Automic Continuous Delivery Automation Reviews

We primarily use the solution for job run file transfers.

We are able to integrate all used platforms including IBM Mainframe for file transfers.

The agents are one of the solution's most valuable features. I like agents for file transfers so you can transfer the files from agent to agent on the different platforms.

The event monitor is very good. You can monitor when the file is created so you can pick up the file once it's done.

The interface is good.

The cut/paste translation can be improved. I've found that sometimes it's difficult to copy exactly between different platforms. Sometimes it takes some manual changes.

The solution's implementation processes could be simplified.

File transfer is not very efficient. It takes a bit longer than some other methods and when you send the file from one platform to another, especially from the mainframe, the results consumption is quite high compared to other methods.

There needs to be better error handling and error descriptions. It should be more clear what the errors are and what we can do to fix them.

Limitations in character conversions - sometimes special characters are translated differently comparing to regular FTP transfer, even if the same code page definitions are used. It would be useful to prepare manual and instruction on possible conversion problem solvings and extended settings.

I've been using the solution for three years.

From what I have experienced, the solution's stability is good.

Running the solution on the cluster goes well even if it is a big cluster. From that point of view, I'd say the scalability is okay.

It seems to use more CPU on IBM Mainframe for file transfer than FTP embedded in IBM z/OS solution. That needs to be improved.

We had calls for technical discussions and problems resolutions. The response and involvement is correct. Once the recommendations were not accurate.

The initial setup is complex. Deployment varies from platform to platform, but the longest it took was up to two weeks especially when you are not sure what settings you should implement on the mainframe.

We handled the implementation ourselves.

There are no extra costs above the standard licensing fee.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I'd rate it higher if the installation was easier and if their file transfers were faster.

We use it to installing a complex application in a legacy world. 

• It supports our legacy, complex environment. 
• It gives us good feedback on visualizations and on how our processes have progressed. 
• We use it as a way to communicate during installations of complex environments to stakeholders.

It can support the following:

• Very complex environments
• Very complex dependencies
• Legacy environments.

At the moment, the version that we are using (version 12.0), the environment is complex with multiple installations. Therefore, the monitoring is not scalable, but this should be improved in 12.1 and 12.2.

It is very stable. That is also one of the core benefits that we press a button to do the installation. We can rely on that it is finished after eight hours, and that is a very good situation. Before, it was a manual installation, and we had a lot of issues afterwards. Now, there is a full stack installation and automatic insulation, and we can rely that the installation is working.

The solution is very scalable. 

Right now, we have formal direct contact with the Automic people from the Netherlands. We also have a contract with their consultants, who are supporting us. The support is very good.

The initial setup was very complex. It was underestimated at the beginning. There is on one hand the technical aspect of the solution. On the other hand, we underestimated the organizational aspects in the company, because we also touch on processes. This was more complex in the end from a technical sense.

It is a three week manual installation for a complete server farm. Now, we have moved to an eight hours for this installation. That is the main benefit at the moment. 

We save a lot of work on a lot of installations and have additional resources working on these manual installations. These resources can improve other things than the installation.

I can save time and money more quickly.

Before we started, there was a evaluation. An interesting point was that CA was approached as one of the two solution and Automic was the other. Then came the merger, and it was clear after the merger, we would be using the Automic solution and going with CA. 

It is a good solution. It is very stable and supporting for legacy environments. For complex environments, which have to be installed or managed, then it is a perfect solution.

We are at the starting point of our digital transformation and the speed up is just starting as everybody knows it is necessary. We can't stay with this manual installation, especially as the competition is not. 

Main criteria when selecting a vendor: A simple installation that they could use. 

They wanted a tool which could handle very complex environments with many dependencies and difficult workflows, but focus on installation first.

Here are the top three features:

1. Deployment workflow (WF) can be designed this way, so that it is not necessary to provide all applications (systems) artifacts of which an application consists. Presence of deployed artifacts may differ in every deployment and an Automic ARA tool is able to handle this situation and provide a final successful installation. When we were testing different ARA solutions for this use case, it was necessary to design more than one deployment WF (specific for every combination of artifact). Our goal is to design a suitable amount of workflows for every application. In an ideal case, just one complex WF will solve all requested deployments. Until now, we have been able to keep this principle, that we have only one WF for each application.
2. Ability to easily create our own Action Packs for platforms where we are deploying artifacts (a wide range of supported platforms out-of-the-box). You can read and edit out-of-the-box action packs as well. The tool is very good, configurable and customizable for specific requests of customer (specific customer environment and processes).
3. Well and clearly designed UI with a very good UX. User is able to very clearly see designed WF, WF progress during deployment, and output logs from deployment targets and platforms. All this is available inside the Automic tool. Work in the tool is intuitive. User is able to restart deployment after it was stopped because of some problem, and so on.

CA Automic ARA solution gave us the ability to:

• Be faster and more flexible. In first pilot run, we achieved five times faster deployment without human work.
• Be effective. We are saving tens of millions of dollars of work from our IT administrators.
• Support standards and have fewer outages. Environments have to be the same because we use one deployment workflow for each integrated application.
• Support Agile development. We are able to do quick sprints without any deployment limits.

Our DevOps project (reason why we bought this solution) has improved culture and cooperation in our IT department significantly.

GUI for mobile phones: Availability to approve and start deployment through mobile phones.

Better dashboards and reporting: About deployed versions, planned deployments, waiting deployments, and so on.

Infrastructure discovery functionality: Scan customer infrastructure automatically and collect information about potential deployment targets (purpose is not to insert all the information manually). For example, XebiaLabs has this feature.

We have used this solution in our production environment with our first application since April 2017. Actually, we have eight applications integrated in this solution.

Solution is stable, without any platform outages. We have had a few bugs, but technical support solved those quickly.

No, we did not have any issues with scalability. Our solution runs in HA mode, with two active nodes. It is enough for our usage and current load from integrated applications.

Bugs are very quickly fixed by the vendor. Until now, it has only been a positive experience from our point of view. Also, a platform upgrade was solved with an onsite vendor consultant. Activity was difficult, but it was done without any problems.

As a general statement, we can say that we are satisfied with CA Automic support in all areas that we are cooperating.

We have used only custom deployment scripts (each team has their scripts, we did not have any standards for that), for a solution like this. Major reason for this purchase was our DevOps project. As a short introduction to this project, we started our DevOps transformation at our bank and we were solving problems like build automation, provisioning automation, test automation, and deployment automation as well. We wanted to have one complex DevOps delivery pipeline which consists of all of these interconnected tools, and we made it.

Initial preparation and installation took three months and was very complex. We wanted to prepare the HA and a stable environment, which would need to be ready for massive usage. Actually, we have already integrated eight applications and run over 1000 automated deployments.

They should use a deployment target (or agent) licensing model and start their implementations with a lower number of agents in the beginning.

Yes, for sure. We did more PoCs during the analysis phase of our DevOps project last year. We were testing products: IBM UrbanCode, CA Release Automation, XL Deploy from XebiaLabs, HPE Codar and the winner - Automic ARA.

This product is very strong and, on the other hand, very complex. So they should involve more technical people in the beginning to ensure knowledge transfer, and continuous and quick integrations of applications into this solution. The best option is to create a dedicated automation team before the implementation.

The second important thing is that this solution provides only automated deployment and some orchestration as well, but deployment depends on all steps before, such as build and artifact preparation, testing, and provisioning. So others should use at least the automated build and artifact preparation and interconnect it with deployment. Then, they could achieve bigger benefits from automation.

We deploy contained releases. This means we deploy every three months, nearly 160 applications, to our customers.

The measurement and the display functions make it easy to report all the statuses up to management.

It has helped our customers with their time, costs, and resources.

The most valuable feature is the ability to see which problems have been resolved from deployment. The monitoring is easy because of the colors and statuses, which are shown by colors on the report.

We hope that we can integrate the new CD Directive into our portfolio, so we can bring the deployment and release management closer together.

It is stable.

We can easily scale.

We are the developers and support team for this product.

The first time setup can be very complicated. It is not so easy for a non-technical customer to set up, but with time and training, it does get simpler to work with.

I would absolutely recommend this product.

Our primary use case is for the deployment of web service applications.

The IT process automation is the most valuable aspect of this solution. 

We have been using Automic Continuous Delivery Automation for three years. 

It's stable.

It has never-ending scalability. It depends on the hardware. 

Their technical support is very good. 

The initial setup was straightforward. The time it takes to deploy depends on the complexity of the deployment. An easy deployment takes one or two hours.

We have seven users using this solution in my company. 

We chose this solution because we have a good license agreement and because it's a product where I can process my job centrally.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

Not a perfect ten because the user interface is brand new and it needs improvement. 

My advice to someone considering this solution is to be very flexible with this product. You can automate everything you want.

The naming of the object is very important because the user's rights depends on the naming of the object.

In the next release, I would like for them to include a workflow engine that I also can automate business processes and not just IT processes.