BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is extensively used by our clients mainly in the BFSI sector, where we see around 5,000 to 10,000 file transfers for a few critical customers. We use it for data from their vendors who provide inputs for their end clients, including insurance agents who provide data in these files, facilitating both B2B and B2C processes.

Regarding the usability of BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer, I have been using it since 2009, and I have encountered no issues. I appreciate that no code is required, it is centrally managed through account management, validations are in place, and file transfers are tracked in an audit through which account they occur. It is one of my favorite solutions, existing since 1980, and I have written a lot of papers on Control-M, including one on my LinkedIn called 'A Leader's Journey' before BMC published the journey of Control-M.

My impressions of application workflow orchestration with BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer are that it is a fantastic tool I have been using for 16 years. I have even received appreciation from the development team in Israel, stating that no one has used the solution to the extent that my team and I have for one of our customers. The orchestration process allows easy accessibility to different applications, and it facilitates configuring with drag-and-drop functionality to set dependencies.

If you can share an email, I can provide pointers on potential improvements for BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer, focusing on customer-centric enhancements. For example, providing checksums for file metadata in reports could significantly help with file transfers.

I have been working with BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer for more than three to four years.

Regarding stability, there were some issues reported during implementation and usage by our customers, but I would rate it an eight out of ten.

The scalability of BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is impressive due to its ability to handle large quantities of data and files, but there are certain features that could be added to make it a game changer.

From a support perspective, BMC technical support needs improvements. There are novice users needing help, but for customers such as us, who have been using the solution for over a decade, the response needs to be more timely and efficient, utilizing L2 and L3 support effectively.

The initial setup process for BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is very simple for us, as it requires a component to be deployed in the DMZ, from where the file gets transferred centrally to the server.

We are the premium partners for BMC products implementations, recognized as Bihom partner of the year multiple times. I have deployed BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer since 2011 for our customers, and it has been working flawlessly, with people speaking highly about the solution as the heart of their organization.

BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer has indeed helped our clients reduce IT operation costs. For instance, I implemented it for one of the largest banks in 2012, which reduced their loan process sanction from four days to just two hours, and now it completes in 30 minutes. Additionally, the timeline for the policy dispatch to insurance end clients, which initially took up to ten days, now happens in two hours.

BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer has some competitors in the market, but according to the Forrester and Gartner reports, nobody is even close to this solution, and I prefer not to use open source options.

BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is my favorite product, so while I would typically rate it around 9.7 or 9.8, I would ultimately assign it a rating of 10.

Control-M is used to run Oracle scripts with scheduled jobs including monthly, weekly, and yearly schedules. Around 50 or more jobs are run every week. Control-M connects to the database, triggers all procedures, performs the operation, and generates the final report. The log is sent to mailboxes detailing how the process went, any issues, or any errors. If there are issues, the mailbox is checked; otherwise, a message indicating successful completion is received along with statistics such as how much time the process took and which processes were run. Jobs are scheduled once, Control-M jobs are created, timing is set up, and the jobs fire automatically at the particular time.

Control-M is used to connect to Oracle products, and through Control-M, a Tableau dashboard is maintained. Most of the scheduling jobs use Control-M to schedule. Control-M helps all products, making it a utility that can be used wherever scheduling features are needed. It is not just for DevOps, databases, or front-end applications; it can be used anywhere without manual intervention to perform particular activities. Wherever there is an opportunity for scheduling jobs, Control-M is the first option.

For migration, Control-M is considered very good. Once all the source and target details are configured in Control-M, it can automatically migrate data. It requires proper configuration and specifying the necessary changes for target technology along with the source system scripts. If properly configured, the complete migration can be triggered end to end. Data migrations and reporting, along with all scheduling activities, can be efficiently managed.

The best features in Control-M include sending emails to mailboxes after the process is completed and providing proper acknowledgement reports. The timing is impressive; it connects very fast and performs activities efficiently. The UI is very friendly, making it easy to configure jobs in Control-M. If core technology scripts are available, creating Control-M jobs is a five-minute task. The GUI is very friendly, which simplifies task assignment, scheduling, canceling, and all these operations, making it easily navigable.

Every week, 50 jobs are run using Control-M. If those 50 jobs were being run manually, it would take more than a week. Through Control-M, the jobs are able to be scheduled within two days, saving around five days of effort.

Before Control-M, jobs would be run on Friday evening so that the process would end by Sunday night, allowing the business to start on Monday. Without Control-M, everything would have to be run manually throughout the week. Thanks to Control-M, around five days are being saved. Otherwise, old data would be received for the current week's business, but now the latest data is received.

Control-M has room for improvement in displaying dashboard-like graphical reports once processes are completed. For example, after scheduling 50 jobs, if a dashboard showing the completed scripts, status, and time taken is displayed within Control-M itself, it would be very helpful. Currently, mailboxes are checked for reports; if it were in Control-M, anyone could check it. Only those configured with specific mail IDs receive emails, so if a few members are not set up, they will not see the reports. If it were available in Control-M, those users could directly check the dashboard.

Control-M has been used for the last two years from the beginning of the project level. Earlier, it was already there in Control-M that the client was using.

The same score for stability is a nine out of ten.

Control-M is capable of handling a large volume of processing if the necessary memory space is provided to the server.

Great support is received, with a rating of nine out of ten.

Control-M would definitely be recommended because it saves a lot of time. If everything were being done manually, it would take a lot of time to run and validate scripts. If everything is configured in Control-M, even non-experts like front-end staff can trigger jobs, making it simple. It is a one-time configuration, and anyone can trigger it. That is the best part; significant time is saved, and there is no waiting time; the next process starts immediately once the current one is completed. If dependencies are set in Control-M, it starts the next task automatically. That is why Control-M is highly recommended for scheduling.

The client is a big enterprise client.

Control-M requires occasional maintenance, maybe yearly or once every six months for upgrades. A Control-M team manages activities such as maintenance every six months or once a year, including cleaning up scripts or memory.

Around 15 members are using Control-M.

The overall review rating for Control-M is ten out of ten.

My main business use cases supported by Control-M involve working with healthcare, insurance, telecoms, and banking, both retail and investment, primarily to ensure things are working. Much of this is in regulated industries, so we have established the necessary processes and tools to ensure that Control-M code is properly controlled, allowing us to satisfy SOX audits and other similar regulatory requirements.

Host groups are one of the most valuable (and unrecognised) features in Control-M and allows you to make your code environment agnostic. They allow for load-balancing, simple scaling, and technology groupings. Control-M supports my DataOps and DevOps initiatives by providing a single pane of glass to orchestrate and manage workflows across numerous systems. With the integrations, I have access to all my on-prem and cloud-based applications, and I can write my own interfaces for systems that are no longer supported, such as managing Solaris machines which still run for some of my clients.

Control-M integrates with new or changing technologies within my DataOps or DevOps stack fairly easily. The BMC team consistently develops new integrations at a rate of two or three a month. If they have not already got an integration available, it is very straightforward for me to create one myself, even for older technology through agentless connections to unsupported systems.

Control-M enables new capabilities or business processes that were not previously possible. There is significant capability embedded in the tool, some of which is not immediately obvious. With some creative thinking, I can leverage these capabilities to improve performance and allow Control-M to handle much of the load balancing.

One key element where Control-M could be improved is in providing a better audit trail for converting from development through to test and then to production environments. The process can currently be done, but the XML version is difficult. JSON offers an easier approach and is going to be the standard moving forward, so some XML-related issues will resolve naturally. For those still on XML for source control, it is an ideal opportunity to review procedures within Control-M to ensure compliance.

I joined JP Morgan in 2007, which introduced me to Control-M, and I have essentially been working with Control-M ever since then, marking 18 years this year.

The stability and reliability of Control-M in my experience is commendable; it simply works if set up correctly. Proper analysis of infrastructure requirements, source code control, and growth expectations should be carried out before commencing the migration. Once those factors are right, the conversion should run very smoothly. It is important that the conversion is carried out by a collaboration between teams that understand the old and new systems.

Control-M orchestrates workloads across multiple environments quite easily. I find that the graphical interface is very user-friendly, and although I have traditionally used the desktop interface, the web interface in version 22 is now nearly as effective as the desktop.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Control-M raises interesting points. Pricing is often perceived as high, and the licensing model can be unclear. However, in the end, it is clear that I am paying for a top-end tool which rarely experiences issues, with most problems stemming from the applications being managed rather than the tooling itself.

Regarding other solutions considered before selecting Control-M, I have seen conversions from Redwood and witnessed attempts to convert out of Control-M into a cheaper product. These attempts often ended in failure, leading to a reversion back to Control-M. Currently, I am looking at conversions from TWS into Control-M SaaS, and Axway into Control-M SaaS, along with several other potential conversions.

With proper planning, setuo is straightforward.

The biggest return on investment I have experienced with Control-M is the reduction in support time. If I set things up correctly with appropriate alerting levels, my support team can proactively prevent incidents rather than waiting for something to go wrong. The most significant metric is the number of support tickets prevented, rather than the number of support tickets closed.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Control-M raises interesting points. Pricing is often perceived as high, and the licensing model can be unclear. However, in the end, it is clear that I am paying for a top-end tool which rarely experiences issues, with most problems stemming from the applications being managed rather than the tooling itself.

When considering the overall experience with the migration processes of my customers, I find that if they approach the process with proper planning and due diligence, it typically goes very smoothly. A common mistake is trying to lift and drop what they had in another tool into Control-M without considering process differences, as the tools do not function the same way.

My advice to other companies considering Control-M is to conduct due diligence, examining not just initial costs but also ongoing expenses. It is essential to consider anticipated usage duration and growth patterns, as a correct setup facilitates easy growth, whereas a faulty setup complicates matters.

I would rate Control-M overall as a 10 out of 10.

Mostly, customers need to perform file transfers, which is a main use case for many customers. Many customers I worked with use various kinds of file transfers, and I use BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer for this purpose.

This solution affects our organization's business modernization initiatives as BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer can remove silos. When you don't have an orchestration product, many departments perform tasks in an isolated way. With our orchestration, I can integrate legacy assets with modern assets. Technology is always reinvented, so you have to handle backward technology and gain business advantages when you use new technologies. Using BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer for orchestration is the best definition for this.

I use BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer as a core feature. The best features with MFT are accurate file transfer and visibility for file transfers.

Regarding the usability of MFT, it is very easy and powerful to use.

BMC has made some improvements for this product. For example, I can use MFT inside my company and then use MFT Enterprise to exchange files with external users.

I have noticed more features and enhancements for this product in the latest releases. BMC Control-M's Application Workflow Orchestration is very advanced.

While I am unsure if BMC is a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, they have been working in this area for many years and have improved their product.

The solution has helped reduce IT operation costs.

BMC is already improving in artificial intelligence and integration with cloud. AI can improve and is definitely an area where BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer continues to enhance.

I have good feedback for the deployment because when customers show challenges, we can perform a smooth deployment for this solution.

BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer helps to reduce costs. When you have control of your entire production, you can be proactive and control your SLAs. You can save substantial money just by having control of everything.

It saves significant time. Here is one use case: when you don't have visibility of your infrastructure, you have a misconception that everything is fine, however, when you discover that some processes have not been handled properly, you will discover this too late. When you discover something is late, you will lose money and time. However, when you have everything under control with BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer, you can be proactive and prevent scenarios where you lose money and time because time is money.

This is the main benefit; when you have everything under control, it prevents you from losing money and time.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution a ten.

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.

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.