WIBGI - Wouldn't it be great if - the users were as good as the software they use
June 27, 2016
WIBGI - Wouldn't it be great if - the users were as good as the software they use
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Control-M
Control-M is used across the organization for automated job scheduling and monitoring across processing platforms, with the majority of the users and processing taking place on IBM mainframes. We maintain a centralized operations staff to develop schedule definitions, monitor job submissions and ensure that batch processing is completed timely and accurately. Because of security oversight requirements, the centralized operations staff performs these tasks on behalf of all applications programmers and business analysts who are limited to browse access.
- 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 have worked closely with BMC to participate in the beta testing program and have had the opportunity to have an impact on software development.
- As with most of the Mainframe software products, documentation seems to be the weak link for the products - written by people and for people who already know what they need to do, not for people who are trying to figure how to use the product.
- Control-M provides an easy to use, visual approach to monitoring the existing production, determining status of service level agreements, timely notification of potential issues, and analytical tools for forecasting and running 'what if' scenarios.
- For people who are motivated to learn, Control-M provides an intuitive approach with minimal learning curve.
- CA-7
We have had Control-M for over 20 years. At that time, we had been using CA-7 for 10 years and 100% of our production processing involved running batch on IBM-compatible mainframes. We evaluated Control-M, ZEKE, IBM, and one other product. While Control-M was the best of that lot, it was not the robust or mature product that we see today. Unfortunately the conversion from CA-7 to Control-M was more mandated/motivated by non-technical criteria, and the conversion was not well received or supported by operations personnel, who made little or no effort to minimize the disruption of the transition.
Over the years, Control-M has become a strong product that I would recommend with no reservations.
Several months after converting from CA-7, we saw a demo of another product, which was to later become CA-ESP.
Control-M Feature Ratings
Using Control-M
2000 - This is somewhat hard to answer since we have two totally separate environments that radically differ in how they use Control-M. On the one hand, we have the production environment, which is tightly controlled and highly centralized in a single operations management component. And on the other hand, we have the development and validation environment, which is the exact opposite - no control or oversight on how the product is used. In either case, my primary responsibility is to install the software and not to interfere with the business functions.