it was the Automic staff that helped to deploy the pilot application. It did not take too much. Altogether, they used about 20 to 25 consulting days. 

Our customer was able to go live within three months.

Get hands-on experience, because these solutions are very similar to each other on paper.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

From the customer's perspective, the cost of tooling versus the productivity business benefit that it would bring in. Automic excels in this area, because it provides a wonderful user interface which is easy to use.

The primary use case is the implementation of software updates.

We save a lot of money. We have not had so many incidents in terms of correcting the deployment.

We have saved on our time costs and have seen more quality.

Stability is good. We have no problems.

CA Technologies technical support implemented the software. They were helpful.

We increased our quality and reduced our time costs.

In the beginning, we invested 50,000 Euro in the application. We expect the return to be more.

I am happy with the product.

We wanted to put in place release control, release management for our products, which is more centered around a COTS application, into an automated process. That's when we started looking for different tool sets and did a PoC with a couple of vendors. CA Automic stood out there. We started using it for both our service orchestration pieces as well as for release automation.

So far, it's been doing well. In terms of our expectations, it's what we were looking for. There are some angles where we are still refining it or maturing our processes around it, but we have covered a lot in the last about 18 months since we purchased and deployed it. We are about to take about 30 applications under the release automation and going live with a large program. So far, so good, I would say.

I would say our headwind, or our time to market, is reduced considerably. We get more consistent results out of it, because you write one time and once it's automated you expect it to behave the same way every time. And it cut down a lot of re-work for us.

Scalability and auditability. The capability to provide visibility to the stakeholders, to management, is the biggest piece that showcases what the solution is about. Our whole approach of release automation is geared around it.

One of the biggest features I've been asked by my team to put in there is opening more scripting languages to be part of the platform. There is a little bit of a learning curve in learning how to code some of the workflows in Automic at this time. If widely used languages like Perl and Python were integrated, on top of what's already there, the proprietary language, it would make it easier to on-board new resources, and it could become a little bit more widely adopted tool going forward.

It's pretty stable. We have a good number of servers under its control right now. We haven't seen any issues where we've seen it's not stable or it's impacting the infrastructure negatively anywhere.

As I said, scalability was one of the key points when we looked into. It's quite scalable for us. The enterprise size that we have is well controlled and well defined for us, so it's good.

We actually have a professional service engineer onsite from Automic, and he's part of our team. He helps us implement best practices; trains our guys as we roll in new resources. It helps set the stage for us. Very helpful.

We had a lot of challenges to begin with. There was a big vacuum of tools when we started looking into it. For us it was natural that we knew what we were struggling with, and management was looking into doing something different, something better. We started looking out for some of the tools and solutions that could help us bridge that gap.

We did a couple of trial and errors to begin with, but with the help of the Professional Services guys, it didn't take that long. We were up and running in about two weeks' time, and started putting pieces in there.

We started with IBM tool sets. We had Electric Cloud that we looked into. And then we looked into Automic, and a few others; open source tools, as well. And then we naturally aligned towards Automic.

We went with them because of the stability of the company. We were looking for a partner, a well grounded company, how long they had been in operation. And we also looked at some white paper case studies out there, that helped us. And then we did a couple of proofs of concept with some of the vendors, and for our use case, what we were trying to implement, Automic stood out.

Our most important criteria when selecting a vendor are

• the size of the vendor itself
• how stable the company is
• how long they have been in the market
• what product suites they have that can help us achieve our goal at the end of the day. 

We look for partners, not vendors per se, that can help us implement our vision with us, and that's why we like Automic.

I give it a good nine out of 10 at this time. The one piece that I think that could help leverage more of the tool is the scripting language barrier at this time. If that's not there, and some of the pieces that could be delivered faster, it might be adopted more out there in the market.

I would suggest look at the complete offering that's out there. I would suggest: Prove it out first with the use case that you have. We were not shy in terms of running some proofs of concept with a couple of big vendors out there, and then making them make the case why their product suits our use case. And don't be shy to restart if there is something that you think is not going right, make sure you fix the problem before it gets too late.