Endevor Reviews

We use it for source code management. We use it to basically keep our applications that we use day-to-day, month-to-month, and week-to-week, all up-to-date. We use it to move it through those areas and manage it for auditing purposes, like dev, QA, production, etc. Our developers use it to build code in those different stages and move it forward.

There are approvers which have to approve something before it can move from dev to test, then test to production. Therefore, it makes it very seamless and easy to trace. Not only that, but it is easy to make sure nothing is getting to a place that it should not, when it should not. For example, being able to prevent things moving up the chain, things moving back, or things being edited when they should not is huge for us. So it has been a great benefit.

The traceability and the footprint that it creates for every element and every piece of code that it is put in. Being able to track who did what and when is huge for us because auditors are going to come back, especially being a financial company, and say, "Why was this touched, and when?" 

You can trace it back to exactly who did anything and what it was connected to, based on the notes and all the information included with it. 

The graphical user interface. It would be a big tool to change (but needed), just because as the workforce kind of ages and retires, the younger generation is not as familiar with mainframe and looking at a green screen is not really a huge selling point to them. So, adding an updated graphical user interface and making it a little bit more like Eclipse, also making it more widespread, making it easier to install, and getting it setup, would be great. 

Otherwise, Endevor does what it needs to do and it is hard to say that it needs any kind of massive change because of its great scalability, and because of its great availability. It does what it needs to do, so it is hard to say anything needs to change massively.

So far, so good. We would love to get upgraded to 18, which has not happened. However, versions 16 and 17 have worked great. 

As far as stability, we have had minor issues. When we have minor issues, CA is great to jump out and help us. 

It is great. One of our systems has 21,000 elements, so you are talking about a ton of modules. You put it on the mainframe that has very high availability, and it just makes it great, because you can constantly use it and you can keep building as long as you have the space for it. Our storage and available are there, and as long as you have the storage availability you can keep going to build it as big as you want. You do not see any drop off as far as speed or the utilities in the system. None of that changes no matter how many elements you have, whether it is one or 21,000. 

This is part of the reason I work on Endevor. It is completely different than other tools I have used. It is easy to use and is very intuitive to where you can sit there and it will keep growing, but it does not change. You do not have to learn a new thing, because you have gotten too big or anything like that, thus I really enjoy it.

Their customer service is second to none. From what we have seen. I have a couple of them that I can reach out to directly. They provide instant feedback on how to fix our problems and how to get to what we need done.

Since I have been there, we did not have anything before that, but it makes it so it is not chaos, where anybody can go in anytime. 

I have been involved with the initial setup of version 18. I was not involved with the initial onboarding of Endevor. With version 18, so far, so good. There have been a couple stumbling blocks just setting up the different check boxes that you have to check to get certain features applied. But even then, if you go through the documentation or you reach out to customer service, you can get those pretty quick and easy. 

There are a few steps along the way that we stumbled on, but they were quick fixes and they were pretty minor.

I would recommend the product. It is very easy to use. It is great as far as what it does. Once you have learned it and figured it out, it is right there as one of the best products you can get. 

The integrity of the system is valuable. It provides secure, controlled access to source management and the typical check-in and check-out functions in a typical source management product.

The solution can improve its parallel development, unlike more distributed source management systems like GIT or PVCs. It is more oriented towards single control of the source.

We have been using this solution for approximately 30 years.

The solution is scalable.

The customer service and support team are not helpful and they're slow to respond. The quality is not good, and most people who developed the product don't work for them anymore. They've laid off most of their staff and tried to charge for everything on the support front. Our experience was very poor and they've almost doubled the price of the product.

The initial setup is highly complex. It requires a project to design the implementation of the software. It is not a straightforward default solution.

We are currently evaluating Micro Focus ChangeMan. Its features are comparable. They have support for modern distributed type processing and are supporting GIT web services, which are unavailable on CA Endevor Software Change Manager.

I rate the solution five out of ten. The solution is good and can improve its parallel development. Interfaces to GIT, web services and integration with modern developer workbenches can be included in the next release. I advise people considering implementing this solution to look for an alternative solution if they do not have it already.

Software changes and release management.

It makes production changes much easier to implement, and to recover if there are problems. It has saved us a lot of issues.

Versioning, you are able to track changes to code more easily.

Also, it's very flexible. A new technology comes along, this can be multiplied to handle the new technology quite easily.

Interfacing with some change control products that are not CA's, it's a little glitchy on the approvals of changes. It requires special needs for the users for approvals, so the user interface for approving changes could be better.

Stability is a nine out of 10.

Scalability is a seven out of 10.

Tech support is usually a nine or even a 10 out of 10.

I think we had a product that was being discontinued, and we were looking for a product to be able to handle the volume of source we had. We also wanted to be able to easily transition to the new product, one that would require minimal training.

It was pretty straightforward.

It's worth the value. The pricing is fairly good, justifiable for the return on investment.

Licensing is fairly simple, you don't need multiple licenses.

I think it's a good tool. There are similar products out there that you might want to get now with a GUI interface. Right now, this product is mostly green screen - we use the mainframe product - so I think it would be advantageous for other companies to use a GUI product.

We use it to update our production libraries.

We pull in the production version, Endevor creates the test version, we make our changes in the test version, and then we promote it out with Endevor to production.

It has improved our security.

• The fact that it's secure, that it creates security for all the data in those libraries.
• The audit trail, it tracks who makes the changes.

It does what I need it to do.

If there was anything, I would say there are a lot of screens in it. The process for moving out my other solutions, it could be more convenient. There are a lot of steps to go through and a lot of screens to go through to get it accomplished. So, if there was something for improving it, then maybe minimizing the amount of work it takes to go through.

It's very stable.

I just use it, so I'm not sure. I know the features that I use, but there are a lot more features to it that I don't use.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup, but those who were never complained. It's not considered one of the more complex products. They do the updates and I've never heard any complaints.

When selecting a vendor the most important criteria are 

• customer service
• ease of installation
• good documentation
• usability
• scalability.

And CA covers that, as far as I'm concerned.

I never give it a 10 out of 10, because there's always room for improvement. I'd go with an eight. It works, and does its job, and I've never heard any complaints for improvements in this product.

I don't know the competition, I don't know if there's anything better, but Endevor is a solid product. It is stable. 

We use it for version control in the mainframe area.

It's been great. To be honest, we use GitHub for enterprise for the distributed world, and we use SCM for the mainframe world. So far, I've looked around as well. I've not seen a computer that's close to Endevor in terms of performance, scalability and capability.

On a day to day basis, it's all about managing my operations without any downtime. The tool has done a good job of want I want it to do, and it's a very stable tool. I think it's doing a good job.

• Automated build
• Quick Edit option
• Utilities for continuous integration

I think the main focus should be the continuous delivery aspects. How can I have a single view of the distributed core and the mainframe core, coming together in one wholesome, holistic experience?

Stability is great. Since it's running on the mainframe I think CA has done a really good job of keeping the availability at more than "three nines." As well, whenever there is any support issue I think that CA is really good, and it gets resolved within 24 hours.

Regarding scalability, we started off when we were very, very small. We've been using it for more than seven or eight years, and the mainframe size has increased but Endevor has done a good job of keeping up with it.

For the straightforward questions I think that they do a good job of getting back within 24 hours. For the tricky ones, whenever it comes to upgrades or things like that, they definitely take 48 to 72 hours. The response time is slower, but the good thing is they come back with the right answers, and that's what is important.

I started managing about it four years back and we've gone through many upgrades and renewals, but I was not part of the initial set up.

If you're upgrading more than one version, there is a difference. Typically, if you upgrade frequently, it's better. But if you're doing multiple jumps then I would say getting CA's support would be helpful, as the underlying architecture could have changed and things could go south. So it is important to involve CA support or at least to have them review the plan.

I give it an eight out of 10, and the reason I am cutting the two points is that I want it to be a little more lightweight in terms of continuous delivery.

If you're looking for a version control system for mainframe, I don't think you should even have a second thought of not trying at least trying out Endevor. I'm sure you won't be disappointed. At the same time, it has all the capabilities that are required to take your company into the continuous delivery ecosystem. That's why I think you should definitely give it a shot.

• We utilize the security associated behind Endevor.
• The external security interface that we use.
• The application lifecycles, to allow developers to do their own work at lower stages, and then turn it over to our production control area for subsequent installs, eventually into production.

It helps us manage homegrown and vendor-purchased software, where we maintain the source.

As a matter of fact, I am involved with end-of-sprint reviews. The product is being managed by the Agile development process. I've been invited as an owner of the product from outside to actually participate in the end-of-sprint reviews. I'm able to ask questions about features they're representing, as well as to request updates through the CA Community site.

There's always room for improvement. It's just a matter of what that improvement would be. I actually attended a recent CA conference to try to better understand how to utilize Endevor at our own shop, in an Agile development methodology. Currently, I'm pretty much all waterfall-type progression, so I’m not very agile at all. But more and more areas of our company are turning to Agile management.

Stability is very solid.

We have an IT department of around 600 employees. About a third of those manage software on the mainframe. So, 200 to 300 employees use Endevor Software Control Manager.

We use technical support on occasion. I've had questions, but no real issues. I've had questions about usage of the product, which have been answered by CA Support; not actually installing fixes to the product, but better understanding how to use the product. They were very helpful.

I was not involved in the initial setup, which happened back in 1993.

I've been in this role for the last eight years. Lately, I've actually installed and upgraded the last two releases of the software. It's gone very well.

The only other vendor I could possibly think of would be Compuware.

It's not a perfect solution. I never rate anything perfect.

It is easy to use, easy to learn, and easy to maintain; also the automation.

We primarily benefit in terms of the availability and reliability of our software during the development lifecycle.

There are a lot of areas: using it cross-platform; across a diverse set of application portfolios, including legacy systems, as well as open systems; both waterfall and Agile development. I'm not sure I can say there's one particular focus. We can have more features.

We find the solution to be very stable. There are no major issues or problems that I'm aware of.

We run a very large enterprise, so it scales very well for us.

We get very good and timely responses from support. It is very good.

This solution has been in place for a long time, longer than I've been around.

I'm not sure I can say which vendors were on the short list, but I can tell you that decisions are made primarily from the standpoint of cost effectiveness for the business, as well as the product features and functions. It must be able to meet the minimum requirements as well as be cost effective. The overall efficiency and effectiveness is there; and the responsiveness is there.

When I choose a vendor, I look at stability, reliability, responsiveness, and efficiency.

Do your homework. Talk to customers. Don't just rely on market research. Find what other people's experiences have been. It's very valuable.

I thought the most valuable feature of the product was maturity in the process, in the tool itself. In other words, while there were many things we would have liked it to have done, what it did, it did very well.

Over the course of many years of usage, one of the things that we found that some customers wanted to have was point-in-time recovery, which was one thing that I worked on. I remember I was on a project that was called Space Station Freedom at the time, with NASA. They felt like they needed to have a point-in-time recover process. They built that into the tool. They got it done, so there was a way to do it.

Quick Edit was a big add-on. Initially, when I started working with the tool, there was pretty much, "Use your own text editor." ISPF, because everything was ISPF based. You would add it into the tool through the normal script language or core ground processing. Well, they came up with something called Quick Edit, which was an add-on to the tool, but it was seamless. It just gave you an editor where you could go in and change a single object and save it and have it kick off the build in a development stage. It was that automation that really, I think, helped catapult Endevor because before, it was little bit more restrictive. It was more cumbersome to work with.

Since then, I haven't done a whole lot with it.

I'd say, overall, as a development tool, it helped us to automate processes that otherwise were very manually intensive. As a release tool, there probably could have been some additional enhancements, but it was effective. I could easily go from one LPAR to the next LPAR at the push of a button.

The funny thing is that I've learned that most organizations didn't know how much they appreciated it until they didn't have it.

There were a lot of developers who naturally oppose any process that they would deem to be making their jobs more cumbersome. In other words, more overhead on the task that they had to complete. The automation that we were able to build in; we were doing essentially some aspects of agile development before it was even a concept, because we were doing integrated builds every hour, on the hour, with no problems. It was virtually automated, totally automated. All the program had to do was finish your code, let us know, approve a package, and then it would go.

It was just a very nice process. When it was running properly, it was very transparent relative to the whole application development lifecycle.

I have used it off and on for about 26 years.

It was very consistent. When implemented appropriately, it was very solid. It was very stable; it was dependable. I never failed an audit with Endevor.

The only time that we really had down time is when we abuse it or we didn't follow our regular maintenance process. I can think of maybe once or twice in all the years that I've had it where the MCF was corrupted, or the package data set was corrupt, because either one of them could be catastrophic.

They were built on a solid VSAM validation, so it really never caused a lot of issues in that way, although from time to time, some of the share options were not allocated appropriately. Therefore, we might have run into issues of performance degradation, normally, when the share options weren't set right.

There was something called L-serve, which was a separate component that ran as an instance to start a task. That helped improve performance. I remember at one point it did, but in my last installation, we didn't even use it. I was able to use PDSEs and everything was fine, along with the V-samp files which were for the MCF.

I think the scalability did improve over the years, because if there were was issues with performance degradation, it would have been due to not configured properly. For example, too many environments that were nested or linked to each other, which caused a problem because the search routines would have to go through multiple sets of data sets in order to resolve what it is that you were querying. It really depends on how you set that up. Numbers or integers can cause performance degradation, but with that said, there are companies out here that have hundreds, if not thousands, of people connected to Endevor. They do not have these problems, so I know there are probably testimonies much better than mine that could prove that. I've known of many companies that they were using it on a very large operation. Mine might have had, over the last 10 years, maybe 100 or 150 programmers, but I know of others that have 600, 700, 800 or more.

Support has always been excellent. I know Paul Lewis is still there. I remember he was one of the first people I talked to. He would give you that tough love. He says, "Well, when in doubt, try it out." That was always the same. I would say something like, "Paul, do you think I could do this? Do you think I could do that?" His response: "Oh, well, Mark, when in doubt, try it out." I said, "Okay."

I'd go try it and maybe it would work. If it was something that he knew for sure that I was the one exploring it and we were at second- or third-level support, he would say something like, "Okay, well, we have a problem," or right away he would tell me if it was a known issue. There's no way that any company's supporting a product like that, or for any product, knows of all of the variants or considerations - just by searching a data base repository.

Work with CA, a third party or CA consultancy to do a proof-of-concept; not just the demo out of the can, but actually take an application or some part of an application, do a POC, and then get it on your machine. Even if you have to pay for it, it would be worth it, because that's going to set a foundation for you to be successful with the initial implementation. One thing, when working with the consulting company, they're going to have a better view of your configurations, your systems, and your environment. Work with them, and that will make you successful in the long run.

I have not given a perfect rating because I would want that one extra point to be for some subjective criteria that I haven't even thought of.