Control-M SaaS

What do you like best about the product?

I like Control-M's reliability and centralized job management, which ensures that workflows run consistently without frequent issues, providing confidence that critical jobs will execute on time. The monitoring and alerting features provide real-time visibility into job status, making it easy to track running, completed, or failed jobs. If a job fails, it quickly alerts, allowing for prompt issue identification and resolution. I also really appreciate how Control-M handles job dependencies and complex workflows smoothly, even with multiple systems and applications involved, which reduces the need for manual coordination. Overall, Control-M simplifies daily operations, reduces stress for support teams, and enhances overall efficiency by automating and streamlining workload management.

What do you dislike about the product?

While Control-M is a very powerful and reliable tool, there are a few areas where it could be improved. The biggest challenge is the initial learning curve. For new users, especially beginners, the UI and configuration options can feel a bit complex at first. If onboarding and tutorials were more beginner-friendly, it could make adoption easier. Another area is the user interface, which sometimes feels slightly dated and overwhelming due to the number of options available on a single screen. A more simplified or customizable UI would improve the overall user experience. Additionally, the licensing cost is on the higher side, which may not be ideal for small teams or organizations. More flexible pricing options would make it accessible to a wider range of users. That said, these are minor concerns compared to the stability and functionality Control-M provides in enterprise environments.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use Control-M to automate, schedule, and monitor batch jobs across environments, saving time and reducing errors. It solves manual and error-prone job execution, manages complex dependencies, and provides real-time monitoring, improving reliability and operational clarity.

What do you like best about the product?

I use Control-M to monitor automated jobs and manage workflow, which is very helpful for scheduling tasks and handling alerts. I like that it ensures smooth and reliable application operation daily. Control-M reduces manual monitoring, prevents job failures, improves workflow visibility, and ensures timely task execution. It simplifies control with its centralized scheduling, which improves visibility and reduces errors. Automating cross-job dependencies is also done efficiently.

What do you dislike about the product?

I find the UI complexity a bit of a challenge. The licensing cost can be high, which is something to consider. There's also a steep learning curve involved, which can be daunting at first. Additionally, the limited cloud-native flexibility restricts some operations.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use Control-M to monitor automated jobs, manage workflow, and schedule tasks. It reduces manual monitoring, prevents job failures, improves workflow visibility, and minimizes downtime. Control-M centralizes scheduling, simplifies control, reduces errors, and automates cross-job dependencies.

My main use case for Control-M  is job scheduling. I use Control-M  for job scheduling by scheduling jobs for the asset team, like OS jobs, MFT  jobs, and AFT jobs. I exclusively use Control-M for scheduling.

The best features Control-M offers include monitoring, planning, and forecast. Planning stands out the most for me in Control-M, as it helps me to schedule jobs.

Control-M has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to automate a lot of manual activities, so we are saving time.

Control-M can be improved with GUI features such as job failure monitoring, where the duration can be increased from 30 days to one year so that we can monitor long durations of job failures.

I have been using Control-M for 11 years.

Control-M is stable.

The scalability of Control-M is good.

The customer support for Control-M is fine.

Negative

I did not previously use a different solution.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing indicates that it is cheaper than other automation tools in the market.

We require five staff members for deployment and maintenance, and they all are consultants.

I have seen a return on investment, specifically in terms of money saved. We are saving a lot of time, as many activities that used to take around three to four hours by manual activity have been reduced to 30 minutes to one hour.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing indicates that it is cheaper than other automation tools in the market.

Before choosing Control-M, I did not evaluate other options.

My advice to others looking into using Control-M is that it is easy to use, flexible, and stable. The features in Control-M are good, and the GUI of Control-M is actually very fantastic.

Currently, 500 users are using Control-M in my organization, where the majority of them are from the application team and a few are admin and schedulers. Control-M is currently used extensively, and while we do not have plans to increase its usage, we are using Control-M in different domains.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using Control-M is that it makes automation easy. It is easy to integrate Control-M with technologies for my data ops and DevOps processes as things change. I have automated activities on the Linux server while integrating with Control-M.

I would rate this product a 10.

Private Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Positive

What do you like best about the product?

Control-M is a powerhouse orchestrator that simplifies complex enterprise workflows by connecting diverse technologies into a single automated stream. I appreciate the Automation API, which treats complex enterprise workflows as simple versionable code. Treating workflows as versionable JSON code aligns automation with my React development cycle, enabling seamless CI/CD integration with peer review and instant rollback. I integrate Control-M with GitHub and Jenkins to automate deployments, ensuring my React frontend only updates once backend data pipelines successfully finish. The switch to Control-M from legacy tools like AutoSys or Tidal offers better cloud integrations and a Jobs as Code API approach.

What do you dislike about the product?

I don't like the high licensing costs, which can be a hurdle. The GUI is outdated, making it less appealing for modern and fast-moving frontend development. Also, the initial setup is complex, often requiring significant infrastructure configuration before developers can start coding workflows.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Control-M simplifies complex enterprise workflows into a single automated stream and ensures reliable data flows in my React app. It aligns automation with my React cycle, enabling seamless CI/CD integration through versionable JSON code, supporting peer review and instant rollback.