Control-M - Application And Data Workflow Orchestration

My use case for Control-M  is scheduling batch jobs in the banking sector. Previously, I used it for support jobs, and subsequently utilized it in development activities. When making changes to jobs, we need to locate them in Control-M . We monitor the screen and search for jobs with different filters such as the order date filter. In our project, we use the order date filter because jobs run on every order date. Based on the order date, we navigate to the particular date and verify if our job is running. If it is running, we check the status and review the logs.

Previously I used AutoSys, and when I transitioned to Control-M, it was initially exhausting because Control-M allows longer job names. Based on the job name, we can understand what the particular job is doing. Here  everything comes into one number as we are using short job names, which was initially irritating. Once I became accustomed to it, it became simple to organize things efficiently. We can see all the links, predecessor links, and dependencies visually.

When we select a job in Control-M, we can see all the linked connections, including predecessor jobs. Sometimes when a job has multiple dependencies located far from the current location, we need to scroll down to see the linked jobs. We have a feature to right-click and go to the dependent waiting info, but whenever we click on a job, it should visualize the link and display the job name on the particular line it relates to. This would be a beneficial feature to implement.

From my knowledge and job role, business users do not typically use Control-M since they are interested in the end product rather than the scheduling tool. However, they are concerned with ETAs for their reports. When batches get delayed, business users need to determine when their particular report will be ready. Currently, they must ask the technical team for timing updates. If Control-M could develop a portal showing ETAs for business reports, it would eliminate the need to consult the technical team.

In my six years of experience, I have primarily worked with existing jobs. For creating dependencies, the current process requires multiple steps, including going to the predecessor and action items and setting up in two places. Implementation of drag-and-drop functionality would simplify this process. Users could create dependencies by clicking on the source and dragging it to the destination, with additional setups for actions and notifications available through a separate menu.

I have been using Control-M for approximately five to six years in my career.

Regarding stability, in my previous project, I experienced lagging with refresh times of six to seven seconds. In my current project, I feel more comfortable as the refresh time has improved to one or two seconds.

Control-M is particularly suitable for large companies. Many big companies are migrating from AutoSys to Control-M. The graphical visibility of processes is clearer than other job scheduling solutions, which is Control-M's biggest selling point.

I have never contacted Control-M technical support or customer support as the client team typically handles any issues.

Neutral

I have used AutoSys, where I developed numerous jobs. AutoSys uses dependency configurations that I found easier to set up compared to Control-M.

I cannot speak to the ease or difficulty of Control-M's initial deployment as it was already implemented when I joined the project.

I have limited visibility regarding Control-M's pricing since we use it as clients and work as contractors.

When joining projects, Control-M is typically already implemented, so I have not had the opportunity to migrate from previous solutions.

Regarding Control-M's management and orchestration of workflows across enterprise, we currently use on-premises solutions. In my previous project, we used cloud solutions, but I found the on-premises solution more effective for technical people, while cloud solutions are more suitable for business users. When scheduling is cloud-based, there can be lag time as it takes longer to reflect changes from on-premises to cloud environments. With the current trend moving toward Databricks , cloud implementation becomes a viable option for jobs already running in the cloud. However, for jobs running on an on-premises server, cloud implementation may not be the optimal choice.

I rate Control-M a seven out of ten.

I use Control-M  extensively on a daily basis.

The best features I prefer about Control-M  include self-service and SLA management.

In Control-M, the user interface has room for improvement. The user interface can be more friendly and should be more similar to a Control-M/EM client interface. Control-M SaaS is very expensive.

I have been using Control-M for 15 years.

When comparing Control-M with other vendors, BMC is very stable according to the Gartner report, and it has more than 30 years of product lifetime, making it a very good product.

I would rate the scalability of Control-M as excellent, giving it a 10.

I would rate the technical support a 10.

Positive

For on-premises, the task pricing is somewhat expensive, but for SaaS, it is very expensive.

Approximately 10 users use Control-M. My relationship with BMC is more strategic and collaborative, as it is more about buying and selling. I am satisfied with BMC as a strategic partner. I would recommend Control-M for other users because for a company, Control-M is an infrastructure, and every company should have one workload automation product. Control-M is the best choice. My clients are enterprise users. I would rate Control-M overall a 10.

The main use case is to automate business processes from ERPs, SAP, databases, and file transfers. I also use it with DataOps and DevOps. It is very easy because Control-M  has native integrations with many tools, and BMC develops more integrations every month, making integration straightforward.

Recently, BMC has focused on cutting-edge technologies, such as cloud, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. These are the latest connectors that BMC has released for these technologies.

Control-M  is an orchestration tool that provides a broad and complete vision of your environment. You can integrate many different heterogeneous technologies. The main feature is its role as an orchestrator. It is easy to use and has numerous native integrations. If you need a specific integration for a homegrown application, you can develop a connector for that as well. Control-M can be used with a job as code approach, and it provides audit and governance capabilities on the platform.

I cannot identify areas for improvement at this time because Control-M is a state-of-the-art technology.

I have been using this solution for more than 15 years.

The deployment process is very straightforward. There are two distributions for Control-M: an on-premise offer, which is the classical offer, and Control-M as Software as a Service. While Control-M is easy to implement overall, the Software as a Service approach offers many advantages because customers don't need to worry about infrastructure since BMC handles it entirely. Additionally, customers don't need to perform upgrades and cumbersome initial setups.

The solution is very stable and secure.

The scalability is very good because Control-M implementation can be used in high availability. For on-premise implementation, you can distribute components of Control-M in different machines. The SaaS implementation is also very scalable.

The technical and customer support is excellent. BMC has great development in both areas. The support is accurate, and BMC is always ready to help with queries and complex incidents.

Positive

The benefits include achieving digital transformation, accelerating business processes, removing silos, and meeting SLAs at the exact time.

I am not comfortable discussing pricing details. I prefer to focus on technical issues.

I am a Control-M consultant working with utilities, banking, and government sectors. In Brazil, Control-M is used by a broad range of companies, including major financial companies, utilities, oil industry, telecom, and retail. Control-M is widely recognized in Brazil for orchestration. BMC continuously improves the tool. The reviewer has given Control-M a rating of 10 out of 10.

I'm not sure about Control-M  because it is only for another team member to use. What I can tell you is it is very helpful to use Control-M  in the mainframe platform because we can run and schedule many routines at the same time and we can create some scenarios. By these scenarios, we can run a lot of routines. We can build some scenarios and maintain this in the real world in production environment.

Regarding Control-M, what I can mention is I only know about the platform used nowadays for our team, and I believe it is a very archaic model. Probably there is another interface, better solutions and maybe with an interface easier to use on a daily basis. But what we have nowadays is something not so familiar for people that don't have a complete understanding about how to use.

Regarding Control-M, I'm not the one to use it directly, but I know it is a very powerful tool and very dynamic and helps us a lot on a daily basis. I believe the tools to schedule a routine in Control-M are very helpful. On a daily basis, we can use a lot without some problems. It's very easy to use.

It is necessary to take some time to learn Control-M. More or less a month to be familiar with the first steps. As you continue, you will increase your understanding about the feature and probably need more or less six months.

People in the first initial step need more or less one month to be familiar with some commands and start using Control-M tools. To feel comfortable using it on a daily basis without support, it takes more or less six months. This is the appropriate time to be able to use Control-M.

I have used another tool related to Control-M, but it is not so similar. It is something more related about running only individual routines one, two, or three routines at the same time. It is Topaz. It is a tool directly connected to the mainframe as well, but it is more destined to developers to build routines and programs and run these sources. It is not the same, but it is what I use on a daily basis when I need to run routines.

I have never experienced any issues such as lagging or crashing with Control-M.

The scalability of Control-M is adequate. We need to follow some steps to add some routines, but that's acceptable. What I know about this feature is it is reasonable to use when you need to add some new steps, schedule some new routines, or add some files. It is pretty nice and not a big deal to use.

I didn't need to contact the technical support or customer support for Control-M.

Positive

I would rate Control-M overall an eight out of ten. I believe you can put my company name as entity data. I'm a software engineer.

My use case for Control-M is orchestration.

The best features of Control-M are that it is easy to use; even a non-technical person can learn it in a couple of days with normal documentation and a few videos. Just two days should be sufficient to pick it up. Users do not need to be technical to use the tool, and it is easy to implement and deploy.

Integrating Control-M with other technologies for DataOps and DevOps is easy; we export the jobs we create in a non-prod environment and, on the runtime, we know what variables need to be replaced, and we replace those variables to deploy to prod since Control-M is just an XML file, which is very easy to search and replace.

Control-M is extensively used in our projects. When we start a project and it becomes an enterprise tool, we are required to use it. If there are any failures, we can tag them with an incident, making it easy for maintenance, monitoring, tracking, and deployment since everything is in one place.

The area that has room for improvement in Control-M is a better dashboard. For example, sometimes we have up to 100 Control-M jobs, and there is no dashboard to know how many jobs are in progress, completed, or waiting for files. That requires us to create an additional dashboard on top of the Control-M metadata.

I've been using Control-M since I started my career in data warehousing in 2011 or 2012 since there are more jobs, more tables, and more data loads in data warehousing.

When it comes to stability, I would rate it as good, an eight out of ten.

The scalability of Control-M is good; we create different servers for different projects instead of putting all jobs on one server, and I would rate scalability as an eight out of ten.

The technical support from Control-M is good; I normally never ask the Control-M team for help as it hasn't gotten stuck for me, however, they are supportive, and I would rate it an eight out of ten.

Positive

We have used different orchestration tools, however, I am not aware of the specific tools you mentioned.

The deployment of the solution is easy.

Regarding the duration of deployment, if everything is proper, I don't see a big challenge. Normally, it takes a day if you have the code ready and follow the process and checklist.

The return on investment seen with Control-M is significant; in my experience, we run more than 100 to 150 jobs a day, and to monitor those jobs, one or two people should be enough since it triggers emails for failures and allows us to view logs within Control-M itself.

I'm not sure about the pricing of Control-M. I didn't get involved at the pricing level.

When comparing Control-M with other solutions, I see that everywhere, orchestration tools are simple, and while they come with basic monitoring and alerting functionalities, the decision to use Control-M often comes down to cost, licensing, and maintenance.

My relationship with BMC is good. 

I recommend Control-M if there are no other tools available as it is easy to use, with easy maintenance and a centralized monitoring system, alerting system, and incident creation. 

Overall, I would rate Control-M an eight out of ten.