From an administrative standpoint, we are mostly engaged in upgrading, downgrading, and fixing the issues on a day-to-day basis, such as integration with the cloud functionalities. 

My only objective is that the application is up and running 99% of the time. I will make sure that it is not down, and it does not impact my application teams. If it goes down, it has a major impact on SLA, financial, and everything, so I make sure this is up and running 99%.

Control-M improved our organization significantly. We integrated it with our DevOps model, which saved us around 32 FTEs in resource costs. We also integrated with AWS Glue jobs or other clouds, such as Informatica. It's compatible.

Control-M supports our daily IT automation tasks. It is the blood for my entire organization, integrating with every app team, including HR.

Control-M offers pretty good REST API connectivity with other solutions.

The most effective feature of Control-M is the API integration. BMC is focusing on API integration. It's also very easy to deploy and identify issues. 

I don't see any areas where Control-M could be improved because they are doing well. The support is awesome. We have a weekly connection with our BMC tech focal, so I don't see any improvement needed. Things are going well. They are already working on GenAI integration with Control-M. The only thing that comes to mind is the cost. If it could be more competitive, it would be great.

I have been using Control-M for almost 15 years.

The stability of Control-M has been good so far. However, the testing and development phases need to be more rigorous before releasing patches. I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability.

It's scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

It's used across multiple departments. There are more than 3,000 users.

Control-M's technical support is very helpful. The immediate acknowledgment and solutions provided by BMC's support team make it stand out compared to other tools. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

My current organization has been using Control-M for 20-25 years, but I have used Autosys and IBM Workload Scheduler previously.

The initial deployment of Control-M was straightforward. We started with version 6.4 and are now at 9.0.21.304.

When I started, it used to take about eight hours. We are now able to do it within 30 minutes, including the downtime.

We are using it on-premise because their SaaS solution is not capable of handling our workload. Its maintenance mostly involves upgrades.

I handle the deployment. We have about five members involved in the deployment of Control-M from our side, including an administrator.

After implementing Control-M, there should be cost savings or efficiency gains.

Its cost can be more competitive. One of the main things customers look at is the cost. It's not affordable. The cost is very high, according to my customers. The licensing cost is very high, and they often consider switching to IBM Workload Scheduler or other options.

There aren't any extra expenses after purchasing Control-M. We have never paid any extra cost unless we needed additional packages, and the team was able to help us with that.

Nothing comes to mind regarding alternatives to Control-M, but I see all the features available in it since it is a leader. However, other solutions might be more cost-effective.

If you want to implement Control-M in your business, the first thing is to look at your budget. Checking affordability is key. Control-M has a lot of features, more than just scheduling batch jobs. 

The biggest lesson I have learned from using Control-M is that you need to have patience. Errors or issues cannot be resolved without developer assistance, but once you get their help, you learn a lot.

I would rate Control-M a nine out of ten.

It is a job scheduler. It is used for scheduling jobs.

It is useful for any sequence of jobs that are complicated, such as Job A can't run after Job B, but if Job C hasn't run, you can't run Job B. Building that logic into a script is almost impossible. Control-M solves that problem. Normally, in large banks, there are many different dependencies. It helps with dependency mapping.

Banks need to bring the branches online at seven o'clock in the morning, so you have to finish your batch processing by the time you bring the branches online. Typically, if you've got a big outage in the middle of the night, it would take hours to fix, which means you will run late, and your backups and all other jobs will not be completed by the time your branches open their doors. Control-M can manage that for you. It can make some smart predictions and change the workflow dynamically so that businesses can run with predictability every night.

It keeps the run times of all jobs. If you need an SLA to complete a particular suite of jobs by a particular time, for example, 2 AM, it can provide the historical average run times of each job. It can help predict or forward plan to see what time it's going to finish those particular jobs. It can do predictive analysis, so if it's not going to finish by 2 AM, it can warn you that it's not going to finish by 2 AM. You can then build in some actions. Some of them may be less important. You can omit those for the night to save time.

A large bank in South Africa would have more than one million jobs to be run each and every night. If something goes wrong in the middle of a million jobs, it can be very complicated if you're managing that via scripts or manually. Control-M solves that problem.

It has a graphic representation of the job flow. It has a very nice GUI to help you understand the sequence of events. On the GUI, if a job is green, it's running or it's completed. If a job is red, there's a problem. It uses alerting and color coding to assist the operator.

Control-M is the number one leading product in the world. What they've done about scheduling, other people are still trying to figure out, so it's difficult for me to propose anything new. There is not so much AI at this point in time, but I guess it's coming. However, predictive analysis is built into it.

I have been using this solution for 20 years.

There are no complaints regarding stability.

There are no complaints regarding scalability. I sell it to most of the large enterprises, but it's also applicable to medium enterprises.

They are very good because this is a tool that requires 24/7 support. If something fails at 3 AM in the morning, you need to fix it and get it back up and working really quickly. You can't afford to have the tool down for long.

Positive

It is very simple as long as you know the prerequisites. 

It's worth the money. It is cost-effective because you need fewer things. It has a high level of automation. Staff can go home at five o'clock. You can run a million batch jobs or tasks at night when all of your highly skilled people are at home sleeping. When your staff comes in the next morning, all of that work is completed, and the business is ready for the next day

It depends. It's packaged in such a way that you can buy the base model without all of the fancy stuff. You can try and keep your price similar to competitors. I guess it's natural throughout the world. It doesn't matter whether you're buying cell phones or something else. The best cell phone will always be more expensive.

There are other solutions, but the difference is that Control-M has constantly undergone development. Each and every year, many improvements have been coming out. The GUI is one example. Often, people think about job scheduling as something you did in the 1970s or 1980s. You don't do that anymore. A lot of the competitor tools are legacy. They're kind of locked in. That's how they work. They're not trying to evolve. We used to talk about job scheduling many years ago, but now, it is orchestration. There are fewer tools that can do proper orchestration.

The fact that it has been in the top right-hand quadrant for 20 years tells you everything about the tool.

I would rate Control-M a nine out of ten. I have been a reseller of the tool for 20 years. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't believe in the tool, and I didn't like it a lot. I am proud to say almost all of the banks in South Africa are using it. That speaks for itself.

We have been using it in the institute to manage all the student data and post-study processes.

We have been using Control-M in our IT department to maintain server backups and database updates and schedule regular updates. Furthermore, it is being used in our library system to automate periodic updates of library catalogs. Control-M also automates email notifications for event announcements and fee structures.

The best feature is that we can automate everything. Moreover, we can access all the features through one dashboard, which is beneficial. 

We have been using Control-M for managing simple automation tasks. It will be very effective in managing other types of tasks. Control-M has the potential and can be very useful in managing business aspects.

The licensing cost can be improved. Although it provides good value, it could be better. The pricing model should be optimized.

Its initial setup is a bit complex. They could provide more documentation and tutorials to make the initial setup easier to understand. Enhancing the documentation could simplify the setup process.

We have been using it for more than one and a half years.

The tasks we have been handling are straightforward automation tasks. Considering that, I would rate it a ten out of ten.

It is scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

We have 50 to 60 users.

Technical support has improved. In the past, they were not as supportive, but they are better now. Based on recent experiences, I would rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

This is the first solution that we have used.

The initial setup and configuration are a bit challenging. There is a bit of a learning curve for some people. It takes a few days.

At the time, there were not many recommendations or resources to understand and deploy it properly, so it took us a couple of weeks to understand and deploy. It has been simplified over the last eight to ten months.

We implemented it in-house.

It has reduced the total cost of ownership by 30% to 40%. 

It has saved a lot of time for our employees and staff members. For a small task, there have been about 40% to 50% time savings.

It is a little bit expensive.

Our relationship with BMC is more transformative. We consider BMC as a strategic partner and trusted advisor.

I would definitely recommend Control-M to every institute because it is extremely helpful to manage every task without any manual error. I would suggest trying Control-M at least once. It is also recommended to start with the documentation and familiarize oneself with basic concepts before integrating it into the business aspect. 

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten.

We are a cloud service provider, and we have been using Control-M for integrating and automating the orchestrating applications in the data workflow in our production. This is the main use case for our flow.

We are using its cloud version, Helix Control-M.

Helix Control-M has helped us schedule the jobs and manage our workload. We save time in running the jobs. There is no impact on the software even if I schedule a hundred jobs at a time. It can accommodate all kinds of jobs. It helps to meet our large-scale requirements.

Helix Control-M’s ability to build, schedule, manage, and monitor application and data workflows in production is good. It is pretty straightforward. It integrates well with different applications, such as AWS, GCP, and various cloud providers, enabling job scheduling directly from the Helix Control-M interface without any agents. Integration is very easy.

We have a single pane of glass for scheduling and viewing job status. We get all the details in one window. We can schedule everything in one window. We did not have any downtime with the Helix Control-M. All the jobs have been running perfectly. Everything is smooth and straightforward.

We are mainly using the AWS Cloud, and we also have some GCP services. We can monitor all the details under the History tab. We can see all the past jobs. 

Helix Control-M gives our company’s business users visibility and control over their jobs and frees up IT personnel for other tasks.

Helix Control-M is very critical for our business. We rely on it. We do not want any other scheduler. It provides us with everything.

Helix Control-M has contributed to the overall stability of our applications and improved user experience. It has taken away some of the administration work.

The flexibility of Helix Control-M allows us to manage tasks efficiently. The user interface is comprehensive and lets me view all my jobs on one page, monitor everything, and access the job history. The UI is superb and flexible to use.

Scheduling multiple jobs at a time is a standout feature. 

There should be an expansion in storing more data as it currently provides data storage for only up to 60 days. 

There can be some complexities with the UI part, especially with the advanced features. Other than that, it has been pretty good.

I have been using it for almost two and a half years.

The stability of the Helix Control-M solution is good. I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability.

We also have access to their support. If we face any issues, we get support from them. Everything is good and working as expected.

Helix Control-M is scalable. It is being used by many people in our organization.

We have more than a hundred jobs running, and we have almost eight people managing it. We also have 3-4 end users using it.

The technical support is very polite, helpful, and available 24/7. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

Before Helix Control-M, we used different solutions. We previously used IBM Workload Automation but switched to Helix Control-M because it provides a comprehensive solution for everything and is very manageable without needing a dedicated person. Anyone can learn it. Its learning curve is very small.

The migration to Helix Control-M was straightforward. We did not face any issues.

The initial setup was straightforward. It took about three or four months to settle down. It is also not difficult to maintain.

We received support from BMC tech support and did not require any third-party consultants. We had six or seven people for the deployment of the solution.

The main return on investment with Helix Control-M has been a reduction in downtime and minimization of manual interventions, which has improved our operational efficiency.

The pricing is moderate, not too low or too high compared to other solutions.

We evaluated multiple solutions, including ActiveBatch, before choosing Helix Control-M.

The pricing was similar, but we found Helix Control-M better in terms of job automation and features. Their support was also very good. We got help from them with the orchestration and migration.

Before implementing the solution, thoroughly try out how it works in your current environment. 

My overall rating for Helix Control-M is an eight out of ten.

We use Control-M for ACS and Azure services as it has inbuilt cloud integration. We have a product that works on government databases where we use data scraping and then integrate it with Azure and OpenAI. This integration allows us to process data and get insights. We also use AWS services to save the processed data in the AS.

Control-M is a bit faster compared to other solutions. The job and coding are easier. Also, my DevOps and Ops teams work collaboratively with it, enhancing its efficiency. The workflow is much easier compared to the ACS services we were using. Automation is more advanced, deployment is fast, and version control has been simplified.

They should have a proper integration method that clearly defines the workflow. Additionally, there should be an automation system for developers to set it up more easily and quickly. My Ops team faces certain problems that need addressing.

I have been using Control-M for four to five months.

The downtime is higher compared to AWS. Indexing and databasing are more challenging, and the endpoint sometimes gets reset automatically. The accuracy rate is about 80% to 85%.

As we hire new interns and DevOps partners to scale our business, Control-M scales well with the enterprise's growth. As the workload on Control-M increases, its scalability is much higher. Its cost is very low.

I never had direct communication with technical support because solutions are available on the web. We didn't have a one-on-one conversation, but the support is adequate through online resources.

Neutral

We migrated from AWS to Control-M. It was more cost-effective and capable compared to AWS services. We were a startup with limited resources.

The setup was manageable with certain experienced DevOps staff, making it easy to deploy on the local server.

There was an built-in DevOps team that found Control-M more cost-effective and capable than AWS services.

New users should have a comprehensive understanding of how BMC and Control-M operate. Good coding skills are essential, as well as utilizing open-source codes. Monitoring should be done by someone knowledgeable about the system. I would rate Control-M a seven out of ten.

I am using Control-M for cloud infrastructure and automation-related tasks. As a cloud engineer, my work involves scheduling, deploying, managing, and monitoring processes for infrastructure and workflows. It is integrated with a CI/CD toolchain as part of our DevOps culture.

I am using the cloud version. I am using Helix Control-M.

Control-M has good integration capability. It integrates well with all the solutions. It also has good reporting capabilities.

Control-M has improved our organization's functions by supporting high availability and integrating with CI/CD workflows. It helps maintain high availability and manage workflows across the production environment, increasing our productivity.

Additionally, Control-M has offered broad-level exposure that has increased our efficiency. Our workflows run smoothly. Everything is easy. We have had very positive feedback.

Control-M is fine to integrate with our DevOps toolchain. It is neither difficult nor easy.

Control-M made it more simple to create, integrate, and automate data pipelines across on-premises and cloud technologies. It is very comprehensive.

Control-M provides workflow orchestration, including scheduling, deploying, managing, and monitoring workflows. It helps us meet our service-level agreements. It is integrated into our CI/CD pipeline. It enhances our operational productivity.

The UI can be challenging for new users due to its learning curve. Additionally, there are some errors during automation. More detailed logs would be helpful.

We would also like enhanced API support. The APIs should be more comprehensive.

I have been using Control-M for almost two and a half years.

Control-M is stable so far, with no issues regarding crashing or lagging.

Control-M is very scalable. It can absorb more workload wherever needed.

We have had occasional response issues with their customer service. They do not always provide timely support.

Neutral

We have used Redwood RunMyJobs and Apache Airflow. Control-M offers more features under one umbrella. It has cloud-native support, real-time analytics, and other features.

The initial setup was challenging due to network setup issues and a lack of timely support from the service team. Its implementation took about a month. We did not have any downtime.

We did the deployment in-house without using an integrator or consultant.

Pricing is generally affordable, though some features cost a bit more.

New users should familiarize themselves with the tools and undergo training. It is essential to understand the necessity of using Control-M in your organization. I would recommend starting with your workflows and gradually integrating it with all the tools.

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

The main use is for job scheduling. We are using Control-M to manage and schedule various jobs within our organization.

We are more comfortable with Control-M since we have people who know this tool well. It integrates seamlessly with other tools within our ecosystem.

The best aspects of the solution are the ecosystem and integration part. This makes Control-M particularly valuable for us.

Control-M could benefit from incorporating AI features for better job scheduling. For example, if a job fails, the system could automatically manage related failures and take remedial actions without manual intervention. This would make it more advanced.

I have been using Control-M in my current organization for the last six months.

We did not face any stability issues with Control-M. It has been very stable for our needs.

Scalability is very subjective to use cases. For our minimalistic use cases, Control-M is quite scalable. However, for larger use cases, such as those in banking where there are thousands of jobs, scaling might be different.

Customer support from BMC is good but not excellent. We always expect more from support, so I would rate it between three to nine on a scale of one to ten.

Positive

Before Control-M, there might have been an IBM scheduling tool in use. I am unsure why the switch happened as I have only seen Control-M being used since I joined.

The initial setup was straightforward. It did not require much effort as we had knowledgeable people in the team.

One person is generally enough for the installation and configuration parts. It typically takes around one day to complete the installation.

We found Control-M to be one of the best solutions available. I would recommend incorporating AI features for future improvements.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Control-M is used to schedule jobs and run them regularly. It helps to automate processes and reduce manual effort, minimizing the risk of errors and enhancing efficiency. Our clients use Control-M for various use cases, especially when there is a need for regular, automated job executions.

Control-M significantly reduces manual errors and enhances automation. It provides better scalability and more efficient data processing, making it a highly reliable solution for daily job operations.

Control-M can cross all platforms and offers integration for container and cloud solutions. This versatility is very helpful for my customers. The job scheduling capabilities are extremely convenient and easy to use, making Control-M a superior solution compared to others in the market.

I have no immediate ideas for improvements. I do not have any specific suggestions for additional features that should be included in the next release.

I have been using Control-M for about a year.

We do not encounter significant stability issues with Control-M. It runs jobs daily with stable performance.

Control-M is highly scalable. It offers complete functionality, making it an excellent choice for handling extensive operations.

Customer support is very responsive and efficient. If you open a case, it can usually be handled within one to two hours, especially for urgent issues. Their support is available in real-time and resolves issues promptly.

Positive

The initial setup of Control-M is easy and not difficult.

I always implement Control-M on-premises.

The pricing for Control-M is very expensive. It would be beneficial if the price could be reduced.

If your organization aims to reduce manual errors and enhance automation, Control-M is a suitable choice. It minimizes the risk of operational errors and missing processes, offering better scalability and automation.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Our organization works with the cloud and databases. Our primary use case for Control-M is automating orchestration and scheduling jobs across the cloud and on-prem. We use it to monitor and report on jobs. We also use the index to integrate with the cloud service. It leverages our ability to manage workloads across various cloud platforms like AWS and GCP. 

Implementing Control-M saved us time by reducing our manual intervention. We can divert more resources to meaningful work. It reduced the amount of manual intervention needed by 30 to 35 percent. 

In addition to improving efficiency, workflow orchestration enhances our integration with other tools. We can orchestrate across on-prem and cloud environments and reliably create and integrate data pipelines. Workflow orchestration is critical to our DevOps. Control-M is constantly surveying the network.

The most valuable features of Control-M are automation and orchestration. It allows a different schedule, and we can manage thousands of jobs. It ensures we can complete them on time accurately. This automation reduces our manual intervention, significantly reducing error.

Control-M should receive more notice when it releases new features. The user interface is also a bit complex, and the navigation should be streamlined. 

I have used Control-M for a year and a half. 

I rate Control-M eight out of 10 for stability. 

I rate Control-M nine out of 10 for scalability. 

I rate Control-M support eight out of 10. 

Positive

We used Broadcom before switching to Control-M. The migration was a little complex.

Deploying Control-M is somewhat complex. It's easier to convert to the other tool. We spent more than two weeks on the deployment and received some support from the Control-M side. We had almost five teams of people working on it. First, we set up the environment. Then, we ran the installation and reconfigured the database. After that, we did functional and integration testing. 

Switching to Control-M reduced our total ownership cost.

Control-M isn't cheap, but this is an enterprise model. 

I rate Control-M nine out of 10. I will recommend it. It's easy to integrate and has the flexibility we need. 

We predominantly use Control-M SAP R3 jobs. That's our primary batch job load with external vendors and internally on our AWS instance. That's our batch load alongside a few custom integrations. They are not public applications. It's all in-house applications. We have integrations and API integrations for the API hubs, which speak to multiple other applications within our next case.

It isn't the only point of failure, but Control-M handles our business-critical, priority-one applications. We have other options. Control-M runs the SAP side for all batches. The time needed to realize the benefits depends on the scale and complexity. 

One use case was in health care and involved shipment orders. With Control-M controlling the workflow, we could effectively monitor it and forecast any delays. This enabled us to deliver critical products in under four hours across hospitals in the network. 

We can apply the same standards and run the same set of jobs across environments. Once they are tested in the non-production environment, we can move them seamlessly to the production environment. 

We have a nightly process of batch reports. Before Control-M, we spent around 12 hours manually scheduling reports in SAP. After streamlining the process, we reduced manual work to nine and a half hours. The business could update all the processes before midnight.

While it doesn't totally free up IT personnel, it provides visibility into self-service tools where business users can see their pipelines or job streams. It would be read-only access for the business side, but to take action on the job, they still need to contact the IT team. 

Control-M doesn't facilitate collaboration between business and IT users, but It provides a better user experience. Both parties can see what they are talking about, so there's no black zone for any of the parties. Before Control-M, the functional team had a particular nomenclature to relate what they had seen on Control-M. With the self-service tool, they can simply relay the job name. The collaboration starts there, and it builds over with a lot of other parameters.

Control-M provides a centralized view of our enterprise workload. As the owner, I can access my dashboard and see the status of jobs across the enterprise. It is strong at integrating with different applications and creating a pipeline of dependencies across applications on different operating systems. 

When it comes to developments where we have to move across regions or environments, it seamlessly integrates and adapts to different regions. Regarding integration with the DevOps pipeline, it allows us to use a JSON file and promote it across environments easily. 

We use Control-M to deploy workflows for DataOps and DevOps initiatives. It allows us to quickly test workflows or configuration changes without much manual effort. We add the JSON file for the conversation parameters and let the system handle the schedule. Integrating other DevOps tools within the journey gives us the management perspective and approval of multiple pipelines.

I'm currently working on the SaaS version, but I've also worked on the on-prem versions before. There is a handful of features that haven't been added to the SaaS version, and the BMC knows that. It's a matter of time before they prioritize the missing pieces and bring them into the SaaS version. 

I started using Control-M back in 2018.

Control-M has the best stability in the market. They claim 99.99 percent availability. It's hardly four hours of downtime throughout the year.

Control-M is infinitely scalable. We only need to add agents. BMC will take care of it if you need anything on the SaaS side, but we can handle the rest using our agent architecture.

I rate BMC support 10 out of 10. They are stringent about their SLA timelines. They respond on time, and if it's a priority one, they will call immediately. 

Positive

We previously used the SAP Scheduler and adopted Dollar Universe. All our local manual efforts ran in  Windows Scheduler.

It was a greenfield approach, and I was there from day one as a consultant. Deploying Control-M can be easy or difficult, depending on what the business needs. It takes a while to understand the infrastructure setup our business needs and the number of jobs we need to run through this application. 

It took a while to understand the infrastructure setup we require. We had to understand the number of jobs running through this application and how business-critical they are. The documentation BMC provides is top-notch and covers every step we must follow. 

Migrating to Control-M is a bit tricky in terms of preparing the data and having the right tool to convert required parameters into a Control-M-ready job. Control-M has a feature called AMIGO that helps us migrate from the existing source.  Converting a job and loading it into our Control-M format isn't straightforward. We must do some prerecorded checks and setups before. 

There is some maintenance in the form of updating agents and deploying patches on the SAP application. Since it's a SaaS application, BMC handles most of the maintenance on the server side. 

The license model is based on the number of jobs we run on the SaaS application or the number of executions, unlike the on-premise model options. If we have a handful of jobs, it's always good to consider Control-M, but if it's a large number of jobs, Control-M might not be a great option. 

Control-M enables us to consolidate our jobs, and it helps us have a uniform approach and schedule. It helps to have the audit logs available. The scheduler space is nice in terms of control. 

We attempted to leverage ActiveBatch by Redwood and a few other options, but Control-M had all the features we needed. It gives us a 360-degree view of our implementation across silos. The architectural requirements also vary depending on the criticality of the applications. 

Control-M allows us to customize the job templates for any application we need, which covers all our future plans. Its integration speed is excellent because it has templates for every application. 

I rate Control-M 10 out of 10. New users will be fine if they follow the Control-M documentation. There's also a book you can buy on Amazon called "Batch Scheduling" that comprehensively covers batch operations and how BMC has evolved over time.