Endevor Reviews

Primary use case would be that our application developers use Endevor for managing their mainframe software. They take their source code and they add it in to Endevor, and Endevor translates that source code into an output executable, and then from there it would get deployed to the various development areas, QA areas, and then finally to production.

I think the most valuable features are the automatic building from the source code to the executable, and the way Endevor migrates the executables through the software lifecycle. I'm looking at it at more from a company perspective, from Aetna's perspective, that's the big benefit there.

And as far as for me, because I'm an Endevor administrator, I actually have to use Endevor to administer Endevor, so I use it almost in the way our customers use it. It's a cool product. Very robust, very solid.

In terms of features, I know because I'm a validation partner with CA, where we see what's coming down the pike. 

I know there's been a lot of work that they're doing on the long name support. 

Unix systems services, that whole side of the z/OS Operating System. I know they've been really doing a lot of work improving that.

The ISPF interface, adding long name support to that. 

In addition, they've been doing a lot of work on the new GUI front end to Endevor, so you could have a developer that does not really have much mainframe knowledge, and they'd be able to go on to this GUI interface, it's called the Eclipse Plugin to Endevor, and they'd be able to get up and running very quickly. No need to possess those mainframe skills, because they're doing it almost like they're working on their own PC, but they're connected to the mainframe. And sometimes they don't even know it.That's something that they've been working on and improving over the past several years. Right now we have that in a testing area and it's been working very well.

Stability is unbelievable. Over the years it's really improved dramatically.

Scalability, it can handle a company that really doesn't have that many software assets, all the way through big companies like my company that can handle huge numbers of software assets. Very scalable.

I would rate them "excellent." Very satisfied. I call them and, usually within minutes, I get a phone call back. Typically I'm reaching the right person and they're knowledgeable. And if not, they refer it to the next level, but generally they can take care of it.

What we were using before was actually a CA product, a product called Panvalet, but that was like a prior generation of product, and Endevor is the newer type of product, so we went over to Endevor back in the '90s.

Actually I was not involved in the initial setup at the company I'm with now, but I was involved in it with the company I was with before.

Back in those days - this was years ago - at that point in time, it was complex in a way because the product was so flexible. You really have to figure out what you want to do first, even without the product there, just figure out how you want to handle things, and then you take the product, Endevor, and you kind of overlay it on top of what you want to do at your company. But it's so flexible you can do almost anything you want with it. Sometimes that can add to the complexity, but once you have the knowledge of the product, then the complexity goes away.

There might have been a couple of products that we looked at back when I was at my other company, but Endevor was clearly - even in those days, back in the early '90s - the leader at that point in time. I can't even really recall what other products were part of the mix that we looked at. The other ones didn't really even last long, Endevor was the leader even back then, and I feel that they're definitely the leader right now, still.

When our company is selecting a vendor, the criteria include

• the actual software itself - to make sure that the software meets the requirements  
• that the vendor is solid as far as the way they deliver on their support
• that they have the appropriate service level agreements for support, and emergency types of procedures in place.

I have to give Endevor a 10 out of 10. The reason why really goes back to all the things I've talked about so far. It's just really robust, it can handle pretty much anything. A requirement we get from our customers internally, we're able to take that and translate it into something that is workable for our customers, using Endevor. It's very much open ended, and I don't really see any situation where we're not able to deliver on a customer requirement.

I would definitely advise to go with Endevor, no question. There are a few others on the market, Compuware has ISPW, which I really don't know that much about. There's ChangeMan, but I think Endevor definitely is the one. That's the one I know best, and I talk to a lot of people - I'm a member of the New England Endevor Usergroup - and in my view, it's number one, up there in the marketplace as far as what it does.

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 use it to manage our source, make sure everything is clean, and nobody puts anything in the production that does not belong. 

Flexibility.

It performs fine. We have not had any real glitches for the product. 

It is already there. We have not really implemented it. We just have to get it to Managed API source.

It is stable. We do not have any issues with it. It is just complex because it is a tool set. It is not a plug and play kind of product at all. 

No issues with it. It covers our base; no problem. 

Good. They provide answers and solutions. The team member will really get more detailed on the technical end of it and he has not had any issues with getting support.

I was involved in the initial setup. It was complex. It is a toolbox, so you have got to design it to do what you want to get done, so it was complex. 

I was not part of the decision-making process. 

I don't know if there are competitors. I can't comment on how it compares.

This solution works. You can definitely make it work. 

I set up the security configurations for Endevor as well as everything in the mainframe. I am the security architect, so I determine what has to be done in order to secure the product going into production.

Endevor allows us to map a change made to the production environment through various stages of delivery.

More of the following:

• Web-based deliveries
• Web-enabled configuration
• Dashboards

Therefore, we can report on our delivery quicker to management. 

The product is very stable. It has been around for a long time. It all depends on how you to deploy it. If they deploy it correctly, then it provides a tremendous benefit. But if you lay it out wrong, it can be a nightmare to work with. 

It is very scalable. You can go to just the libraries, but we use it more for than that. Not just libraries, but all of the elements that are associated to an application moving from one phase of delivery to another. 

They are very good, but we use the user community as well instead of their support. This is because the help desk, or the help areas, within the product can't necessarily understand, in many cases, how we have deployed something. Whereas, a user group president of Endevor might have a lot of different sources in which to ask the same question. 

I was involved in the initial setup. While it was simple and straightforward, we took simple and straightforward, then made a disaster out of it. Back then, we did not have the knowledge base. Now, we do have the knowledge base. 

We implemented in-house. We just put it in ourselves. We probably would not have done that in hindsight. There is always a better solution if it is designed correctly. We just went strictly from the book. 

Managing source code artifacts. It controls who has access to the source code, it versions it, and it deploys it. It also presents it in a controlled environment. It has approval gates built in to the tool to allow different teams to sign off before a deploy.

It provides the business the level of governance it needs over the source code. We’re able to control the gold copy and we’re able to maintain versions, historical record, and control access.

I like the stability and CA’s responsiveness, but I haven’t used anything else, so it’s hard to judge. I don't have a frame of reference to know whether there may be something better.

It maintains a 99.999% uptime. It’s always been available and has always started. Upgrades are smooth and efficient. It’s a very mature, well-worn technology.

It’s so stable – it’s like the good child, you don’t really think about what it needs. I also manage the bad child, too.

We have used CA professional services to make modifications. It was fantastic – really helped some automations we were working on. They overcame the package shipping problem between separate data centers.

This is my only experience with mainframe software configuration management. There isn’t much competition in this space anyway.

Think about how it manages security of the assets and its governance properties.

• Version tracking
• Footprinting
• ACM
• Admin tools (build SCL)

Time-submitted packages allow for silent, off-hours installs into production.

I find the ISPF interface to be lacking. It seems like you have to navigate to a lot of different screens to work with the same element.

I have used this solution for 20+ years.

We did not have stability issues.

We did not have scalability issues.

On a scale of 1-10, I would say technical support is a 7. First-level of support often comes back with answers that are obviously incorrect or not relevant. Luckily, we don't have many issues.

We had Changeman on one of our mainframes. We migrated to Endevor for the cost savings and also for consistency in our SCM. Endevor was our choice between the two.

I find setup very straightforward. The biggest challenge we had when converting was replicating the compile options. The load module analyzer only looks at link options. It would be nice if it also looked at compile options.

I'm not involved with pricing or licensing.

We looked at Changeman.

I think it's the best SCM I've used and would definitely recommend it.

• Adaptable to respond to all customer needs: It is configuration management software. It retains all the components of a computer system. The entire application fabrication process is described in Endevor. It specifically defines all environments: testing environment, pre-production and production. The components follow the manufacturing process that are to be kept in the production reference.
• History and components of application protection

• Traceability and the history of changes in applications
• Monitoring and consistency in the application development process, from development to production implementation
• The ease of the backspace

This software is made to keep the components' and change history. There is no concept of application and version management of these applications. It is in this area that it could be improved.

I have used this solution since 1997 in several companies with mainframes (banking, insurance, and pension funds).

There were malfunctions in earlier versions. The software has been stable in recent years.

Technical support is correct.

We did not previously use a different solution.

Implementation requires a good level of knowledge and expertise.

The license price is high, so big companies with a large information system can have this software.

I only know of three types of software that meet our needs. Endevor is the most widespread in France. LCM is not available in France.

It is a very good choice, but it requires a good level of knowledge to implement. Call on experienced people to implement it.

One of Endevor's most valuable features is the ability to have your source in a repository that keeps track of all of your versions. It also has your ACMQ, which allows you to keep track of your input and output components. It has everything in it that you need for auditors: who asked for the change, when the change moved up, all the different stages, and where the approvals are. So, when we have auditors come in, we can trace it from production all the way down through the development, and the changes that we made at a line level.

When we first brought Endevor in, we had a lot of issues with audits. We had Librarian. We had Panvalet. When we brought Endevor in, almost 18-20 years ago, the auditing issues went down dramatically, once we had everyone into Endevor, using it, and we had everything turned on. Now, when we have audits, they go through smoothly. They barely ask us any questions because we can prove the changes all the way up through production, and there's no issue with having to come back for information later.

Right now, we're looking at moving into DevOps, so I'm glad to see that CA has started DevOps on the mainframe. We're looking at using the Eclipse user interface, which will make it easier to move off of ISPF, and we're looking at possibly using Application Lifecycle Conductor. Endevor plugs into that so that we can use more of a pipeline for DevOps and for agile processing; get the pipeline in place so that we can trigger off and go to tools such as JIRA, Jenkins, and still be connected to the mainframe so our projects are all in one.

There is one feature, the sandbox feature, that allows you to virtually create environments for developments and then, once your project is done, those environments go away as you move up through the lifecycle. You can always build new environments.

That's a very good feature, but there are pieces of it that make it difficult to use for my company because of the way we have our data set up. There are some features in there I would like to see improved.

The Sandbox feature was added a few years ago and would be very helpful, but there are several companies that cannot use the feature due to the design. The Sandbox feature reuses the Subsystem field as an identifier for the sandbox then returns the modules back to the original subsystem when done. However there is no mechanism to save the old subsystem field at the module level, so only modules from one subsystem can go into a sandbox. That’s great for standalone or simple applications.
My company uses object oriented code with several layers, so one application may use many subsystems. Without the ability to map the modules back to their original subsystems we cannot use the sandbox feature. It would have worked well if a new field was introduced for the sandbox name instead of using the subsystem. Perhaps a new field or table could be added that would save the old subsystem so it could be replaced when the modules move out of the sandbox.

Currently the only solution is to continue creating environments for use with agile development which is a maintenance nightmare, or ask the application teams to redesign their software so it is contained within their own applications. This is not an option. So we’re going with the maintenance nightmare. I’ve tried designing a solution around the sandbox feature but it will be just as complicated as writing my own solution.

We have had this product for 18-20 years.

Endevor's very stable. We haven't had any issues with it going down. It's on the mainframe, so there really are no issues with stability.

We have five sysplexes. We've increased the number of LPARs. We've increased the number of business units; the lines of code. Everything is increased and we've automated moving things to production, so it really, it scales very well. We've had no issues with that.

We've used technical support several times, when they come out with new features. If we have issues with the features, or we're trying to figure out how we can use them best, we call technical support. Technical support has been great. They point us to the documentation; they'll help us with any issues; they work through everything very quickly.

I was not involved in the initial setup. I was a developer at that point, so I worked with Endevor from the other side.

Later on, I came in as the technical lead on Endevor. At that point, I was involved in cleaning up and streamlining what we had in our Endevor implementation.

The upgrade processes have changed over the years. The upgrade process is very easy now. It's an easy download and then we just have to do our testing. Rolling it out to the users is very simple.

Make sure you involve the technical people from CA on your design. When you bring your tools in, make sure you tell them what you're trying to solve, so they can help you design it correctly the first time, because once you get it in, it's difficult to change the way your design is without disrupting your business.

I haven't seen a perfect product, mostly because the products are usually very good in mainframe or distributed. I haven't seen a product that's really good in both. If it were good in both the mainframe and distributed source code, I would give it a perfect rating.