Control-M Reviews

We are using Control-M mainly to schedule our jobs and also for file transfers. We are now in the process of using Control-M to take some workload off our mainframe. 

We use it mainly for job automation and handling large chunks of data automatically.

We have Informatica workflows, which make up about 50% of all our jobs. Then, we have all kinds of software on Windows and Linux servers. The file transfers are another big thing on Control-M. However, we are mainly using it to automate our in-house scripts, like monitoring and whatever needs to be done.

We mainly use desktop clients. Some users are also on the web. Currently, we don't use the mobile interface at all.

We have some batch jobs or Informatica workflows that create the files for file transfers. We have those on Control-M, so it is all automated and happens through the conditions.

Our daily customers' accounts and credit card actions files are processed by Control-M automations every day. That is pretty much part of the core of our business. Other critical components are some monitoring scripts and health checks on our servers, which are run from Control-M. This has made things easier because we have the Batch Impact Manager on Control-M. So, we can use that to send emails, like, "We haven't received the daily-files yet. Or, the daily files are going to be late." Therefore, we have proactive monitoring if things aren't running on schedule.

I don't think it transfers data any faster than before. However, we now have better control and can also send emails to the correct people directly from Control-M, like, "Hey, this transfer is now complete." In terms of data transfers, and if something goes wrong, it is easy to just rerun the file transfer.

If we are using the Batch Impact Manager, it has caught a few times where the job has been running for a while and may not meet the deadline. There may be a loop somewhere, where one job has been stuck for a few hours. So, in this case, the Batch Impact Manager notifies us that it is taking quite long. There are days that this is useful to locate issues.

Multiple scheduling options allow you to do anything you want, whenever you want, and however you want. You can easily be in control when things happen.

Control-M provides us with a unified view where we can easily define, orchestrate, and monitor all our application workflows and data pipelines. This is quite important because I am our Control-M administrator. So, it is pretty important to me personally, but also for the company. It may not yet be quite in the center of our business, but we are clearly using Control-M as our main scheduling program.

Since we are using version 9.0.18, the web interface is a bit outdated and doesn't really support all our needs. However, we are migrating to 9.0.20, which should give us a lot more options, even in the web interface.

The unifying features between Control-M for different platforms needs improvement. The scheduling options on the Control-M mainframe jobs are different than they are on our Linux server. There are a few differences here and there.

There are capability-related issues between versions, but I think the latest fix pack has that covered. BMC has been doing a pretty good job about this.

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

The stability is pretty good. We haven't had any issues with Control-M being unstable in the last two years. They are up and running 24/7.

One person is the minimum needed for day-to-day administration of Control-M. We have three admins, who are also our SFTP and file transfer team. Someone just decided that they should be the Control-M admins, so they made all three of us go through the admin classes. Now, we have three admins. 

Scaling has been pretty simple and a straightforward process. We just recently got the Control-M Workload Change Manager, which is an additional plugin to the main software. That installation was also quite easy. We got it up and running pretty quickly.

We have about 10 people using Control-M actively, who are system specialists and business intelligence specialists. We have three admins, then we have some batch job designers from the mainframe team using Control-M. We have also trained some of our Informatica people so they can monitor their own workflows and create new jobs. They can basically do whatever they need to do by themselves. 

I would rate their technical support as five out of five. They have been really helpful and knowledgeable. Even though there have been some cases where support has originally said, "Well, we don't know for now," they have asked for data and provided us with a solution pretty much every time we have had any issues. 

If they don't have a solution on hand, they take it to the lab. We communicate with them and the lab, then everything works out pretty well. Even if there is a big issue, which isn't very common, they have just taken it, and said, "We will see. We will go to the lab where we will test".

The interface guide and YouTube videos have been somewhat useful. However, there is too much data in there. When you try to search something, you get too many search results that weren't exactly what you were looking for.

I don't think anything has changed that much. We used to have CA-7 before Control-M. Now, Control-M is just kind of taking over. So, not much change happened. It is just a new software to do the old job. 

We have benefited from Control-M. It is much easier to use and a bit more versatile than CA-7. 

I personally don't use CA-7 because it is located on the mainframe, and I'm not a mainframe guy.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup of Control-M.

We are currently in the process of upgrading Control-M into a new version. We have been working closely with BMC's technical people. 

So far, I think it has been good. No one has been talking about getting rid of Control-M. It is more like we are increasing our Control-M usage, if anything.

Control-M has improved our service levels on pretty much any aspect. Now, we can see the Control-M estimates of when a certain job will be completed. They become pretty accurate once a job has been running for a week or two. It can predict quite well when a certain job will be ready. So, if a customer asks us, "When are we going to receive our file?" I can check on Control-M, then say, "Well, I would say around...," whatever time it shows and let them know.

We have the CA-7 on the mainframe, and I have seen it being used along with Control-M. Control-M seems to offer a much better user interface, mainly because it is graphic and not on the black screen of a mainframe session.

I don't think our data analysts are currently using Control-M. We do have Informatica software in use, which is some sort of data analyst software.

Always make sure that you have at least double checked everything, because Control-M does everything you tell it to do and exactly as you tell it. Therefore, make sure you are giving the right orders.

Working with Control-M has been pretty complex, but that has been mainly due to our corporate policies since we are located in Finland and in the banking sector. So, there are hundreds of things that we had to consider. While it has been a complex process, it has been more because of our corporate policies rather than Control-M. Once we decided everything, and everything was approved, just taking Control-M into use has been a pretty straightforward process.

Definitely take the scheduler course provided by BMC. That was hugely helpful for all of us. Trying to learn Control-M on your own will be a tough path to walk.

We have Control-M on the mainframe. As the mainframe will be taken down in a few years time, we have to replace the mainframe scheduling agent with something else. That will be Control-M.

Our dev teams are running their own fields. Once they are ready, they go through systems to store into production, then we can automate it. However, during DevOps and other testing phases, we may not use Control-M at all.

I would rate Control-M as a nine out of 10.

We use the solution to automate our business batches, workload processing, and some elements of our IT and system maintenance procedures and processes. These include sequential clips, programs, and workflows. We automate these and have them scheduled for regular execution. We needed an orchestrator, and Control-M fits our requirements well.

The availability of data and reports is vital, and the solution's capacity for timely processing and build generation improved considerably over time. As our operation grew, so did our use of Control-M, and there has never been a delay in the availability of data and reports, even with very high workloads. Eventually, we could also bring automated control over our back end. Control-M makes workflow orchestration simpler; it can deal with an impressive amount of transactions.

We realized the benefits of the solution a long time ago, and from time to time, there will be a situation that reminds us how valuable it is to us. Control-M is an overwhelmingly stable and steady product, free from issues and frequent disruptions. As is the case for any such tool, there are occasional bugs and fixes, but overall, it's a stable product and a fully integrated part of our operation.

The product has improved dramatically over the years; it offers a lot in terms of features and capabilities and integration with third-party tools. A wide range of models available with the product is critical in reducing manual and mundane work such as custom script writing. This saves significant amounts of time and, by association, money for the organization.

As a Control-M user for over 15 years, I see it as very straightforward to create, integrate, and automate data pipelines. Even in the beginning, when Control-M was more of a data architecture product, it was easy to pick up. I've seen multiple people adapting very well in terms of adapting and enabling the capabilities of the solution for business; it's straightforward. 

Ideally, agent lift modes of connectivity would be established on different platforms. We can get applications integrated directly with Control-M. That's a recent feature. There are ready-made platforms and plugins which allow us to see templates for workflow orchestration in third-party and custom in-house applications. It's a straightforward solution, and this is an area where Control-M excels.  

Our customers are pleased being with Control-M, despite some minor hiccups, which happen with any solution. They have been happy with the product for years, and it's an enterprise-wide batch workflow orchestration tool. That's how it is established in our organization and what our users are satisfied and familiar with. 

The process execution speed is excellent and has constantly improved over the years.

The bottom line is Control-M is a mission-critical solution, it's integral to our organization. 

Regarding product design and R&D, the DevOps pipeline could be improved with better capabilities and automation. API security and authentication is another area that could use improvement; users must have static credential passwords, which is a security concern.

The REST API supports FTP for file transfers, but we would like to see additional, more encrypted protocols and simplified file transfer encryption. Currently, the solution offers PGP encryption, which isn't the most straightforward. 

We have been using the solution for around 15 years. 

The product is stable.

The solution is scalable; we increased our usage over the years and plan to continue that. 

We have multiple teams at multiple geos and deployments; we're an enterprise-sized organization.

Recently, there are some bugs with the product development, which necessitated R&D's involvement, which isn't ideal. We have fully integrated the solution into our production businesses, so any stability issues have a significant impact. There were cases where workarounds weren't provided quickly, with stubborn bugs needing environmental solutions.

Neutral

I've worked with multiple other workload orchestration tools, including IMB Tivoli Workload Scheduler and a CA automation product. Control-M stands above the competitors in terms of stability. CA underwent an acquisition, leading to changes in product strategy and mergers with equivalent products like Automic, so Control-M was the surer option. It is also more robust and has greater system availability than the competitors.

The initial deployment was complex, and this was by necessity. It is important to note that deployment is now more straightforward due to years of knowledge, experience, and newer features.

It took around two weeks to set up the Control-M infrastructure, and the process of bringing in business data and full adoption took place over years. It could be done faster, as in our case, there were other considerations involving budgeting, testing, and timelines. Setup of the initial infrastructure takes a few weeks, and then getting the platform running and configured can be done in a day or two. Further configuration and integration with LDAP and monitoring tools can take a little longer.

The solution can be managed and maintained by two or three staff members, but the number of staff involved in a deployment can vary significantly. It depends on the specific scenario and teams.

I would say we have a return on our investment; we have a vast amount of transactions and business automation implemented on a massive scale. We have adopted Control-M extensively, and it would be challenging to migrate to another solution in a reasonable time. We often look at alternatives but considering factors like timelines, resource availability, and team bandwidth, we keep coming back. The solution provides enormous value to our organization.

The solution is not cheap, it comes with quite a hefty price tag. Control-M is the market leader, but we still want the price to be as friendly as possible. 

The solution comes with the base module and an additional one with a few extra plugins, which is helpful. 

We evaluate competitors yearly, but in terms of value for money, we always return to Control-M. We get an excellent return on our investment.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I would advise any organization to do a proof of concept for their scenario before making a decision.

We don't currently use the Python Client, it's something we are planning to look into. We haven't started working on it, but we are in the review process to understand the client, and how it could fit into our operation.

The solution doesn't create new data as such, but it processes on top of the business data. 

We don't currently use the product for analytics, but we do plan to get Control-M data onto other systems for analytics and machine learning tasks.  

If we didn't have Control-M we would use an alternative solution. If there was a better one we would use that, or a product with a favorable cost and value proposition, which is a key factor.  

The tool always positively impacted our business, including our business service delivery speed. Over the years, there were one or two issues, but the vendor supporters could keep up. Some bugs required extensive development, and the support is excellent in this regard. They always have the right staff to assist during major productions or changes. Compared to before we had Control-M, it's as if we were previously traveling by foot, and now we've discovered the wheel. 

Regarding the audit preparation process, features like workload archiving come with an additional cost, which not all organizations can afford. I would instead maintain something locally on the system, but the solution is straightforward in terms of data necessities.

Control-M has to catch up in some areas, but it also offers specific capabilities and customization options. Application integration provides scope for exploration and deployment in custom developments. As a product supplier, BMC could focus on improving in areas indicated by their biggest customers. There is a lot of room for improvement.

File transfer support is Control-M's only significant limitation, as it only supports SSTP and STP transfers. Overall, other tools offer better security and file size in terms of file transfers. Therefore, the solution slows down when dealing with larger file sizes or a high volume of files, but it is sufficient for smaller organizations.

It is an enterprise tool, and it is a critical one. It is used for scheduling all of our enterprise jobs and monitoring them. We have both cloud and on-premise applications, but Control-M is installed only on-premises. We have high availability as well as load balancing servers in the cloud as well as on-premises.

It is critical for our business. Control-M directly affects our business because all our jobs are integrated into it. Without it, it is very difficult for us to do the monitoring. There is application-level dependency. We have SAP, Logility, and other third-party applications, and then we also have retail applications. We have different types of jobs. SAP handles only SAP-related or ERP-related jobs. In retail, we have stored procedures, and BI has HANA procedures. If Control-M is not there, it would be difficult for application teams to sit in front of the application and wait for a job to finish and then trigger another one. We are a global company, and we have jobs running round the clock. It saves almost half of our time in a day.

It is good in terms of data transfer. We are using the Managed File Transfer plug-in. It is pretty good, and it has good features. In one place, we can see what files have been processed or what jobs have been deleted or failed. We can see everything on the dashboard. If I have to search for a particular file that is missing, I can go there and check. 

It can orchestrate all our workflows, including file transfers, applications, data sources, data pipelines, and infrastructure with a rich library of plug-ins. This functionality is critical from the application point of view.

It has had a positive effect on our organization when creating actionable data. It is pretty good. It is a critical application for us. All our jobs and integration activities are monitored and scheduled through Control-M. We have multiple projects running, and teams are continuously doing the testing in the Control-M. This is the application where they can do all the testing for high-load jobs and other things. It is a critical application for all project teams.

Cost-wise, it is good. It is an enterprise tool that integrates with all the applications in our organization. It has made our life easier because we don't need to wake up at midnight and do monitoring, etc. It does everything. It also sends precautionary alerts. If a job or activity is running for more than the specified time, it alerts the application team. So, our teams do not need to sit in front of a laptop or any open application to watch the jobs. They can do their other regular activities while Control-M takes care of all the jobs. It notifies them when there is job completion, delay, and error.

When we migrated to the SAP ERP application, a lot of jobs got created. We had to do all the things manually and monitor round the clock. Control-M has made our life easier. We can now concentrate on our applications and other tasks.

Since we have got this product in our company, our life has become easier. We don't require much L1 and L2 monitoring and support. We don't have L1 support when it comes to the Control-M application. We do have an L2 team application support, but it is minimal.

We have some plug-ins like BOBJ, and we need a little improvement there. Other than that, it has been pretty good. I haven't seen any issues.

We have been using this solution since 2016.

It has been good so far, and I haven't seen many issues in terms of performance.

Its scalability is good. We have more than 100 end-users of this solution.

I would rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

I was not there when it was purchased and installed. It was already there when I came here. At that time, it was version 8. From 2017 onwards, I've been doing all the upgrades. Currently, we are on version 9.20.

It is updated in-house. Usually, we submit the AMIGO report to BMC for the initial validation. Once they validate and confirm, we do the upgrade. They know what our environment is like, and if there are any issues at the time of upgrade, they easily find out the cause. We also have support from a third party called VPMA. We can take their help as well for critical issues.

In terms of maintenance, there are OS-level updates every month, which are taken care of by the IT team. Application-wise, we do patch fixes when a particular plug-in needs patching.

Cost-wise, it is good. 

I would definitely recommend this solution. Control-M is the place to go if you want to have workflow automation in place. I have previously also worked with the Remedy tool in another organization, and I found it good.

It is pretty good in terms of creating, integrating, and automating data pipelines. If you have all the information, it is a straightforward activity. If it is new functionality, then before integrating Control-M with a third-party application, you need to do some work in terms of configuration.

It is easy to ingest and process data from different platforms. Its setup takes some time, but once the setup is done, it is pretty easy.

We don't use Control-M to deliver analytics for complex data pipelines. We do have analytics, but we have an SAP analytic application called BOBJ BI. We do have a job set up for that. It runs from Control-M, but analytics are shown in the SAP application.

Our cloud usage is not much. From the S3 bucket, we are using the file transfer part from the application perspective, but there is not much integration with cloud applications. We only have the MFT plug-in to communicate with AWS S3. Other than that, there is not much interaction with the cloud from the Control-M application side.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. It has been good so far. I haven't seen any issue. It is easy to use. I still have a lot to learn about this solution.

We use it for workload automation and it's the primary application tool that we use. We use the Monitoring domain and the Planning domain daily, as well as tools and Configuration Manager as needed.

Our product support team installs it in our Citrix servers so that people can log in to Citrix, choose the application, and use it. But I, and the team that does the batch scheduling, also have our own local clients installed on our machines.

You can do the same thing in many different ways, but Control-M allows you to identify and improve any gaps in batch processing. It makes people aware of things through notifications and alerts. You want to be on top of things if jobs are not running correctly, are running long, are not executing, or end "not okay." There are various ways to set up having that information sent to the operator or the individual support teams.

Also, the Self Service feature allows end-users to do their own scheduling. That frees up resources like me, and is a huge benefit of Control-M. There are huge possibilities with Control-M for helping to give business users visibility and control over their jobs while freeing up IT personnel. Some companies that I've worked for have used the Self Service a lot more than others, and some places haven't used it at all, which is something I don't quite understand. There's an opportunity to free up your IT resources if you can get your users used to scheduling their own jobs.

Monitoring and planning are critical to my day-to-day work. Monitoring is for the active schedule and Planning is where you make scheduling changes on a more permanent basis. My roles have spanned multiple functions. I've been an operator, where you have to watch the active schedule in the Monitoring domain. I've been a scheduler, where you use Planning and do your work based on scheduling requests. And I've been an admin, where you use Configuration Manager and make sure that the product is installed and behaving properly. All three are equally important.

Control-M is excellent when it comes to building, scheduling, managing, and monitoring production workflows. Those workflows are of very high importance to our operations.

I've never been very successful when researching ways to utilize Batch Impact Manager. It's a tool to set up dummy jobs in your job flow and it's supposed to come back to you and say, "Okay, for this job flow, you are 50 percent complete at a certain point in time."

I've had varying levels of success with it, and it's not because Batch Impact Manager doesn't work. It's just that I don't have the knowledge to make it work. I would like things like Batch Impact Manager to be a little more user-friendly, out-of-the-box.

Also, BMC has a ticketing tool called Remedy, but very few places that I am aware of use it. They use solutions like Jira and ServiceNow. It would be nice if it were easier to use those solutions with Control-M. I don't have any firsthand experience where somebody comes in and says, "Okay, now JIRA and Control-M can communicate with each other. And if you want a failed job to automatically open a Jira ticket, this is how you do it." I don't believe that exists or, if it does, it is not simple.

Another point is that, for a while, they were pushing a Control-M mobile app, but I haven't seen anything about it for a very long time. Maybe it was scrapped. Because I wear multiple hats in my organization, I would love it. I would love to be able to go to a mobile app, log in and see a scheduler, go to a job, and see what it's waiting on. I would be interested in the ability to support things via mobile.

I've worked in IT for 30 years and I have worked with Control-M for more than 12 years. I'm not interested in learning another tool. I'm all-in for Control-M.

The stability is an eight out 10. It's good.

It seems like Control-M can handle just about anything.

Their technical support is okay. Sometimes, just to get them to look at it, you have to run a utility called data collector, and you have to give them all this information just to engage them. That can be burdensome.

Although I haven't been involved in the initial stages of a Control-M implementation, I have contacted BMC's services team. Sometimes they're very responsive and sometimes they're not. They're not terrible, but sometimes it's tough to engage the support team for more general questions. 

But if I'm doing an upgrade or something related to the product itself, they seem to be pretty responsive.

Neutral

I've never had to set up a Control-M environment. But there is a certain level of complexity when you do your upgrade, even though they market it as "upgrade in place." As long as you're on version 9, you can go from 18 to 19 to 20.

 The only question about adding plugins is, "Does it affect our support cost?" I was informed fairly recently that BMC changed its support structure. Instead of a tier, based on the number of the jobs, now they charge based on endpoints.

Before I download a new plugin, I want to make sure that it doesn't add a new endpoint and require us to pay more and not be in compliance with our current support agreement.

There are a lot of schedulers out there. I don't have firsthand experience with many of them, but I know from working in the field, production support, that BMC is at the top.

Using Control-M to manage and orchestrate workloads across our enterprise is critical.

We mostly use Control-M for the data flow and reporting. We also have the monitoring in place to make sure that the business meets the requirements, and there is on-time delivery of reporting and so on.

It helps to meet the SLA related to the information and notification to the required stores. In case there are any failures, we promptly rectify them. It has helped a lot with the business continuity processes without any delays.

We have improved a lot in terms of rectifying on time and based on the SLAs. It is, overall, pretty good. With the network overview, we can see the job flows. We also tell customers how useful the application is so that they avoid using any other job scheduling tool and have their job flows integrated with the Control-M application. We do a monthly talk with different technical teams to make them understand the features and benefits of the Control-M application so that they integrate or migrate to the standalone Control-M application and not use other job scheduling tools.

We have a complete view of the jobs, and the customers also know about the job flow. With the help of the reporting team, we provide them with reports of the job flow. There are detailed diagrams, which are very helpful to know about the job flow. It has been pretty helpful and good.

It allows us to easily ingest and process data from different platforms. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of ease of use.

It is good for creating, monitoring, and ensuring the delivery of files as part of our data pipeline. I would rate it a nine out of ten from this aspect.

It is pretty straightforward to create actionable data. It is simple and precise to know what information needs to be in and how it has to run based on the job.

The File Watcher utility, cyclic jobs, and email alert notification are valuable.

Some of the features are not available. We were about to deploy the REST API, but we had some challenges. We had to use a third-party application. So, it should be improved in terms of integrating REST API jobs. That was something that was lacking. The customer was not that happy in terms of getting the desired output. So, we had to use a third-party application called Hangfire. We would like to have more videos on REST API integration, and we would like to have easy integration with the Control-M application through the REST API.

We've been using it since 2018 or 2019.

Currently, there is not a heavy load of Control-M jobs. There are around 500 jobs, and we have around 30 controlling agents. We are now moving from the Window jobs and getting into using it for other jobs. We are also planning to upgrade to a newer version. So, there would be much more dependency on the Control-M application. 

The client installation does not have that much usage. People are moving to the web-based interface. On average, 10 people use the client, and 20 to 25 people use the web application.

Their support is pretty good. I would rate them a nine out of ten. Sometimes, they take time. I had a couple of issues, which prolonged for more than a month. It was something that I wasn't expecting, but they were not show-stoppers. They should expedite their support. The time delay from the support team and the development team should be worked on.

Positive

I was not involved with its deployment. In terms of maintenance, it is not maintenance heavy. We just happen to follow the best practice of doing a reboot every month and applying the patches.

We have a license till 2024. We are good and satisfied with it.

I would advise others to go for it. It has all the features, and it can meet the requirements of any business. Control-M has matured over the years. It is more feature-rich. It has a better graphical user interface. It is catching up with the latest technology and is going to be cloud-based. YouTube videos and webcasts are helpful for new customers in adopting the application.

We have not used Control-M Python Client and cloud data service integrations with AWS and GCP. We have not yet reached that level in this organization. It is just for basic Windows. In a previous company, we used Python and AWS but not in this organization.

We generally move to a new fix pack or release after almost a year. We just wait until there are some bugs rectified in an existing new fix pack. We are looking forward to upgrading to version 9.0.20 to be able to use other features. I am hoping that the API has been enhanced in that version. Upgrading to this version will also help our users. They can use their web application and deploy the jobs rather than having a dependency on the scheduling team.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. They just need to focus on and provide more videos on the API side.

Our organization is a bank, and all batch processes are in Control-M. 

We have installed it on a mainframe. It is an on-premise distributed system.

For the bank, Control-M is one of the jewels of the queen. It is the heart of the bank. For batch processes, Control-M is most important. We have Control-M working seven days a week and 24 hours a day. 

All file transfers are managed from Control-M MFT. Some of our clients who are small companies send the data to the bank about their employees' salaries. The bank takes that data and prepares payments for different people in the company. Control-M MFT is used for the information transfer between the bank and Visa, American Express, or Mastercard. All of the information is sent by using file transfer in Control-M.

It has improved our data transfers. It gave us the security and the vision of what is happening with our file transfers.

All of its features are very valuable. We have been working with Control-M for many years. For people who have been working with it, there is no other way. This product is a part of us.

It is very easy to use. Our operators are new people, and they start to work with Control-M from the first day in the bank.

In our bank, all new applications need to be implemented with Control-M. We try to look for the best way to establish communication between both products. One of the new features for us is Application Integrator. It is a very interesting feature because it lets us integrate with those applications that are not included in Control-M. By using Application Integrator, we can easily integrate new technologies. With the help of Application Integrator, we recently integrated with Blue Prism, which is a robotic product. We could integrate such processes into Control-M. Now, we are working with Ansible, and we are putting Ansible automated processes into Control-M.

In general, it is a very good product, and we are very happy with it. It meets all of our expectations.

Although we have used the Smart Tables facility for a long time, today we have had a need to process services that include processes that combine Mainframe and non-mainframe jobs (Windows, SAP, Informatica). An improvement for Control-M EM would be the possibility of creating combined Smart Tables, that is, they include mainframe and non-mainframe jobs so that the work order can be generated with the Unique option. Today, to achieve this we must manage global Conditions with Variables and generating a unique code to pass to the MF tables and not MF. Let me name this feature “Global Smart Tables”.

Another need we have is that Control-M MFT also supports commercial file transfer protocols such as CA-XCOM.

I have been working with this product for more than 30 years. Personally, I have been working with Control-M since 1988. Here, in the bank where I am working, when we started in 1995, the product was on a mainframe.

It is the most stable solution that we have had. It has been working on the mainframe for two years without any problem. It is a very stable product.

We have not had any problem with scalability. The bank has been growing for the last 15 years, and we had no problem with Control-M. Control-M has adapted to our growing architecture. All new applications that we have, such as SAP, Informatica, or databases, are covered by Control-M.

We have about 40,000 processes per day. We also have 100,000 execution per day. All batch processes are integrated into Control-M from different systems, such as Windows, SAP, Informatica, etc. All file transfers between the headquarter and the branches and the external providers are managed from Control-M.

The bank has 6,000 employees. The system and IT teams have about 600 people. We have about 30 people for operations, monitoring, and implementation. In the technology area or system programmer area, we have six people. All of them are using Control-M.

We work around the clock, and we have three teams that work per day. Each team has about 10 people. We have people for Operation Console who are looking at batch processing in terms of whether it is working fine. Four people are there to implement new jobs in Control-M. They are working with the calendars and resources. We have three people to administer the product, and there are other people to administer the jobs on Control-M. 

BMC has very good people. Their support has been excellent. We had very quick replies. Their technicians have always been very friendly, and they have a lot of knowledge of the product.

They always provided a very good solution. When we had a Severity One problem, they call us immediately and solved the problem even on the weekend.

Its initial setup was a long ago. It was very simple. The bank had about 6,000 offices, and it took about eight months to automate the whole batch processing.

At that time, people were not ready to use automated processes. The most difficult thing was to change the mind of the people. When we started with automation, people thought that they will lose their jobs with this kind of tool, and it was very hard to change the mind of the people. Using Control-M was very simple, and it was easy to use Control-M to automate manual jobs. From that stage till now, all new systems are syncing with Control-M, and all new developments are integrated into Control-M.

Initially, we used a partner. At that time, it was New Dimension Software. It became BMC in early 2000. Now, we have a lot of people in the bank with Control-M profiles. When we use any new feature of Control-M, we don't need any partner.

I am the Control-M specialist for technical support in the bank. My job in the bank is to set up all new products.

I have been working with Control-M for 30 years. So, I have seen other products. It is very easy to automate our daily manual jobs. It is not at all complex to set up the product. It is also very easy to teach to another person. It is not complex like other schedulers. It is a very easy tool.

So far, we have only been using its Windows client. We have now started to use its web interface. We are also starting to use the DevOps technology with Control-M.

We have migrated from Control-M 9.18 a month ago. We will start using centralized profiles. We will also start to work with Manage File Transfers (MFT) B2B. It is a new feature that we will start using to improve our customer delivery processes.

I would rate Control-M a 10 out of 10.

We use Control-M to provide business services to our customers. The use cases involve Hadoop, a lot of file transfers, and SQL scripts. In our business, automation is used for many things and we use a lot of the Control-M modules. For example, we connect to SAP, with databases, Hadoop, MFT, Informatica, and other technologies.

What we do relates to many different business services in a retail environment.

We have hybrid deployment; over the past two years, we have had a mix of on-premises and cloud-based implementations. Ultimately, we are moving to the cloud. We are using AWS, GCP, and Azure.

The main benefit is that Control-M can work with almost all of the applications that are on the market right now. We work with technologies including Hadoop, Informatica, all kinds of databases, and file transfer with MFT tools. The real potential with Control-M is that it can be used for everything you want.

It is really important that our clients can manage their own application workflow with full autonomy. Our customers are using this capability a lot and it helps because we don't need to be present when they want to perform a simple task. It's better for them because they don't need to wait to ask or to have something changed. They can just do it themselves. Also, it's better for us because we have more time to do other things.

The expanded capabilities in version 2020 for planning and monitoring have had a positive effect on our clients' operations, as well as our own. It saves a lot of time when it comes to developing and implementing things. As a result of saving time, both us and our clients are saving money.

Control-M has definitely helped us to achieve faster issue resolution, although it is difficult for me to estimate how much by. We don't have metrics that are suitable for tracking this kind of thing.

The best part about this product is that it has a lot of features. Control-M doesn't limit us and we can use it for a lot of things.

Control-M is easy to install, use, and maintain. It is easier to work with than other products.

The web interface hosts a lot of videos and webinars and I really appreciate this because I find them very helpful. They have tutorials that explain how to approach the new technologies and explain how things can be done using Control-M. This is something that I use a lot.

The Application Integrator is helpful because not all applications have a module available in Control-M, and we can use this feature to create them.

When it comes to supporting cloud services, Control-M is a bit slow. We are not advancing with the technology because we don't have the modules that can interact or use the new application services provided by the cloud technologies. BMC has been telling me that they are working hard to be more aligned with these new technologies, but they are a bit slow. Consequently, we are having a few issues when it comes to implementing Control-M. Some services that are being offered, such as Databricks, have been a problem.

The documentation is something that needs to be improved. Years ago, the documentation was very good, and I don't understand why but the documentation is no longer as good as it should be. For example, if I need to install or upgrade Control-M Enterprise Manager or Control-M server, the only information that I have in the documentation are things like "Execute this and follow the instructions on the screen".  What it doesn't tell you is what will be needed for the process. For example, you may need to enter a password or select a source, but you won't know what these parameters are in advance.

Also, it is different to find what you are looking for in terms of documentation. For instance, if you visit the Control-M download page, you see several tabs. There is a tab where you can download software and another tab where you can download patches. This is perfect. However, there is another tab for the documentation but there is never anything there.

With any Control-M product, it is hard to find the documentation. The reason for this is that they are moving all of the documentation online, in an HTML format. The problem is that it is hard to download documentation in this format. In particular, if it is a specific part that you need or a certain module, then it would be much easier to have a PDF version like they used to have. Consequently, it is more difficult for us to pass the documentation to our internal teams.

For example, if we are trying to configure a module for Informatica or SAP, it's hard because we don't have PDF documentation. We need to go online but it is difficult because it is very hard to find what you are looking for.

Another area of improvement for Control-M is the version release lifecycle. Prior to 2018, we had the same, main version of Control-M for two or three years. Since 2018, they have been releasing a new version every year. There was a 2018, 2019, and 2020 version. It seems that these new versions are being released in an unfinished state because we are seeing a lot of bugs. Historically, it has been very stable, but from a point between two and three years ago, it has not been so much so. It seems that the problem is that the versions are changing too quickly.

I have been using Control-M for nine years.

There are some limits to scalability in terms of cloud integration. There is some integration with cloud services but it is very simple. It is called the Application Integrator Module. This is a very good feature but the problem is that if we have to interact with cloud services, we need to create all of these modules on our own. We are paying a lot of money for a product where we have to create our own modules, which is not perfect.

It is very good that we have the Application Integrator available but for services that are being used by a lot of companies, we need official support from BMC.

I would rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

We have been dealing with BMC for several years and when you consider the support from a few years ago, the response that we received was more technical and more accurate regarding the problem that we were having.

As it is now, more and more we are seeing that the customer support has to rely on the product development team to resolve the issue. This is because there are a lot of bugs in the product and customer support cannot provide a solution for these. Instead, the problem has to be fixed by development, and then a patch is released to solve the problem.

For this reason, I am rating the support an eight instead of ten.

We have had cases where our clients migrated to Control-M from a competing solution. In fact, we did a migration last year from TWS, the Tivoli Workload Scheduler from IBM, to Control-M using the conversion tool. The tool was very important because it reduced a lot of work.

The problem is that the conversion was not as good as it should be. I estimate that we had to modify 90% of the jobs because the conversion was not good enough. It was still important because it would have taken a lot longer to create all of the jobs from scratch. That said, it was not perfect, at least that was our experience with migrating from TWS.

We were using TWS and another one that is called Visual TOM. It is another product that is similar to Control-M. These are both scheduling products, but Control-M has tons of features that the other ones don't have. They don't have the modules, the plug-ins, or the Automation API. They are stable and they are good, but we can't use them like you use Control-M because Control-M permits us to perform many more things. Unfortunately, with the many more things that you can do, it does introduce more opportunities for failure. However, this is true of any feature-rich solution. The more complex it is, the more prone to error it is.

Control-M is easy to install and maintain. There are not a lot of steps required to upgrade or downgrade from one version to another. With other products that I've been using, it is difficult and complicated to upgrade because there are a lot of confusing steps. But with control-M, you need only follow the onscreen instructions.

The length of time required to deploy depends on the customer. The scope and complexity of the client's requirements dictate the amount of time it will take to complete. For example, we can deploy for a smaller customer in one week. However, for a large retail customer, it could take a month to complete.

We have one client right now, where we are upgrading from Control-M 2018 to 2019, and it is going to take us almost three months to complete. Part of the reason it takes this long is that when you try to upgrade a production environment, it's really difficult to get a window to perform the upgrade or the installation or the modification. That said, it's still easier than many other products.

Pricing varies depending on which components and modules you are using.

My advice for anybody who is considering Control-M is that I recommend it. Although it's not perfect, it is relatively easy to use and maintain.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We install, configure, and deploy Control-M for customers and make it run on-premises from them. After that, the customers take over.

BMC uses partners. They don't sell directly in the Middle East. So, they don't directly install the product and sell it. Instead, they go through partners, like my company.

We, as a company, don't use Control-M, but we sell Control-M to customers. We go onto a customer site, install the product, and configure it per their requirements. Then, we get their feedback and support related project stuff.

From a services perspective, we actively use BIM, which is the affiliate manager. We use the history to see the forecast. When the customer gets Control-M, the affiliate manager comes along with it. 

It is 100% on-prem, primarily because the Helix part of Control-M is not hosted in the Middle East yet. For many customers, there are regulations since the primary customers are banking, insurance, etc., which all require their data to remain within the country.

My customers are primarily banking customers, so they have their end of day processes that happen at night after the bank closes. These processes would involve AML, banking, and end of month payroll-related stuff across multiple organizations.

We do maintenance, project management, and support. Once a project is done, the customer has a support contract through BMC. That is through us. Customers cannot directly get in touch with BMC to open cases. It has to go through a partner. Therefore, we offer first and second line support to the customer.

There is definitely room for improvement. Version 9.0.20 actually comes with a web-based interface, but there are still a lot of things unavailable with it. There will eventually be more inclusions added into the web interface, but there is still a long way to go. 

There is also the automation API, which is a way to interact with Control-M, but it also needs a lot of improvement for other people to understand how to use it.

The documentation isn't really straightforward for the initial setup. It says, "Follow the on-screen instructions." The reason why people read the documentation is to have a heads up of what to expect and what is coming up. However, when you say, "Follow the on-screen instructions," I believe that is inappropriate.

I have been using it for two or three years.

It is very stable. We hardly get calls in respect to issues on Control-M, particularly on version 9.0.19. 9.0.20 is still pretty new in terms of deployments. However, with version 9.0.18. I have had a couple of problems from customers.

You barely need one person for customer maintenance because the system is pretty stable. Of course, if it is version 9.0.18, the number of support cases that come in are more compared to version 9.0.19. We also get information requests from the customer where they might have audit requests or want to enable certain protocols because of security compliance within their organization. In these cases, they reach out to us. 

It is not that we are always involved with the customer. It is not an onsite model. If there is an issue with the product, the person calls. We have 20 customers whom we manage at the moment for BMC. That is just done with three people: an onsite resource and two employees, including myself. The onsite employee is with a telecom vendor within the UAE. His job is monitoring and maintaining the system as well as assisting the customer. He does everything in respect to Control-M at the customer site, e.g., defining jobs, monitoring jobs, executing jobs, and making sure that they are done properly. Another of my colleagues and myself deal with all the other customers from a project and support perspective. It is primarily support because once a project is done, then a customer has support with us. We manage those cases, involving ourselves in those cases. We understand what is required. If we have the information already and know how to do it, we will give them the procedure, etc. If we cannot do it, we get in touch with BMC to get the relevant answers.

I have not had an issue with scalability per se. If there is any kind of resource crunch, the customer just needs to add resources. If it is a memory usage, then add memory to the virtual machine and you are good to go. 

You can have jobs at multiple customer sites. For that, there is a different level of scalability altogether from an infrastructure perspective.

BMC support is good. I would give them eight or nine out of 10, most of the time. They reply quickly, even before the actual SLA time. However, in certain worst case scenarios, I would give them a seven out of 10.

Most of the time, the integrated guide immediately opens up the relevant page. You can get the necessary information from that. The videos are really basic. For example, with version 9.0.20, there are videos that come up by default in many places as part of the help page, which is ideal for beginners. Whereas, at my level of implementation, we are looking for more detailed explicit knowledge for a specific scenario. For beginners, the web help is more than enough, if a person is patient enough to go through it.

Personally, I have worked previously with a competitive product: Automic One Automation Platform. I was working with Broadcom earlier, doing a similar profile, where my portfolio was dealing with retail support and projects. So, I was deploying Atomic solutions. After that solution, I made a change and moved to BMC, as a partner. I have been working with Control-M ever since. Therefore, I have exposure with other automation products.

The initial setup is straightforward.

If all the prerequisites are ready, a full-fledged setup for a single system would take 15 to 20 minutes to deploy.

Normally, we deploy with high availability so it has an uninterrupted service, even if a server goes down.

Once the PO is all done for a project, we have a pre-kickoff with our company and the customer. We basically run them through the prerequisites and understand their priorities. For example, some customers are more inclined towards Windows and others are more inclined towards Linux. Most of them would like to have the DR environment in the setup, meaning it would be the primary site with two servers for high availability and a DR site with two servers. All these technicalities for the infrastructure and environment would be run by the customer along with the prerequisites. 

From a project perspective, we ideally implement the process flow. So, we understand their documentation. Then, we have an actual analysis and design phase, where we sit down with the customer stakeholders and get their requirements in terms of the actual process flows early on. Until then, we just know at a high level that these are the number of database jobs that will run on Control-M. We don't have explicit details at the analysis and design phase. We literally sit with them and go through their documentation, understand what they want to implement on Control-M, and how we can make it better or include notifications. After this, we start off with the installation. Based on the outcome of the analysis and design, we implement the process flows.

The annual licensing within BMC Control-M is on a per task basis. Three- and five-year contracts are also offered. The customer usually buys a bundle of tasks, e.g., 5,000 tasks, then my team configures Control-M for their usage. 

It is a good, stable solution. It does depend on what exactly you are implementing, because automation solutions are primarily back-end solutions, e.g., back-end processes and batch processes, which can be executed on Control-M. However, sometimes customers get back-end solutions confused with RPA, which is front-end automation. When customers decide that they want to use some kind of an automation tool, they should really understand what their process flows actually need. There is a handshake that can be given between the front-end and back-end, but there are some customers who come to us wanting to buy Control-M, but they are actually looking for an RPA solution because their operations are front-end.

I would rate Control-M as eight or nine out of 10 in terms of stability and features.