Control-M vs Microsoft BizTalk

• Control-M provides an easy-to-use and easy-to-interpret interface for users, with most of the screen options and field names being self-explanatory. The on-screen options provide for a full range of functionality for automating batch production requirements, with multiple options and flexibility.
• The vendor provides Control-M a wide range of utilities for extracting information from the dataset and providing with a minimal amount of training required for use.
• As the systems programmer for Control-M on the mainframe, the ease of installation is one of the nicest features. The installation is panel driven and can be used by a relatively inexperienced technician to install successfully in a matter of several hours.
• Again, as the systems programmer, I appreciate the level of expertise of the technical support personnel. Over the past 20+ years, I have come to know them well and find them to be knowledgeable and willing to provide assistance for any and all queries.
• The developers have always been willing to listen to requests for new functionality and enhancements to existing functionality and are working to have the same type of functionality across all platforms.
• We are a large mainframe shop, still heavily dependent on mainframes to support and develop new software for the mainframe.
• We have worked closely with BMC to participate in the beta testing program and have had the opportunity to have an impact on software development.

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• It is very user friendly. Users can change rules during run time and change workflow.
• Huge capacity for queueing messages. It supports all types of adapters like Oracle, Salesforce, SMTP, FTP, etc. Also users can built custom adaptors.
• If users want to dynamically deploy their solution without any downtime, this is a perfect solution. BizTalk will be a good fit, especially for public-facing websites.
• Well-proven in the market. I used it when developing a website for Virgin Trains, catering more than 800K user requests per day.
• Helps in load balancing.

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• The reporting provided with Control-M could have more functionality, Many users end up creating their own reporting based on the Control-M DB. I believe BMC are addressing this.
• Within the Advanced File Transfer (AFT) it would be useful to have an integrated FT server and not rely on the underlying SSH.
• All batch schedulers have issues with fully automating tasks in a Windows environment and Control-M is no exception. Userids and profiles are harder concepts to deal with in the Windows world but BMC are doing their best to address this and Control-M would be better at handling these scenarios than the alternative products.

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• Microsoft BizTalk is over engineered for some situtations
• Microsoft BizTalk can be frustrating to use as it forces you to use the GUI as opposed to code
• Microsoft BizTalk is very resource intensive to create integrations

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• While I cannot share specific numbers I can say that Control-M has provided a level of scheduling and integration over the system it replaced that has increased productivity and increased reliably in our system. It has reduced the number of hours spent on monitoring and troubleshooting jobs, on a per job basis.

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• A positive impact has been the quicker turnaround time of a part request and that part showing up in SAP using Biztalk as middleware.
• A somewhat negative impact has been the somewhat insufficient error logging/message capture settings that Biztalk provide. This has caused occasional delays when attempted to create parts for the business.
• A somewhat negative impact has been the need to have a specialized developer who understands Biztalk to troubleshoot issues with the Biztalk and SAP interaction when creating parts, and when adding new fields to the parts.

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