Control-M SaaS Starter Pack

I have used Control-M mostly for batch monitoring across three projects with financial institutions. The primary focus was on batch monitoring and checking the health of the environment in production or pre-production settings. In almost every project, we implemented jobs that check network connection from the mainframe and database health. I monitored and controlled many different processes with Control-M. I mostly used the Windows version, but I have also used the version that operates inside the IBM mainframe.

I did not use Control-M for audit preparation. I knew that other people in my company used Control-M for audit purposes, but that was not my case.

In the mainframe part, Control-M works smoothly and perfectly with no lag or problems. However, in Windows, it certainly has some problems at times. I do not remember which version I was using, but it has a lot of lag when you try to click for rerun. You click it, the job starts working, but the display does not show the information that the job is already running. Sometimes it does not have the option for confirmation, so it was annoying to click run and not see the job working or doing anything because of the lag on the screen. Sometimes you click rerun or click the rerun button twice, so you get a second run that you did not want, but because of the lag, you get the second run. This was the most annoying thing in Control-M.

Regarding what I would want improved, the tool in the mainframe would be very helpful with a report that you can follow directly in the path of the jobs. In the Windows version, you have all the graphics, so you can follow your path and see when it is going to run and how it is scheduled, which allows you to work more easily to change, hold, or make any movement in the job. In the mainframe version, it is complicated sometimes to follow the same path. You need to consult a lot of documentation for the planning of how the jobs are done, but you cannot find this information directly in Control-M in the mainframe.

I think the biggest thing I would like Control-M to improve in the mainframe is some way to track or follow the jobs a little bit more graphically, similar to the Windows version. I know it is very complicated, but that is my feeling.

I would appreciate Control-M being more complex when it has more features, such as when you are making the planning for the batch. The more complex your tool is, the more you can do for certain parameters or to put a job exactly between two different processes. You can accomplish more with a more complex interface and tools. I think probably other job scheduling tools get a little bit easier or offer a more light version and a simplified version, but I think not. At least for me, when I was making the planning or checking the batch, the more complex and different tools for the different situations that you have in the batch is the better.

I have been working with Control-M for about five years.

There are a lot of stability issues, and it depends on the platform. In the mainframe part, Control-M works smoothly and perfectly with no lag or problems. However, in Windows, it certainly has some problems at times. I do not remember which version I was using, but it has a lot of lag when you try to click for rerun. You click it, the job starts working, but the display does not show the information that the job is already running. Sometimes it does not have the option for confirmation, so it was annoying to click run and not see the job working or doing anything because of the lag on the screen. Sometimes you click rerun or click the rerun button twice, so you get a second run that you did not want, but because of the lag, you get the second run. This was the most annoying thing in Control-M.

I do not have a certain response for how scalable Control-M is because every time I have needed to use it, it covers everything and I think that is great scalability. However, I have never been in a situation in which Control-M is insufficient and I need a more powerful tool for scaling or anything related to that. So, at least for my experience, it is great.

In the two projects I have been working on, the maintenance was from BMC directly. I actually did not know that other people can give maintenance or support directly to the tool because I have always used it through BMC, which actually provides great support. It is very useful and they respond very quickly, so I never figured out that we would probably need local support.

In the last project, we had a BMC group who was in charge of us or they responded directly to the last enterprise, in the last company where I was, so it was very helpful. If we had any problem regarding Control-M or BMC, they have a team in the company ready to support us.

I used another one, but I do not remember the name quite well. It was a bit more for DBA, but I do not remember. It was also a job scheduling tool, but I do not remember the name quite well. It was about six or seven years ago.

The initial deployment was pretty easy. Even the one in the mainframe was easy to follow. The one in Windows is super easy to start working with, and if you have minimum knowledge about COBOL and how the mainframe works, you will be very easily walked through the JCL. Also, the feature that you can see the JCL in the Windows version is fantastic.

I am probably not the correct one because I have never done a quotation for the team to integrate the tool for the team or for any specific project, so I do not have information about this.

As I said, I used another job scheduler in the past. I do not remember it quite well, but right now, it is very complicated to see another job scheduler that is not Control-M because I am very used to it. Also, since it is the principal tool in the mainframe for job scheduling, it is also complicated for me to try to figure out another tool for job scheduling because it has a lot of options. It is actually a pretty good tool for monitoring the jobs or for my experience and in the areas where I have been working. So, at this moment I cannot imagine another tool right now because Control-M is actually all that I need for my work.

In the two projects I have been working on, the maintenance was from BMC directly. I actually did not know that other people can give maintenance or support directly to the tool because I have always used it through BMC, which actually provides great support. It is very useful and they respond very quickly, so I never figured out that we would probably need local support.

For my last experience, I would give a rating of ten because we have this team specifically for us. However, in the past with another project when we had to call BMC directly for support, I think that overall I would give them an eight. I would give the support an eight overall.

I give this review a rating of nine.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I have been using Control-M for more than six years. Initially, it was mostly just monitoring the jobs, but now I also do some troubleshooting around that.

My main use case for Control-M these days involves multiple jobs running in our contact center systems. We have multiple nodes to begin with, and some of them are responsible for maintaining the predictive dialer calling list for records sourced from multiple platforms. Along with this, we also have certain jobs deployed for our reporting purposes, where our databases are synchronizing with other Genesis databases. Additionally, we have multiple log archiving systems or jobs that have been deployed as well. We have some ServiceNow jobs that trace and manage the employee profiles, and then we have some speech-related Nuance jobs scheduled as well.

One of the major use cases of Control-M that we use is our log archival process. This process integrates file movements with job scheduling and enables secure file transfer by using both FTP and SFTP file transfers. It triggers the job when the file arrives, and then it also validates the file completion and size before actual processing. So, in the contact center cluster, one of the jobs that we have is the Informat job that extracts the caller data from Informat and transfers it to various downstreams such as BIH or Connect Direct. Apart from this, we also have various SQL stored procedure purging jobs in Genesis, and there is one main, important Cassandra job that runs on the Cassandra nodes, selected for incremental backing up. The Pulse housekeeping, where the job runs and cleans the ECP snapshots every 30 minutes, is one of the major, significant jobs that we use. Along with this, we also have a cyclic job that runs every 15 minutes on each of the MCP nodes. Every 15 minutes, it resyncs the job, basically for the audio file resyncing that happens from one of the applications to a given directory. This means the most recent file that has been uploaded is put into all the MCP boxes every five seconds, and then the right announcement gets picked for the user to hear.

The log job archival basically copies and archives all the Genesis log files for a period of retention given. It logs the files from site one to a specific site location and site two to another specific site location. This is not only in production; it is for all environments including Dev, SIT, and QA that we have. We have also automated that all archived log files older than three days are gzipped, and all these files will be moved to a different archive location than the location that it has initially been sent to. It also makes sure that we are masking and the schedules are followed, which are not getting archived.

The best features Control-M offers that make all this possible for me include the job scheduling, which is most importantly critical. It enables us to schedule jobs across multiple platforms such as Unix and Windows together, and also the jobs running at very specific times help eliminate a lot of manual task execution by triggering based on either a file arrival or even a system event. It also enables us to run the jobs in the right order. Along with this, we also have the data pipeline and ETL automation, which helps various data engineering and analytic teams automate the Hadoop jobs and trigger downstream analytics after the data ingestion. All the ETL processes are managed better in terms of both data validation and quality checks. Additionally, the business-critical processes meet deadlines, for example, the ServiceNow data that we have to receive before 8:00 AM in the morning, or the month-end or quarter-end batch runs that need to happen, are done in a timely and accurate fashion.

The job scheduling and sequential jobs have been the most important feature of all. The rsync specifically, where the cyclic jobs run every 15 minutes without any manual intervention, makes sure that the process is streamlined and does it without any manual intervention, which helps a lot.

Along with this, end-to-end workflow orchestration, which is basically event-driven or file-driven, differentiates Control-M from any other basic schedulers. It is not just about running a job on a schedule, but it also enables complete business workflow from an application to multiple platforms and multiple environments. Dependency-based execution ensures that the previous job or the upstream job has completed before starting with the event, and multiple other conditions can also be set. The cross-technology enablement allows one workflow to span across multiple systems, from cloud services to databases to Unix and Windows, providing a single point of control for everything.

Control-M is a very nice product that is practical, but it is challenging to understand how certain features work. The UI and user experience sometimes feel complex and can be simplified a little bit to provide cleaner dashboards. The major complexity is the licensing complexity and access-related challenges.

Simplifying the UI can provide us better use of the application itself. Probably some more documentation around how to use the schedules or the alerting systems would also be helpful.

Control-M systems have been stable even during upgrades and patches, with very minimal disruptions to the system, so it has been stable throughout.

We started using Control-M with very few teams starting with about 50 users, but now we have about 3,000 plus users using Control-M in my organization.

Control-M customer support has been good, but we have not had the opportunity to extensively talk to them because we have an in-house support team that we reach out to before contacting the actual BMC vendor.

The other alternatives that we previously used were mostly cron jobs and other system jobs. We briefly used IBM workload automation but did not proceed with that. We also used Jenkins with some plugins, but ultimately, we did not pursue alternatives such as AutoSys. I believe Control-M is hard to replace.

The organization explored AutoSys and IBM workload automation before ultimately choosing to go ahead with Control-M.

We have a team of 25 to 30 members who are responsible for the deployment and maintenance of the Control-M setup. Our team includes architects and designers as well as deployment and support personnel.

I see a return on investment with Control-M. The other challenge we currently face is that they have started charging us, which is more of an enterprise-level decision, as they began charging us for each job run we have.

I do not have a major role in terms of pricing, setup cost, and licensing. Our team was only not allowed to access Control-M for a certain duration due to licensing constraints, which I feel is a challenge, but I was not directly involved in any of these pricing, setup, or licensing related discussions.

The impacts that Control-M has caused for my organization have very visibly increased operational reliability. Before Control-M, most jobs were script-based, such as cron jobs, and there was a lot of dependency on manual monitoring. Until the jobs were reported as failed by the business teams, we would not have had visibility over them. Now with Control-M, we have an end-to-end workflow which is centrally managed. If a node has failed, it sends notifications, and there is a lot of error handling built in. There are multiple automatic retries, reducing human intervention. In terms of issue detection and resolution itself, we have dashboards configured that enable us to get alerted even before the businesses are impacted or the businesses report the impact, allowing us to solve issues proactively. This has also increased productivity improvement.

When one of our reporting downstreams processes data and uploads it to our systems, it used to take an hour for the data to actually reflect. Businesses would notice missing data in the systems when they consumed the data. Now, within the duration when the job runs, it counts the number of rows we have, which means if the job fails, it is notified immediately within that 15-minute duration, helping us rerun the job. This means issues that were reported in an hour's time now get reported within the duration of the job running, which is within 15 minutes, leading to a significant improvement in how we see that the reports are being run.

There is a huge user base in our organization, with about 3,000 users using Control-M. The levels of usage vary; some have read access and just view the jobs, while others perform deployments in terms of job scheduling and other tasks.

We extensively use Control-M to schedule multiple banking-related jobs in varied fields, not just the contact center. We definitely intend to increase the usage.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using Control-M is that it is a best-in-class workload automation platform, effective in building, scheduling, managing, and monitoring complex workflows, especially for critical applications such as DataOps and enterprise DevOps environments where reliability and SLAs play a major role. The cross-system orchestration matters significantly more than speed alone, as it ensures jobs run accurately and efficiently.

My advice for others looking into using Control-M is that no matter how many systems you have, Control-M is the most competent and enterprise-scalable tool available. With various requirements, it is extremely reliable in monitoring and scheduling, making it an excellent choice. I would rate Control-M an 8 out of 10 overall.

I predominantly use Control-M for file transfers through the SaaS version. BMC has recently added an enterprise feature for the SaaS version, and we are now using it mostly for the file transfer part and also the APIs, which has been our latest addition.

With my current project, the File Transfer Enterprise is the best use case for us in terms of secured transfers and how we can track the transfers and manage significantly more with the transfers we are doing. This is the best feature, considering the ROI as to what my current scenario was and what we have achieved with the enterprise feature.

File Transfer Enterprise is the most valuable feature for our current project in terms of secured transfers and how we can track the transfers and manage significantly more with the transfers we are doing. This feature provides the best value, considering the ROI that we have achieved with the enterprise feature.

The integrator feature is not being supported by the BMC support team, which leaves it to us to customize and integrate it. Of course, the use cases differ and that is when they have decided not to have it under the support cluster. However, having basic support on the integration integrator would help us considerably. We do a lot of research and development to achieve what we need to accomplish, but BMC has the experts and eventually they have the answers. If they include the integrator feature under the support structure, it would be greatly beneficial.

The integrator feature is handy, but it can be tricky when we are trying to integrate in terms of achieving the connection profile. Setting up the connection profile initially to get any integrator working for us is somewhat tricky with different use cases we want to achieve. It is not straightforward.

I have been using Control-M since 2008 when I got into IT and started my career.

The SaaS version is excellent in terms of stability. For the price, it is very stable. We have not had any downtime. It has been more than two and a half years, approaching three years now since we got SaaS onto our system with no downtime at all. It is quite stable.

The scalability aspect is simply a matter of getting more agents in place and since it is a SaaS version, it gets scaled up on their end. We do not have to worry much about it. Of course, the licensing comes into play if the number of jobs are increasing, but it is dynamic.

I have recently contacted the BMC Control-M technical support team.

They are top-notch in terms of speed and quality. Most of the time, any question starts with extracting the logs and providing them to the support team, and they go through that. If they are not able to resolve the issue, they take time and put it to the research and development team. Of course, it takes a while if it goes to research and development, but they make sure that the issue is resolved. That is something great about them.

I would give the support a score of nine. I would still like to rate them ten, but some cases do take a while to get the resolution.

Autosys has been used and is the closest alternative to BMC Control-M. There are other features and other products, but Autosys is the most used alternative. However, it is nowhere near what BMC Control-M has to offer.

The initial deployment of Control-M was straightforward. With the current SaaS version, there is a support window of 14 days or specific hours. It is straightforward and depends on who is going to drive the deployment. For my case, I was experienced with the on-premise version as well, so that seemed straightforward for me. However, for those coming in with lesser experience, it may take some time. The documentation is excellent, so it is straightforward.

The deployment of Control-M requires two administrators. Basically, one administrator is the minimum need, but one can do the deployment. Since we have two admins, we share the workload. One is sufficient for the task.

Pricing for Control-M is on the costlier side when it comes to SaaS pricing. However, it does take off all the hassles of maintaining the Control-M server itself. This leaves us with only managing the agent part of it. It has pros and cons to that pricing feature, but it is on a higher side. Mostly in terms of ROI, the companies and stakeholders have that complaint.

Control-M does require maintenance on our end. There are two different windows of maintenance. One is when the core technology, in our case SAP, is getting under maintenance window, so we have to pause our jobs and resume it later on. This is a critical window that prevents our jobs from being pushed into SAP. We have to pause it and resume it depending on the schedules and make sure that we resume it and do not miss any jobs. The other window is when our agent maintenance or agent infrastructure maintenance occurs, when switching from a primary to a secondary agent, routing it, and making sure nothing is lost in the transit. Those are the two maintenance activities we perform.

We have a team of seven today, with two of us as admins. We have three schedulers and two monitoring agents.

Our engagement is with BMC. I have been involved with getting the contract rolled in for my current client and getting into the core of the technicalities in achieving the job requirements. It has been both.

We achieved the project in a month's time with Control-M. We had a project of converting and migrating our jobs from SAP workload onto the Control-M scheduler. End to end, we took less than a month to get the agents installed on the SAP infrastructure and get these jobs migrated from the SAP workload. Overall, I give this product a review rating of ten.