We performed a comparison between Control-M and Fortra's JAMS based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Control-M offers valuable features such as Managed File Transfer, credentials vault, integration capabilities, Role-Based Administration, file transfer integration, and forecasting. Fortra's JAMS provides job dependency tracking, automation capabilities, warnings and notifications, PowerShell integration, ease of use, centralized management, auditing capability, and extensibility through custom execution methods.
Control-M can improve in areas such as enhancing microservices and API integration, addressing bugs in the web interface, developing a lighter web version, and integrating with third-party tools. Fortra's JAMS could use improvement in terms of intuitiveness, search capability, browser version, source control features, documentation, ACL clarity, connectivity issues, notifications, and compliance with the GPG program.
Service and Support: Control-M's customer service is divisive. Some customers have praised the support team for being prompt and knowledgeable. However, others have expressed their dissatisfaction with the slow response. Fortra's JAMS customer service has been consistently well-reviewed. Customers appreciate the team's responsiveness and expertise.
Ease of Deployment: Users found it easy to install the software for Control-M. Fortra's JAMS had a relatively quick and simple setup process, with users following instructions on the webpage. Some manual conversion of jobs and scripts was required for Control-M, however, once set up, it became the heart of operations. Upgrades and migrations for Control-M were smooth. Some users of Fortra's JAMS had minor challenges during setup but were able to seek assistance from JAMS support.
Pricing: Control-M is seen as having high setup costs due to additional expenses like infrastructure and salaries. Pricing and licensing can be confusing and are important factors for users to consider. In contrast, Fortra's JAMS is praised for its fair and reasonable pricing. It offers unlimited licensing and scalability options, making it a cheaper alternative compared to products like Tivoli and Control-M.
ROI: Control-M has proven to be more cost-effective and efficient, with reduced job duration and improved data management. It also offers centralized connection profiles and automation. Fortra's JAMS has saved time, increased productivity, and provided cost-effectiveness.
Comparison Results: Control-M is the favored choice when comparing it to Fortra's JAMS. Users appreciate Control-M for its user-friendly and efficient setup process, useful integrated guides and instructional videos, seamless agent upgrades with no downtime, and valuable features like Managed File Transfer and Role-Based Administration.
"The best part about this product is that it has a lot of features. Control-M doesn't limit us and we can use it for a lot of things."
"We value Control-M mainly for the ability to control multiple nodes in a coordinated manner. Control-M has the ability to really coordinate across a lot of nodes."
"As soon as you have an issue, a ticket is created and the tech support is quite responsive."
"You can let users access the system and manage jobs: self-service."
"We have a better picture of our auditability. When someone comes to us, and asks for sources, "How did the deltas occur?" We can provide answers quickly, or at least quicker than what we used to. We are actually sure of the information that we provide, where before it was like, "Hmm, I think it comes from over there. Let me double check, but it gets really convoluted over here and I think that is where it comes from." Now, if it is within the Control-M environment, it has a straightforward answer that we can provide with confidence."
"The most valuable features are the managing of file transfers and the product keeping up with technology."
"The product has improved dramatically over the years; it offers a lot in terms of features and capabilities and integration with third-party tools. A wide range of models available with the product is critical in reducing manual and mundane work such as custom script writing. This saves significant amounts of time and, by association, money for the organization."
"I think the administration part is much more valuable than any other feature."
"I didn't know about JAMS because I don't have a person with any challenges with the purchase administration. The feature or the user interface is user-friendly because of the readable icons or very descriptive icons. Though I'm a beginning user of JAMS, I had no issues using it."
"The overall product is fantastic. I love it. It has been a fantastic, solid product. If I have one tiny bit of a problem with it, the support team gets in touch with me right away. I don't know if I've had another service that has been as fantastic as the JAMS support team."
"The interface is good, and it's very easy to define and create jobs. If a job is not running or there is an error, the solution will send an email. That's all very good and very useful."
"The planning capabilities are most valuable."
"The ability to sequence jobs is excellent; it means we don't have to schedule them individually, and if one fails, it doesn't unwind the entire workflow."
"It makes everything that we want to do so much easier. We have had a number of instances in the past where we have had developers who have been working on a project, and even though we have had JAMS for all these years, they will create some SQL Server Agent job, or something like that, to run a task. When it is in code review and development is complete, the question always comes around, "Can JAMS do this?" The answer has always been, "Yes." Pretty much anything we have ever developed could be run by JAMS."
"JAMS is easier to use and cheaper than our previous solution. The installation is more straightforward, and JAMS has a graphical user interface, so it's more accessible."
"While I appreciate the other features, the agent stands out for its ease of installation and configuration for JAMS monitoring."
"It can definitely expand promotions, so that a single job can be moved. Currently you can only promote a job by promoting the entire table."
"Advanced File Transfer (AFT) has limitations that cause us to use a bit more licensing than we feel is appropriate."
"We develop software. More frequently, we are working with microservices and APIs, using our integration tool, MuleSoft. While Control-M is really a good tool to integrate with other tools, it is important for them to continue improving their microservices and API."
"The history module only contains a maximum of 10 days, but we would like to have access to more. For example, it would be helpful to have 30 days or two months of history available."
"After we complete FTP jobs, those FTP jobs will be cleared from the Control-M schedule after the noon refresh. So, I struggle to find out where those jobs are saved. Then, we need to request execution of the FTP jobs again. If there could be an option to show the logs, which have been previously completed, that would help us. I can find all other job logs from the server side, but FTP job logs. Maybe I am missing the feature, or if it is not there, it could be added."
"I would like to see more auditing capabilities. Right now, it has the basics and I've been trying to set those up to work with what our auditors are looking for."
"The MFT applications should have more functionality and flexibility within that tool. Having more flexibility with that tool for handling the one to many or many to one concept. Like being able to take data from one source and push it to many locations or pull data from many locations and bring it back into a single source. That's why we still use our TPS program for the file transfers just because we don't have some of those capabilities available to us within MFT."
"For installing or upgrading the PeopleSoft and SAP plugins, currently there is no way to do it via Control-M Configuration Manager. So, we are installing or upgrading the plugins, like PeopleSoft and SAP, manually. If BMC could provide an option via Control-M Configuration Manager to upgrade these plugins, it probably would reduce a lot of manual work as well as ease our work. This is one improvement that I personally want to see, because it would help our way of working."
"When looking at a folder in JAMS with many jobs, it would be good to have better information in the list display of what's inside those jobs. We get some information, but other important details are missing."
"There could be a better simulation for banning the termination. You have to simulate every one of the processes in order to have an idea for better planning. This kind of simulation is broken and needs improvement."
"If there were a softcover book on how to really take advantage of all of JAMS' tools, I would buy it. I do better with training books than online searching, so a book would be helpful."
"JAMS handles exceptions fairly well but there are some areas where it might improve a little bit. It has to do with being able to automatically handle exceptions, out-of-the-box, rather than having to code them."
"The UI could be better. There were some things that were not quite intuitive, such as the search tool. When we tried to search for jobs, we had to clear the entire search and then go in and enter the new search query. That's something that wasn't intuitive for a new user."
"We have had a lot of people working from home who can't always connect to the JAMS server. We use VPN, as most companies do, and we have it set up so that everybody can access the JAMS server. But many times, our people cannot access it... JAMS could do a better job of telling you what the problem is when you try to log in to the server."
"It does validations when you try to delete an object and if there are any dependencies in place, the deletion process will not proceed... there is no information provided as to what it was that caused the validation to fail... it's quite a tedious process to find which object is getting in the way."
"The biggest area with room for improvement is the area that my organization benefits the most from using JAMS, and that is in custom execution methods. I happen to have a very good C# developer. Ever since we got JAMS, he has spent a lot of time talking to JAMS developers, researching the JAMS libraries, and creating custom execution methods. He's gotten very good at it. He is now able to create them and maintain them very easily, but that knowledge was hard-won knowledge. It was difficult to come by, and if I should ever lose this developer, then I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods quite as well as he can since there really isn't all that much help, such as documentation or information, available on how to create custom execution methods."
Control-M is ranked 1st in Workload Automation with 110 reviews while Fortra's JAMS is ranked 5th in Workload Automation with 27 reviews. Control-M is rated 8.8, while Fortra's JAMS is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Control-M writes "We have seen quicker file transfers with more visibility and stability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortra's JAMS writes "We can scale up our organization's scheduling and automation without having to add staff to the department". Control-M is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Rocket Zena, ESP Workload Automation Intelligence and Automic Workload Automation, whereas Fortra's JAMS is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, Tidal by Redwood, Redwood RunMyJobs and VisualCron. See our Control-M vs. Fortra's JAMS report.
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