What is most valuable?
Having one repository for various output formats and retention periods. Financial firms have many regulatory retention specifications for various report types. Having the flexibility to establish 557 different retention entries, based upon business need, and then grouping the like retention period outputs together on the same media, is very efficient.
What needs improvement?
A common theme with all CA products is they state compatibility with new technologies when it has not yet been proven. Much like other technology companies that have fallen into this trap, let feature and compatibly releases be controlled by the technical group, instead of the marketing and/or management people.
I cite the example that CA mainframe products were deemed to be compatible with Extended Address Volumes (EAV) - larger sized disk volumes - when they were not.
I have been doing this for 37 years and see it all too often, sometimes to the detriment of the company itself (Storage Technology Corp. and its Iceberg array comes to mind).
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate stability at nine out of 10. For the most part, CA View and Deliver are good out-of-the-box.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate scalability at nine out of 10. It does what we need it to do.
How are customer service and technical support?
I rate technical support at nine out of 10, as we get great service. Only a couple of times was there some foot-dragging when an issue might have been multi-vendor related, and the two vendors should have collaborated instead of using the customer as an intermediary.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We've been using it since 1985. We went with it for the routine printing of all computer generated output at that time.
How was the initial setup?
The product itself is straightforward, if a new customer spends the time to implement it correctly. Our internal turnover of the product was made complex due the complexity that was created during the prior install.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I do not deal with the financial aspect.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
None, as it was basically paper back in 1985.
What other advice do I have?
Spend a large amount of time on the front-end, understanding output retention policies and the business recovery/resumption processes specific to your environment. The flexibility of the product makes this a great tool for those in industries with data regulatory issues.
