We performed a comparison between Control-M and IBM Workload Automation 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 several valuable features such as Managed File Transfer, credentials vault, integration capabilities, Role-Based Administration, file transfer integration, collaboration dashboard, reporting, workload archiving, and forecasting. IBM Workload Automation provides user-requested features, job triggering in multiple nodes, pre-scheduling, system stability, and efficient batch application management.
Based on the reviews, Control-M could enhance its microservices and API integration, fix bugs in the web interface, improve reporting capabilities, streamline the upgrade process, and integrate better with third-party tools. IBM Workload Automation could benefit from improvements in performance, job dependencies, stability, and integration with new technologies.
Service and Support: The customer service for Control-M has received both positive and negative feedback. Some customers appreciate the quick and knowledgeable support team, while others believe that support can be sluggish. IBM Workload Automation is renowned for its exceptional technical support, although there may be difficulties in pinpointing the origins of specific problems.
Ease of Deployment: Control-M is considered to be uncomplicated and easy to deploy, although there might be a learning curve. The duration of the setup can vary depending on the complexity involved. IBM Workload Automation may pose difficulties for users who are not familiar with IBM tools. However, with proper assistance, the setup becomes relatively simple. Additionally, agent-based installations can be deployed quickly.
Pricing: The cost of setting up Control-M is determined by the number of jobs or endpoints, which may be perplexing and costly for certain users. IBM Workload Automation's pricing is based on the customer's contract and switching to a per job license can lead to savings. The number of licenses needed for IBM Workload Automation can differ based on usage.
ROI: Control-M offers a notable return on investment due to its cost reduction, enhanced efficiency, automated batch scheduling, and decreased reliance on manual tasks. IBM Workload Automation's ROI is uncertain and necessitates additional investigation and analysis.
Comparison Results: Control-M is the preferred product when compared to IBM Workload Automation. Control-M is highly praised for its simple setup process, ease of maintenance, and efficient automation abilities. Users appreciate the Managed File Transfer feature, credentials vault, integration capabilities, and Role-Based Administration offered by Control-M. Additionally, Control-M provides valuable features like scheduling, easy configuration, and a user-friendly web interface.
"We value Control-M mainly for the ability to control multiple nodes in a coordinated manner. Control-M has the ability to really coordinate across a lot of nodes."
"Cross-platform support: A Linux job can be dependent on a Windows job, which can be dependent on many other flavours of hardware/software. Your batch is therefore managed by a single tool, allowing you to monitor your entire flow."
"The solution has the power to reduce resources, which is good for business. It is constantly updated to remain compatible with new technologies such as Amazon, Azure, and Google Cloud. It's very easy to take advantage of the compatibilities."
"The pressure on our operations and our maintenance has been reduced."
"Maintaining and monitoring of workloads have been and continue to be the most valuable feature in our environment."
"It can do anything that I need. We do real-time jobs. We also do jobs that have to run at certain times. I have not been presented with a scheduling need that I was not able to do. It is very flexible and dynamic."
"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."
"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."
"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."
"The whole product is valuable because it is a tool for batch automation."
"The technical support is great, the product is easy-to-use, and it is stable."
"I have supported this product in literally 100s of different environments and its unmatched in its ability to scale to any size."
"Provides a robust, full spectrum enterprise-wide WLA platform."
"Technical support from IBM is very good."
"The project we worked on involved the running of nearly 24,000 job instances in a single day, so I would say that the solution is stable."
"The most important feature is the creation of folders. It's a really great feature because you can organize the process with naming conventions."
"Its operations and infrastructure can be improved."
"Everybody's biggest gripe is the reporting capability option. It is a gripe because there is a lot of information in Control-M, but the solution doesn't have a good reporting tool to extract that information. Now, if you want all that information, you need to rely on another third-party BI tool to extract the information out of Control-M."
"The documentation could be improved, and I'd also like to see automatic upgrades."
"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 reporting tool still needs a lot of improvement. It was supposed to get better with the upgrade, and it really didn't get better. It needs help, because it's such a useful thing to have. It needs to be more powerful and easier to use."
"A lot of the areas of improvement revolve around Automation API because that area is constantly evolving. It is constantly changing, and it is constantly being updated. There are some bugs that are introduced from one version to the next. So, the regression testing doesn't seem to capture some of the bugs that have been fixed in prior versions, and those bugs are then reintroduced in later versions."
"I think it's slightly expensive but at the same time it's a good product."
"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."
"It is missing some features and can improve in areas where the competition is somewhat better like linking job dependencies."
"It should support other schedulers that aren't IBM products."
"Scalability-wise, it can be a little bit challenging."
"The performance of the previous versions could be better."
"It would be helpful to have a mobile app that could be used to follow the job schedule."
"This solution does have bugs and could be improved in this regard. However, these bugs are resolved relatively quickly."
"The schedule refreshes daily and that's a challenge for us."
"The configuration of IBM Workload Automation has some challenges. We have a difficult time customizing it, but it is similar to other solutions."
Control-M is ranked 1st in Workload Automation with 110 reviews while IBM Workload Automation is ranked 13th in Workload Automation with 28 reviews. Control-M is rated 8.8, while IBM Workload Automation is rated 8.2. 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 IBM Workload Automation writes "With an easy setup phase in place, agent-based installation can be done in minutes". Control-M is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, Rocket Zena, ESP Workload Automation Intelligence, Automic Workload Automation and Redwood RunMyJobs, whereas IBM Workload Automation is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, HCL Workload Automation, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Tidal by Redwood and CA 7 Workload Automation Intelligence. See our Control-M vs. IBM Workload Automation report.
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.