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."Managing the workload and monitoring the tasks were very difficult with manual interventions. Now, by using ActiveBatch, the process is automated and it runs tasks on a scheduled basis."
"Since we are no longer waiting for an operator to see that a job is finished, we have changed our daily cycle from running in eight hours down to about five. We had a third shift-operator retire and that position was never refilled."
"The automation feature is a very valuable feature as the associates do not have to worry about performing repetitive tasks (i.e. endpoint security scans on a daily basis) that would take several hours to complete on a daily basis."
"It can connect to a number of third-party/legacy systems."
"One of the valuable features is the ability to trigger workflows, one after another, based on success, without having to worry about overlapping workflows. The ability to integrate our BI, analytics, and our data quality jobs is also valuable"
"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."
"I found ActiveBatch Workload Automation to be a very good scheduling tool. What I like best about it is that it has very less downtime when managing many complex scheduling workflows, so I'm very impressed with ActiveBatch Workload Automation."
"The software offers real-time monitoring and reporting features that let IT teams keep tabs on the progress of their batch operations and workflows."
"Automation is the most valuable feature."
"Security is the most valuable feature of this product."
"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."
"Offers secure file transfers with a fast and efficient protocol for very large files."
"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."
"The product has been very stable."
"The help center and documentation are not that helpful."
"Some improvements can be made to the user interface."
"Between version 10 and version 12 there was a change. In version 10, they had each object in its own folder. But on the back end, they saw it at the root level. So when we moved over to version 12, everything was in the same area mixed together. It was incredibly difficult and we actually had to create our own folders and move those objects—like schedules, jobs, user accounts—and manually put those into folders, whereas the previous version already had it."
"ActiveBatch UI could use a little more help, and video tutorials would be greatly appreciated for user guides."
"We have faced a couple of issues where we were supposed to log a defect with ActiveBatch. That said, the Active batch Vendor Support is very responsive and reliable."
"As more organizations are moving towards a cloud-based infrastructure, ActiveBatch could incorporate more capabilities that support popular cloud platforms, such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud."
"The user interface can be improved so that it is more appealing and accessible to new users."
"A cloud option is not provided as a free feature, making it a costly solution for smaller organizations."
"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."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"Technical support is the number one concern."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"This solution cannot be deployed on a root_squash NFS, which limits superuser privileges."
"User interface is not user friendly."
"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."
"Sometimes we face issues and can't figure out the cause of failures."
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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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