Control-M Self-Hosted EMEA

I primarily use Control-M  for scheduling jobs for scripts, batch scripts, and Linux scripts. Most of the writing involves service restarts on servers.

For data ops and DevOps processes, the requirement involves integration processes that need to be scheduled in Control-M , allowing management of cyclic processes for integration and continuous execution.

For building, scheduling, and managing production workflows, access is available through the URL or from the client software, Control-M Configuration Manager.

Control-M has made it easier to create workflows for both cloud and on-premises environments with features such as drag and drop functionality. This makes it simpler for users to create jobs and integrate them with dependent jobs.

Control-M has helped consolidate job scheduler tools with features such as SMS and mail capabilities, which other scheduler tools do not provide.

The best features of Control-M are particularly effective for Windows scripts and Windows servers, mainly for service restarts.

What is most appreciated about Control-M is that it is easy and reliable. Jobs that have been created can be accessed through the front end URL, where operations such as hold, release, and execution can be managed entirely from the user GUI front end.

Workflow orchestration is important for data ops and DevOps tasks as it makes scheduling scripts and managing various aspects of operations much easier through a single screen.

There are areas for improvement in Control-M as it carries some vulnerability points that could be fixed in any version, or it could be made easier for organizations to repeatedly install or update new patches with more stable versions.

I have been using Control-M for four years.

On a scale from one to ten, with ten being the best, Control-M's stability is assessed as a solid product at approximately eight or nine. BMC support provides robust backing, with new patches arriving daily and being integrated with previous versions to replace outdated updates and fix bugs while unlocking more features. No stability issues have been noticed during the four years of use.

Regarding scalability, based on the features and how they help with day-to-day tasks, Control-M can be considered scalable.

In terms of technical support, the focus involves creating scripts for service restarts on particular servers with the main target of providing support for automation services, automation management, job failure management, and managing the agent package and Control-M package.

The deployment of Control-M is easier than other tools. There are no critical tasks or activities required to deploy on the server; it simply involves setup and installation on the server with the tool ready to use immediately.

Regarding pricing, Control-M is not the cheaper option. License renewal is based on active jobs in a year, but it is cost effective. More features are provided compared to other tools at the same price.

When comparing Control-M with other solutions such as ActiveBatch , JAMS , and IBM, Control-M offers easier manageable operations for hold, release, and execution, which can be managed directly from its front-end URL. In its configuration tools where jobs are created, there are no difficulties encountered. Unlike other tools where dependency tools and jobs must be mentioned separately, Control-M provides direct drag and drop functionality with arrows. This is much easier than other tools such as IBM Task Scheduler or Jenkins .

Approximately 2,000 to 3,000 people use Control-M, including users from Axis Bank where all employees are using Control-M.

Control-M is recommended to other users by providing them a demo and showing them the uses, which helps them understand the benefits and features that Control-M provides that cannot be obtained from other tools. This allows them to rely on Control-M for their day-to-day tasks.

One point is deducted from the overall rating because Control-M carries some vulnerability points. The overall rating for Control-M is nine out of ten.

My main use case for Control-M  is that my team is in charge of all the alerting and monitoring, as well as the scheduling and creation of all schedules within Control-M .

The scheduling my team creates with Control-M serves all the IT audience within the company, so we have a mix of everything. Any need from developers, database administrators, or anyone from the infrastructure or development teams is handled, such as transferring files or updating databases. We deal with all requests within the company related to scheduling.

Within my team, we have around 10 people using Control-M who are focused on monitoring and reacting to alerts, as well as creating all schedules and doing all scheduling work. Beyond that, we have developers, DBAs, and others who check Control-M to review the performance of their jobs and logs. We have around 50 people total, though I don't know the exact number.

The best features Control-M offers are the stability and ease of use.

The interface of Control-M is easy to use and it is a very stable and reliable application. Control-M has a very high positive impact on my organization as it is a reliable tool that is very stable. We usually don't have issues related to the application itself, so there is a very high impact.

Control-M can be improved by including more options for automating things from an alerting handling perspective.

Reporting  features are a field that we would like to have more statistics about, including jobs, usage, and errors. We definitely would also like to have more options to integrate Control-M with other applications such as JSM, ServiceNow , OmniCenter, or other monitoring tools that can provide information from Control-M. There is always room for improvement for any application.

It is easy in theory, but I find it challenging to integrate Control-M with technologies for my data ops and DevOps processes as changes occur. There have been a few efforts to integrate Control-M with other applications like Ansible , JSM, and OmniCenter, and it has been very challenging. From a DevOps perspective, I am not aware of any efforts, so I don't have information about that. However, related to the ones that I mentioned, it has been very challenging because there are not many options to integrate with Control-M. I'm not sure if this is due to a lack of training or application knowledge from our side or if it is something that the application itself is not providing.

I have been in my current field for 20 years.

Control-M is stable.

Its scalability is challenging.

Control-M has very good customer support.

We don't have a metric for return on investment from a Control-M perspective. We are expecting to see some of that if at some point Control-M starts integrating AI features and AI functions into the application.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using Control-M is the importance of having a reliable and stable scheduler.

My advice for others looking into using Control-M is that training is key to learning how Control-M works behind the scenes and in the scheduling part. I also advise looking for stability and implementing the HA environment.

I would rate Control-M an eight on a scale of one to ten.

The core purpose of Control-M  is automation, workload automation, and job scheduling. We use it for cross-platform services including clouds such as AWS  and GCP , along with different databases. We are dependent on each service, which gives us a clear understanding of our architecture. Control-M  is very easy to use and easy to monitor.

We migrated to Control-M from services including some databases and some cloud services.

We use different scripts with Control-M following standard scripting practices. We also follow the agents approach by installing agents to our targeted machines. Additionally, we use the UI, which is very good. We log in using SSO . Control-M makes it very easy for ETL jobs, data pipelines, and everything else.

The main features of Control-M are the UI and the monitoring part. It has a very comprehensive UI and monitoring system. Control-M agents are another valuable feature, allowing us to run jobs on the target machine easily across any machines. Enterprise-level support is also a very good feature.

We use different scripts with Control-M following standard scripting practices. We follow the agents approach by installing agents to our targeted machines. The UI is very good, and we log in using SSO .

Control-M has saved us a lot of time and effort. Previously, it reduced the human touch and manual work significantly. It has brought substantial changes to our organization.

Control-M is a very sophisticated tool overall. The main issue is that there are some RBAC issues related to improper access control. There is no clear role defined, though there are some operator and admin kinds of roles. Control-M should integrate some primitive roles or define them better. In short, there should be very minor permissions so that roles can be properly defined for users.

Another suggestion regarding Control-M is that there should be more automation APIs. Since we are mostly dependent on automation and do not rely heavily on the UI, we need additional automation APIs for triggering jobs, fetching status, and similar functions.

I have been using Control-M for more than four years.

Control-M is very stable. During more than four years of use, it has remained reliable and stable. I would rate it 10 out of 10 for stability.

Control-M has significant scalability. I would rate it 9 out of 10 for scalability.

Technical support for Control-M is very good. The support team helps us considerably. Even when we were new to Control-M, they assisted us greatly with any integration issues or other concerns.

Compared to other vendors, Control-M has many features that are very helpful. The features are defined rather than broad level. We know there are many other solutions in the market, but we were previously using  Azure  Data Factory. Control-M has significant advantages in that it is simple to use, and anyone can operate it.

Control-M requires maintenance, but very little. Maintenance for Control-M is easier compared to other solutions.

The deployment of Control-M was easier, and we received support from the Control-M team. The deployment of Control-M took approximately one to two months.

The deployment of Control-M was easier, and we received support from the Control-M team. The BMC service team helped us map out our migration strategy and served as our architects.

There were some challenges, but I can say the migration to Control-M was easy overall.

Control-M has reduced our work by more than 35%.

Pricing for Control-M is at a medium level. I cannot say it is cheap or high.

I would recommend Control-M. We were also using Airflow , and there is a very significant difference in our workforce and environments when comparing the two solutions.

I give Control-M an overall rating of 9 out of 10. More than 30 developers are using Control-M in our organization. My relationship with BMC is more transactional in nature. We are currently customers, and we plan to become partners.