We performed a comparison between ActiveBatch by Redwood and Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."From a scheduling point of view, it is pretty good."
"The Jobs Library has been a tremendous asset. For the most, that's what we use. There are some outliers, but we pretty much integrate those Jobs Library steps throughout the process, whether it's REST calls, FTP processes, or file copies and moves... That has helped us to build end-to-end workflows."
"It is very useful in sending confidential files through FPP servers."
"ActiveBatch has reduced work by providing automated workflows across several different applications."
"It has helped with scheduling complex jobs with simple scripts."
"We use the main job-scheduling feature. It's the only thing we use in the tool. That's the reason we are using the tool: to reduce costs by replacing manual tasks with automated tasks and to perform regular, repetitive tasks in a more reliable way."
"The nice thing about ActiveBatch is once we have created a specific job that can be easily be replicated to another job, then minimal changes will have to be made. This makes things nice. Reduction of coding is substantial in a lot of cases. The replication of one job to another is just doing a few minor tweaks and rolling it into production. This decreases our development costs substantially."
"The user interface is really incredible."
"Offers secure file transfers with a fast and efficient protocol for very large files."
"The product has been very stable."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides 100% reliability for file transmission. It ensures that files get delivered in a secure manner. When you use Connect:Direct, your file 100% gets delivered to the next delivery location. If the log shows that a file got delivered, it will have all the transmitted data without truncation or other data issues."
"Automation is the most valuable feature."
"The Security Plus feature of this solution is excellent, and allows you to send encrypted files very securely to remote destinations."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is a solution that is on the market for a very long time. There is an integrator that has been developed and evolves every year. On the roadmap, there is always a new integration. For example, it's one of the solutions in the market that out of the box can handle EBICS protocol. The file processing is done very well. By default, there are a lot of configurations that can be customized."
"Security is the most valuable feature of this product."
"The help center and documentation are not that helpful."
"Some of the advanced features in the user interface are a bit confusing even after referring to the documents."
"The product should be improved by providing a customization option."
"Some improvements can be made to the user interface."
"They could provide an easier installation guide or technical support to the organizations during the installation process."
"The thing I've noticed the most is the Help function. It's very difficult, at times, to find examples of how to do something. The Help function will explain what the tool does, but we're not a Windows shop at the data warehouse. Our data warehouse jobs actually run on Linux servers. Finding things for Linux-based solutions is not as easy as it is for Windows-based solutions. I would like to see more examples, and more non-Windows examples as well, in the Help."
"I can't get the cleaning up of logs to work consistently. Right now, we are not setup correctly, and maybe it is something that I have not effectively communicated to them."
"The user interface can be improved so that it is more appealing and accessible to new users."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"Sometimes we face issues and can't figure out the cause of failures."
"This solution cannot be deployed on a root_squash NFS, which limits superuser privileges."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"User interface is not user friendly."
"Technical support is the number one concern."
"They have File Agent, which is an additional utility and a component of Connect:Direct, for automated file transmission. In that utility, there is some issue with the file name. There is a limitation on the file name, and that is being fixed by IBM."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct could improve by adding some of the functionality that some other vendors have. For example, GoAnywhere has call agents, which are small clients that can be installed on the endpoints and can be handled by the central point on the server. If I want to do this with the IBM solution, I have to sell a lot of account addresses. The price could be unprofitable for the customer. There is some small functionality that could be implemented and could be easily done to improve this solution."
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ActiveBatch by Redwood is ranked 5th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 35 reviews while Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is ranked 8th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 7 reviews. ActiveBatch by Redwood is rated 9.2, while Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of ActiveBatch by Redwood writes "Flexible, easy to use, and offers good automation". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct writes "Good automation features but needs improvement in the monitoring dashboard ". ActiveBatch by Redwood is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, Tidal by Redwood, VisualCron and IBM Workload Automation, whereas Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is most compared with IBM Sterling File Gateway, Kiteworks, Aspera Managed File Transfer, MOVEit and Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT. See our ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct report.
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