OpenText Operations Orchestration Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

it_user481998

IT Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 13, 2016

We are trying to automate as many of the processes as possible, so the automation is the most valuable aspect.

What is most valuable?

The automation, hands down. That's the future of our company and the direction we're going in. We are trying to automate as many of the processes as possible, so instead of taking two weeks to deploy a server it takes 15 minutes.

We started with our VM systems, and now we're looking at physical systems. Also, in my area of expertise is monitoring, so within that flow, we also deploy monitoring as well as part of the automated service. Based on a matter of minutes, rather than a matter of days. Huge benefit.

How has it helped my organization?

It's cost effective. The time you get the applications up and running generates more revenue for the company sooner. Also personnel, it doesn't require as many people to be involved. Of course, money is number one within the company. But yet, just the pure time and the time it takes to get infrastructure up, going and ready.

We have such a huge environment. When we're standing up new applications, new systems or existing applications, we've got to find ways to make things faster to keep up with demand, keep up with the competitors, and to be the leading institution in our industry. Definitely always finding new ways to make things faster and better. Of course, that eliminates human error. When we automate, everyone knows exactly what to expect, from the process, rather than introducing a point of failure - human error.

What needs improvement?

I'm not quite sure, because the toolsets that are introduced out of the box are very helpful. Once you get that learning curve, when it clicks, it's kind of like a game to me. Once you have the personnel who can really get into it and really enjoy it and make things better, I really cannot find any specific examples for you to say that I wish this was better, because it offers you so many options. You're developing something so it's kind of how you want to do it. There's so many different ways that you can develop your flow, so they have a ton of options for you.

I'm not a developer by trade. I actually come from an operations background. I have a little bit of scripting experience, and when I took this on, we actually had a contractor come in and guide the work. Once he did that, and then once they left, I took over those flows and just thrown out there in the water. Sink or swim. When you have to do it, it was something I picked up in a really quick. Once it clicked, we were off. We just kept going.

You have to have a subject matter expert. You have to have that SME to have that mindset of a developer. You need to have someone with some development experience. Not saying you have to, because it can be learned, but it is easier to have someone to have that experience and to have that mindset. But you do have to have that dedicated resource, I guess you could say to stay on top of it, because if you don't stay into it, once you create these flows, and if they're very customized, some of them in my experience can get quite large. You have to keep up with what's being added, what's being updated and know exactly what's going on, because over time you can kind of forget things that are happening within the automations.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have had some issues with memory usage, but that's something that we beefed up and made the system more robust. We added new servers, and actually helped tremendously. We created guidelines around how the flow should be created to sustain stability, because if you have folks who introduce to many bugs to their flows, it can actually bring the system down. We have a team that monitors it.

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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's exploding as more and more departments start using the application, we add more servers. I think of you need that directive from senior management. As long as it's something that the company wants, and they want to move forward with, you'll get the resources for it.

How are customer service and support?

Usually what I do is I contact the team that oversees the product, and if there's any issues, then they would contact HP, which I think they have done a few times. I've never heard any complaints from them about it.

How was the initial setup?

I didn't have any involvement with the deployment of the application, so I'm not sure.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I'm not at the level to know why they chose Orchestration. But since they've chosen it, it's been a great tool. Very powerful tool. Introduced a lot of flexibility within the company. Something we've been very pleased with. It's really exploded within the company.

What other advice do I have?

Have someone create guidelines. Make sure you have the folks who have that development mindset. Just have those guidelines to keep the stability, because once you start it, you really need someone to have the experience to guide the folks into it. But once they see what the features are out of the box, how to create those flows, and once they get started, then I think it's pretty easy.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user568053

Cloud Platform Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Jan 1, 2017

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Brings disparate systems together and automates processes. Third-party integrations are slow.

What is most valuable?

This tool addresses all our disparate capabilities, bringing all those systems together. We’ve been able to orchestrate per product, and tie those things together to automate processes that were manual in the past. It allows us to turn around systems a lot quicker and in a repeatable way.

How has it helped my organization?

Previous to this solution, there were a lot of manual processes that allowed for human error. Now it is automated and more repeatable. We're still not perfect, but the tool allows us to keep improving constantly.

What needs improvement?

One area is support. The other one is the release of new products that emerge in the market. This tool is set up such that it encompasses third-party integrations that can be slow. I would like to see the introduction of new products to market and getting support for the application as quickly as possible.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We don't use it in a heavy duty way, but it seems robust enough from what we've experienced in the last two years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This tool is not known for scalability. We don't use it that heavily. As far as we know, the architecture is scalable. That was part of our decision to go this route. It has yet to be proven in the field.

How is customer service and technical support?

We have used technical support and we've had our ups and downs with them. We've had questions for support and they've been really helpful. We get to the right level, but we sometimes find that we struggle to get support for a new product or a capability in which we are having issues. Generally, they're okay, but there are still areas of struggle.

How was the initial setup?

The installation is straightforward. To be fair, HPE has looked to improve that process over the last couple of iterations. Overall, it's been fine.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have looked into several other technologies, but we have a lot of HPE tool sets today and we find that the off-the-shelf integrations are good. That is our predominant reason for using the HPE tools.

Even though there are a lot of other technologies that compete in this space, this solution is the right fit for now. In terms of licenses, they work well for the way in which we use the products.

What other advice do I have?

When I select a vendor, I generally look for the following key items:

Maturity
The correct Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) models
The right development roadmap
That products are moving in the right direction

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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it_user224268

Senior Technology Specialist at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Apr 19, 2015

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The compliant scans component is a valuable feature but it does need improvement as it tends to impact the overall stability.

What is most valuable?

Compliance scans
Adhoc automation scripts that can be deployed on wide variety of OS flavors

How has it helped my organization?

It has made the implementation of our IT software policies faster.

What needs improvement?

Product installation
Audits
Monitoring section

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for four years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Lots of issues due to a lack of details, and huge documentation.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We had issued, specifically with the compliance scans component. This part of the product needs improvement as it tends to impact the overall stability of the solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Not much, it does a somewhat better job on scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Below average, 2/10. A lot is needed to be improved upon in their customer service.

Technical Support:

On a few things it is excellent, but mostly I would rate it as average, 3/10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have worked on solutions offered by different OS vendors like RedHat Satellite but HP consolidates all OS based solutions into one single solution.

How was the initial setup?

The application is very complex thus making initial setup also very complex

What about the implementation team?

We had to involve HP to setup and their expertise is great.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Bladelogic
IBM

What other advice do I have?

Initial setup is very crucial and before implementing you should have a clear vision on how to use it for the following two years. Setup processes on the usage, at the initial stages, as it is hard to change that at later stages considering the complexity involved.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are a priority vendor

it_user77349

Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jan 1, 2014

You don't have to be a programmer but make sure to plan for stability and scaleability in your initial design

I give HP Operation Orchestration 4 stars - compared to other similar orchestration products, it is an excellent solution.

Use Of Solution:

4-5 years.

Valuable Features:

The ease of use (Studio). You don't have to be a programmer and it's something that anyone can pick up and put to good use to deliver solid solutions.

Improvements To Organization:

The best example I can think of is where I had Network Engineering management asking for customizations to Network Automation and reporting that would be done outside of Network Automation. Operations Orchestration provided an easy solution! I was able to integrate Network Automation and Operations Orchestration and create some basic flows that would collect the custom information that the manger was interested in and pass that on to Network Automation. Another flow was able to produce the reports they were looking for - the beauty was they were not able to tell that the report was not out of Network Automation and the custom data that was collected wasn't an out-of-the-box Network Automation function.

Another example was creating a solution for a client who had Network Automation, Server Automation and Operations Orchestration. I needed to collect Network Automation logs on a set routine (for support) and was able to create a rather basic flow using Server Automation (OGFS).

Room For Improvement:

It can be tricky of flow management (promotion of flows from one environment to another). Stability and scaleability are something you need to plan for when you do your initial design - I would say it is more stable than it's competitors - make sure you have an idea of how many flows you are planning on running in a set time. Redundancy (disaster recovery) is a bit of a problem, but there are ways to do it.

Note: version 10 does address many of these issues, but wanted to comment on the version I had worked most with.

Deployment, Stability, Scalability Issues:

Initial deployment is great. As I mentioned above, the key for stability and scalability are tied to the initial design.

Previous Solutions:

I have used other products since I started using Operations Orchestration (as it was in use by another client) - BMC Atrium Orchestration.

Alternate Solutions:

Customer Service and Technical Support

I would say it is on par or better than it's competitors. There is also an exceptional community of users who are willing to help and share information - what worked and what didn't work.

Initial Setup:

Rather simple.

Implementation Team:

I've done both, first with vendor team and they were great for ensuring that we had a solid design.

ROI:

N/A - I do not feel I can comment on this as I not involved with these companies. I will say that one client showed ROI based on time & quality savings, the other was in dollars.

Other Advice:

Take your time and plan the design. It is very easy to get over-excited about the power and possibilities with Operations Orchestration and try to do too much too quickly. One should learn how to walk first. The beauty of the product is you can easily add and expand initial flows, so you aren't throwing away your work if you need to add / expand. Take your time, educate staff as to how it works and what it can do for the company. Create a way to evaluate possible flows and part of this can be to figure out ROI on a flow basis (it can be a bit difficult to do after the flow is done). If you are replacing a manual process of existing script(s) - make sure that everything is well documented.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Oct 13, 2014

You said that version 10 does address many of the issues you presented at room for improvement chapter. Can you tell me, please, if the issue with redundancy (disaster recovery) was solved?

it_user72705

Works at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Dec 23, 2013

Challenges transitioning from version 9 to 10

I'm just starting to transition flows from 9 to 10 now. Central definitely seems quicker and more secure. Developing in studio is quite different given that we are now working with projects and are required to reference content packs and their operations (it feels similar to developing in visual studio in the way you create new projects and add references to dll's) but I must admit I am still learning v10. SCM seems to be a great alternative to the public repo in version 9. I'm hoping at some point HP allow us to utilise third party SCM's such as team foundation server so organisations can utilise their corporate SCM solution.

My challenge at the moment is converting our custom .Net ops from version 9 to 10. Also with exchange operations within the business applications content pack, if you get any invalid ops stating 'Plugin data Jar was not found in studio plugin repository' you may require a 64-bit version of microsoft.grouppolicy.interop.dll on your windows OS. (HP do have a work around)

HP documentation and the OO community have come a long way in providing a one stop shop for content, doco and updates. Although I'd love to see more videos of OO on the community page, such as development of new ops/plugins using maven as this is quite new to me.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user79788

Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Jan 19, 2014

Has HP Abandoned Operations Manager?

HP Operations Manager has been around a long time in the Enterprise server management space. I first started working with it around 2001, and I’ve always had a soft spot for it, but I’m ready to declare it abandoned. HP has failed to develop the product, and they now seem to be actively working on a viable alternative.

HP Operations Manager (HP OM) is an agent-based server monitoring system. Agents are installed on monitored systems. Monitoring policies are defined at the central server, and pushed to agents. This keeps the bulk of the processing local, as agents only need to raise exceptions. It also makes agents very powerful – they can do anything on a managed node – check processes, monitor logfiles, run actions, etc. HP OM can also act as a Manager-of-Manager, receiving and consolidating events from other systems – e.g. HP SIM, NNMi, Storage Essentials, SiteScope, etc. It has been around in some form or another since 1993. It’s had a few name changes over the years – OpenView Operations, ITO, VantagePoint Operations, and now just Operations Manager. It has Windows and Unix versions (abbreviated to OMW and OMU/OML respectively). The Windows and Unix variants use the same agents, and can share policies, but the administrative and operator interfaces are completely different.

Development for HP Operations Manager appears to have stalled recently. The last update for OMW (9.0) was in September 2010, and the last update for OML/OMU (9.10) was in November 2010. Since then we have seen further releases for the underlying Operations Agent, and some small patches for Operations Manager, but no real enhancements. HP OM has increasingly ill-suited to modern dynamic environments, and unsurprisingly I hear that sales are well down, and crucially support renewals are dropping significantly.

HP OM has not adapted well to modern demands. It does not deal well with VMs being deployed at a high rate. It does not offer service monitoring capabilities. It does not offer any way to connect to cloud provider APIs. The agents have continued to be unstable. The administrative interface for OML/OMU looks like something I wrote over a weekend based on a shopping cart – it does not look like a piece of software that costs tens of thousands of dollars. Or actually maybe it does – Enterprise software in general tends to be ugly. HP didn’t even develop it themselves – they licensed the admin interface from Blue Elephant Systems. The Java GUI for OML/OMU was a disgrace in 2002 – and it hasn’t changed since.

Java GUI circa 2002

Java GUI circa 2012

(OK, so I cheated, those images are the same – but that’s because it hasn’t changed).

I can only assume this lack of development was because they lost out politically, and could not secure the necessary funding and resources. I believe the turning point for HP Operations Manager was the 2006 purchase of Mercury Interactive. This completely reshaped the HP Software division. That portfolio included SiteScope, an agent-less server monitoring system. OM’s design and architecture just didn’t fit into this model. Efforts to integrate them have been derisory – e.g. the system for using HP OM to manage policies across multiple SiteScope servers is the sort of poor code that I might do as a quick hack. It does not meet the marketing message of “fully integrated.”

Also consider this diagram showing how Operations Manager should fit into your overall architecture:

Image from www.softpanorama.net

Note how everything feeds into Operations Manager, which then feeds into Operations Manager i (OMi)? To the uninitiated: OMi is a different product, in spite of the near-identical name. When you look at that, you ask yourself – what’s the point in HP OM there? Why not just feed directly into OMi?

So what’s the future of OMW/OMU? Let’s try reading between the lines – look at the recent announcement by HP about OMi Monitoring Automation. This separates monitoring policies (configuration, thresholds, etc) from implementation (agent-based, agentless). It bypasses the OM server requirement, with agents directly managed by the OMi server. I haven’t seen enough of the implementation details yet to confirm that OM has been completely replaced, but it’s clear enough to me what the future direction is. Development has continued for Operations Agent, but clearly Operations Manager is surplus to requirements. Well maybe it all makes sense – why the hell did they ever have two separate products, one named “Operations Manager”, and another named “Operations Manager i”?

What future for HP OM then? It now only makes sense as a Manager-of-Managers for organisations that are too small to commit to the whole HP BSM suite. Even those organisations need to re-think their use of OM though, as it can’t handle a dynamic environment, and stands little chance of being able to integrate proper APM, or cloud service monitoring. There are other products out there that are better suited to modern medium-sized organisations.

To the HP people reading this: Obviously you can’t publicly confirm any of this. You’ve promised ongoing support to those still paying their annual support fees. But if I’m wrong, then show me the code. Deliver some updates to the product, and show us that it is being actively developed. Vague promises of continued commitment mean nothing without shipping code. To customers using HP OM: My advice is to start planning your migration away from it, if you haven’t already. To customers considering purchasing it: Don’t, unless you’re buying it as part of an overall BSM/OMi implementation, and the salesfolk have guaranteed you can change your licensing over at no cost in future.

Disclaimer: The company I work for is partners with several vendors including HP.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user159837

HP Operations Orchestration Manager at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

Nov 16, 2014

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Automated the complete process of ordering, building, and supplying servers but documentation from HP could be better.

Valuable Features

Automations and integrations with several other products.

Improvements to My Organization

Automated the complete end-to-end process of ordering, building, and supplying servers.

Room for Improvement

Better documentation and support from HP.

Use of Solution

4 years.

Deployment Issues

No – but architecturally the application should be well though-out across domains, firewalls and data-centers.

Stability Issues

In 9.x, the clustering environment was very unstable. But in 10.x that has been resolved.

Scalability Issues

No – it’s fairly easy to scale.

Customer Service and Technical Support

From 1 – 10 – I think HP is about a 4. Support can be slow and frustrating.

Initial Setup

Initial setup is complex. Mainly in architecting it. Then again, in building initial automations.

Implementation Team

Vendor team – In 1 – 10 – was about a 7. The application was new at the time, and there wasn’t many vendors with great expertise.

ROI

It’s saved 100’s of man hours monthly.

Other Advice

Make sure whoever is implementing it is well versed in programming and infrastructure.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user671301

Project Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Jun 14, 2017

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Automation is a huge benefit when doing integration.

What is most valuable?

The ease of use is most valuable.

How has it helped my organization?

We do integration for other companies and automation is a huge, huge benefit, obviously.

What needs improvement?

The integration grid between the SA and OL needed improvement, but that was solved. Like in SA studio, we needed to have our workflows and stuff created. Then, using a batch file you had to synch and so on. But that was solved. It is all integrated.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this for about six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We used a previous version but that was stable. We have had no down time.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It will going to meet our needs going forward.

How are customer service and technical support?

For us, support is really good. But then we know a lot of inside people. We don’t have to wait on the phone.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

When looking for a vendor, I look for reliability. All products basically do the same thing. If you change jobs, you have the other product you have to work with that right. They all have their up and their down sides, but I think reliability is the differentiator.

How was the initial setup?

Setup is quite complex, but it is a complex product. It's not Word, obviously. It took a couple of weeks to complete the project. But, it was a real small automatic deployment. Basically, what we did in that project was really straightforward, really easy. We barely used the product to it's full extent.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Rasel AhmedSenior Java Developer with 11-50 employees

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Mar 9, 2019