Control-M vs VMware Cloud Director (formerly vCloud Director)

• 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.

Read full review

• The advantage to using vCloud Director is it a cloud based application allowing access anywhere. I have the ability to make changes to our virtual environment without being in the office or using a vpn.
• The vCloud Director provides a lot of the same features as vSphere.

Read full review

• 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.

Read full review

• It is not good for end users or customers to use. The UI is geared more towards VMware admins.
• There is somewhat of a learning curve to it, you have to think through and plan out how you want to set your OVDC and PVDCs up. It takes a lot of architecture experience.
• Once you built workloads in vCloud director, it's real difficult to take them out or manage them directly in vSphere. This is a huge pain.

Read full review

• 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.

Read full review

• Time to market = 0 means profits almost immediate after investment
• Customers trust the VMware brand more than any other
• Elasticity: allowing the company to choose the best HW in the lower layer

Read full review