Fortra's JAMS vs Rocket Zeke comparison

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2,164 views|696 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
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629 views|451 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortra's JAMS and Rocket Zeke based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, Tidal Software by Redwood, Redwood Software and others in Workload Automation.
To learn more, read our detailed Workload Automation Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,415 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Fortra's JAMS helped us centralize job management across our platforms and applications. This is critical because we schedule tasks across multiple applications and operating systems, using triggers and start dates to coordinate their execution.""JAMS has improved my organization by taking a myriad of manual processes and allowing us to automate them. It enables our folks to focus more on tasks that require their human intelligence and their creativity and less on just mundane tasks. It increases efficiency, accuracy, and consistency.""The planning capabilities are most valuable.""Being able to create a series of chained jobs, which are basically linked jobs is valuable.""One of the things I like the most, as a SQL DBA, is the fact that we can manipulate tables in the background. Also, the fact that you can have your own views and work with the product the way it fits best is a very helpful feature.""While I appreciate the other features, the agent stands out for its ease of installation and configuration for JAMS monitoring.""The overall product is fantastic. I love it. It has been a fantastic, solid product. If I have one tiny bit of a problem with it, the support team gets in touch with me right away. I don't know if I've had another service that has been as fantastic as the JAMS support team.""We looked at other companies, like VisualCron, that were cheaper, but one of the main sticking points was the fact that they wouldn't have provided a central location for us to monitor across all servers. That was one of the biggest selling points of JAMS."

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"Two features are valuable. One is Rocket Zeke's ability to integrate with the mainframe, which is the main processor using the agent. It works on any computer, so users don't have to wait. They can use their laptop or any other way to connect and securely access all the necessary information. The other valuable feature is automation, which is an integral part of batch processing."

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Cons
"If there were a softcover book on how to really take advantage of all of JAMS' tools, I would buy it. I do better with training books than online searching, so a book would be helpful.""All my machines at work are Macs. JAMS client is a Windows-based thing. It is all built on .NET, which makes perfect sense. However, that means in order for me to access it, I need to connect to a VPN, then log onto one of our Azure VMs in order to access the JAMS client. This is fine, but if for some reason I am unable to do so, it would be nice to be able to have a web-based JAMS client that has all the exact same functionality in it. There are probably a whole bunch of disadvantages that you would get with that as well, but that is definitely something that would make life easier in a few cases.""We have had a lot of people working from home who can't always connect to the JAMS server. We use VPN, as most companies do, and we have it set up so that everybody can access the JAMS server. But many times, our people cannot access it... JAMS could do a better job of telling you what the problem is when you try to log in to the server.""Fortra is getting much better with documentation and examples, but there is still room for improvement.""The product does not allow the users to cut and paste the job names from the screen.""When looking at a folder in JAMS with many jobs, it would be good to have better information in the list display of what's inside those jobs. We get some information, but other important details are missing.""The biggest area with room for improvement is the area that my organization benefits the most from using JAMS, and that is in custom execution methods. I happen to have a very good C# developer. Ever since we got JAMS, he has spent a lot of time talking to JAMS developers, researching the JAMS libraries, and creating custom execution methods. He's gotten very good at it. He is now able to create them and maintain them very easily, but that knowledge was hard-won knowledge. It was difficult to come by, and if I should ever lose this developer, then I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods quite as well as he can since there really isn't all that much help, such as documentation or information, available on how to create custom execution methods.""Improvements could be made in the service desk's knowledge and communication skills among engineers to better address customer needs and ensure issues are fully resolved."

More Fortra's JAMS Cons →

"I work a lot with the support side when there are issues. I see a lot of confusion about the various licenses. The licensing model is somewhat complicated. The product license has to be installed. Sometimes, when a license is expiring and I need a new one, it's hard to understand where those licenses are in the guest support portal. I've discussed this with Rocket Zeke, and they've acknowledged that it's too complicated."

More Rocket Zeke Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It was $10,000 for the first year. Then, there is a maintenance cost for licensing every year that we get billed $5,000 for every year."
  • "JAMS is close to the lower end of the pricing models for enterprise scheduling solutions. They are much cheaper than Control-M, as well as some other products that I've used. I also don't know of another solution where you can actually get true, unlimited licensing, where you can have as many instances and as many agents as you want."
  • "This is a good product at a fair price."
  • "It's certainly a lot cheaper than Tivoli and Control-M. In comparison to them, you get a lot more bang for your buck. You get pretty much the whole functionality and more, in some cases, when compared to Control-M, but at a fraction of the price."
  • "It's expensive, to be honest, but it does the job."
  • "The pricing is very fair. We have seen very minimal to no price increases over the years. We are not banging down the door of support all the time either. I would imagine if we were a company that submitted a dozen support tickets a week for the last nine years, then it might be a little different because we would be eating up everybody's time. However, for what we get out of it, the pricing is extremely fair. Back when we were originally looking and brought in JAMS, we were looking at a couple of the other competitive products that were in this space, but the pricing from JAMS was far and away better than what the other competitors could offer for the same functionality."
  • "Our licensing is pretty cheap because we have a state solution. So, we pay only $1,000 a year."
  • "I haven't been involved in the financial side for several years, but we buy one host and unlimited agents, and we get a reasonable price for that. We're happy with the amount we pay and the scalability it provides."
  • More Fortra's JAMS Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I don't make purchasing decisions, but the decision-makers tell me they don't switch to other solutions because this one has the price they need. Pricing is part of their decision to stick with this product."
  • More Rocket Zeke Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.
    Top Answer:JAMS is priced competitively compared to similar solutions and offers flexible licensing options to cater to user needs.
    Top Answer:Improvements could be made in the service desk's knowledge and communication skills among engineers to better address customer needs and ensure issues are fully resolved. Additionally, reintroducing… more »
    Top Answer:Two features are valuable. One is Rocket Zeke's ability to integrate with the mainframe, which is the main processor using the agent. It works on any computer, so users don't have to wait. They can… more »
    Top Answer:I don't make purchasing decisions, but the decision-makers tell me they don't switch to other solutions because this one has the price they need. Pricing is part of their decision to stick with this… more »
    Top Answer:I work a lot with the support side when there are issues. I see a lot of confusion about the various licenses. The licensing model is somewhat complicated. The product license has to be installed… more »
    Ranking
    5th
    out of 51 in Workload Automation
    Views
    2,164
    Comparisons
    696
    Reviews
    19
    Average Words per Review
    1,479
    Rating
    9.2
    18th
    out of 51 in Workload Automation
    Views
    629
    Comparisons
    451
    Reviews
    1
    Average Words per Review
    937
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    ASG Zeke
    Learn More
    Rocket Software
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    Overview

    JAMS is an enterprise job scheduling and workload automation solution that manages IT processes – from simple batch processes and scripts, to cross-platform workflows that integrate jobs running on multiple servers and business applications. JAMS enables you to define, schedule, execute and monitor jobs from a single centralized console.

    JAMS can automate jobs on any platform - Windows, Linux, UNIX, IBM i, zOS, and OpenVMS and includes native application integrations to run jobs specific to databases, BI tools, and ERP systems. Its extensive automation features enable you to run jobs on any schedule, as well as trigger off the completion of other events. JAMS centrally monitors the status of all jobs, provides notifications of failure (or success), and maintains a detailed audit trail and log of every execution.

    JAMS helps enterprises eliminate the slack, security risks, and lack of visibility associated with trying to automate critical business processes with a jumble of homegrown, single-platform scheduling tools and scripts. Once jobs are centrally managed in JAMS, IT teams can rest assured that JAMS is managing the cross-platform workflows and delivering measurable results to the business.

    A Key Part of Fortra (the new face of HelpSystems) JAMS is proud to be part of Fortra’s comprehensive portfolio. Fortra simplifies today’s complex business landscape by bringing complementary products together to solve problems in innovative ways. These integrated, scalable solutions address the many challenges you face in streamlining your operations. With the help of JAMS Enterprise Job Scheduler and other solutions, Fortra is your relentless ally, here for you every step of the way on your automation journey.

    Zeke Optimizes your workload through real-time, logical, and physical resource control to automatically check condition codes at every step and to react in real time.

    Zeke schedules and submits events at machine speed, and it improves system efficiency and throughput by checking physical and logical resources before job dispatching. It checks step-level condition code for you by utilizing the IBM® SMF facility and allows job cancellation based on condition codes.

    Through Zeke, you can easily view schedule information on a single screen and gain highlighted exceptions automatically by using the Schedule View feature. Zeke also features import/export facilities to ease migration across Zeke for z/OS implementations or to move from test to production environments.

    Sample Customers
    Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
    Reliance, Raley's, Oney, Primerica, Postbank
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm35%
    Government13%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Computer Software Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Manufacturing Company14%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Healthcare Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    Insurance Company21%
    Manufacturing Company12%
    Computer Software Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business41%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise37%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise64%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business11%
    Midsize Enterprise2%
    Large Enterprise87%
    Buyer's Guide
    Workload Automation
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, Tidal Software by Redwood, Redwood Software and others in Workload Automation. Updated: March 2024.
    768,415 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Fortra's JAMS is ranked 5th in Workload Automation with 27 reviews while Rocket Zeke is ranked 18th in Workload Automation with 1 review. Fortra's JAMS is rated 9.0, while Rocket Zeke is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Fortra's JAMS writes "We can scale up our organization's scheduling and automation without having to add staff to the department". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rocket Zeke writes "It's a reliable solution that gets a lot done quickly". Fortra's JAMS is most compared with Control-M, Tidal by Redwood, AutoSys Workload Automation, Redwood RunMyJobs and VisualCron, whereas Rocket Zeke is most compared with Rocket Zena, Control-M, Tidal by Redwood, CA 7 Workload Automation Intelligence and AutoSys Workload Automation.

    See our list of best Workload Automation vendors.

    We monitor all Workload Automation reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.