We performed a comparison between Control-M and OpCon 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 a range of valuable features such as Managed File Transfer, credentials vault, integration capabilities, Role-Based Administration, file transfer integration, collaboration dashboard, scheduling, configuration ease, reporting, workload archiving, and forecasting. OpCon shines in its flexibility, integration capabilities, self-service, automation of manual tasks, GUI, database functionality, deployment concept, testing environment, self-service solution manager, on-demand access, file watcher, MAS feature, reliability, process linking, and automation capabilities.
Control-M can be improved by enhancing its microservices and API integration, addressing bugs in the web interface, developing a lighter web version, improving reporting capabilities, streamlining the upgrade process, and integrating with third-party tools. OpCon needs improvement in the functionality of its web-based interface, upgrading process, documentation, and accessibility through a mobile app.
Service and Support: Control-M's customer service has a range of opinions, with some customers appreciating the quick and knowledgeable support team, while others feel that the support could be more proactive and faster. OpCon's customer service and support have been consistently praised, with customers commending the technical support team for their timely responses and effective solutions.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Control-M is typically considered simple and user-friendly, aided by informative guides and videos. Nevertheless, a few users noted that manually converting jobs and scripts introduced complications and delays. OpCon's initial setup may be intricate, but with the support of SMA consultants, the procedure becomes more seamless.
Pricing: Control-M is seen as costly, particularly for smaller businesses, whereas OpCon is acknowledged as a pricier but high-quality option. Control-M's pricing is dependent on the number of jobs or endpoints, while OpCon offers tiered pricing based on usage.
ROI: Control-M is a valuable solution that enhances efficiency, minimizes maintenance windows, and offers cost-efficiencies. OpCon saves time, decreases errors, improves productivity, and provides cost benefits.
Comparison Results: Control-M is the preferred choice when comparing it to OpCon. Users find the initial setup of Control-M to be straightforward and easy, with a clear understanding of the architecture and installation process. Control-M's Managed File Transfer feature is highly praised, as it eliminates the need for manual file transfers and offers a unified view for monitoring and orchestrating workflows and data pipelines.
"The ability to dynamically predict batch run time is so valuable."
"The File Watcher utility, cyclic jobs, and email alert notification are valuable."
"The scheduling feature and scheduling tool are the most valuable features. I like the scheduling services that we have in Control-M, which are very beneficial to our organization because they are automating things. There is also less manual work. We can schedule a task without any manual interruptions."
"I find Control-M for SAP and Control-M for Informatica good. You can connect to the Linux or Windows servers, and you can run multiple jobs."
"We are using Control-M for day-to-day operations only. It is helpful for us in our day-to-day operations. It is a key in our financial sector. We are automating via Control-M in our treasury operations, including any evening updates. Control-M makes things easier and faster by helping our treasury operations go without any interruptions."
"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."
"Self Service, BIM features are most valuable. As no need to login to EM client and check the job status."
"You can let users access the system and manage jobs: self-service."
"We particularly like the fact that it's graphical because it is Windows-based. Before, we were text-based on the mainframe. You can also produce flow charts. Because it's point-and-click, its ease of use is very nice."
"It allows us to have more information and more control than we previously had over the processes that are running in host systems."
"We have found it scales very well. We run thousands of thousands of jobs every day, and sometimes thousands of jobs in a few hours."
"With a simple click of a button in self-service, the department or the user can complete his/her job."
"The biggest example in which OpCon has improved my organization is that we have to download and process files from the federal reserve several times a day. If we don't do it in a certain timeframe, we can be penalized. It's the fact that we can download these files, process them, get our accounting teams the information they need to work the exceptions that is one of the most important roles."
"It can run scripted tasks automatically over and over without intervention. That is what it does and the part that I really like because repetitive tasks need to be done over and over, day after day, no matter what day of the week it is. It is difficult to have staff do these manually and consistently, especially over weekends or through the night. Instead, you can have OpCon do them."
"Often times there are criteria that cannot be determined by the system, which allows a human to make the determination and use the Self-Service Solution Manager to trigger a job."
"We haven't freed up a full person's job using it, but there are a good handful of people for whom it has freed up about half of their time. And those employees love it. A lot of tasks are based on certain times, and they're no longer stuck doing those things at those times. We don't have to have anybody coming in early anymore. They can focus on the processing part of their jobs instead of the file moving and downloading."
"I've never been very successful when researching ways to utilize Batch Impact Manager. It's a tool to set up dummy jobs in your job flow and it's supposed to come back to you and say, 'Okay, for this job flow, you are 50 percent complete at a certain point in time'...I would like things like Batch Impact Manager to be a little more user-friendly, out-of-the-box."
"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."
"The response time could be faster when you need a person to answer your questions. There are situations where availability becomes crucial."
"A developer sandbox could be very helpful to try out new features or experience them."
"With earlier versions, the support was not accurate or delivered in a timely manner. What would happen is that I would be in production mode and I would have an issue and would want to get someone on a call to see what was happening. But they would always say, “Hey, provide the log first and then we'll review and we'll get back to you." I feel that when a customer asks about a production issue, they should jump onto the call to see what is going on, and then collect the logs."
"Reporting in Control-M could use improvement."
"Whenever I pull an S4HANA job to the Helix Control-M tool, it pulls it naturally with all the steps. A job can have several steps, and in this case, it is very easy to control the steps taken. However, in the case of the SaaS IBP tool, it can pull the job but cannot identify the steps. So, when I want to take an action in a step, I have to split the job."
"I would like not to have to reach out to a third-party application company to do automated notifications. Right now, we still have people manually calling people and emailing people. There's a company called xMatters - and there are others - that has an API through Control-M that can automate any aspect of failure management. I'd like to see it build right into the product. I'd like to see a better notification product."
"It was hard to automate in the beginning because there were a lot of concepts. I had to learn a lot of things, as I never used such a software before. I learned a lot of the concepts and ideas behind it in the beginning."
"Usage is a little complex. It's not like you can bring somebody in and they can just use it. They have to be trained... As far as complexity goes, it's right up there."
"There is one feature that has been a difficult problem, and right now, OpCon can't do it. I'm not sure if it should be expected to, but we have tried to get it to where it could start a process on an external database."
"I have noticed lately that [tech support's] first answers tend to be, "Let's upgrade it to the latest and greatest first," without looking into anything. The last couple of times I've logged a ticket that's been the response, which is a little frustrating. We're not big on just upgrading on a whim. We do full testing."
"I might like to see a little bit more of a seamless user interface. That would be good. They're moving towards a browser-type interface, rather than the Java application that we currently use. Also, a little bit more built-in self-service would be good, rather than a standalone product."
"I think that they're working on this, but I wish that there was a more centralized area to be able to see what other people are doing... They have a community platform for OpCon users, but I want to see more of where somebody is doing this process in that way. They have a great community platform right now, but I feel that it could be developed."
"The FICS integration is a little bit clunky. We've had some tickets with their support team, and sometimes they couldn't figure it out, but that probably has more to do with FICS than with OpCon."
"It is a complex product to use. Programming the schedules is complex. It does require training from OpCon... I would like to see some online training, some videos. When I bring in a new employee... it would be nice if there was some basic information for her to look at to understand this program. Even for my systems administrator, it would be helpful if there were tips and tricks available."
Control-M is ranked 1st in Workload Automation with 110 reviews while OpCon is ranked 9th in Workload Automation with 56 reviews. Control-M is rated 8.8, while OpCon is rated 9.2. 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 OpCon writes "Gives us the ability to schedule dependent jobs across different mainframes". Control-M is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Rocket Zena, ESP Workload Automation Intelligence and CA 7 Workload Automation Intelligence, whereas OpCon is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Automic Workload Automation, UiPath and Tidal by Redwood. See our Control-M vs. OpCon report.
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