We performed a comparison between Control-M 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."If a job fails, that development team is notified right away, which improves reliability. Previously, it was on the operators to notify the developers that their job failed, erred, or aborted. Now, it's all automated."
"The product has improved dramatically over the years; it offers a lot in terms of features and capabilities and integration with third-party tools. A wide range of models available with the product is critical in reducing manual and mundane work such as custom script writing. This saves significant amounts of time and, by association, money for the organization."
"If they have ad hoc requirements, then they can theoretically schedule their own file transfers with the Self Service. We are trying to push as much work back to the customers or developers that have that requirement, because they prefer to help themselves, if possible. We try empowering them and enabling them through Control-M, especially for file transfers, because it is a much broader base of the business then just with batch scheduling. Typically, with SAP batch scheduling, it would work with dedicated teams. With file transfers, the entire business is involved. There are business users, end users, etc. It definitely needs to be as simple as possible and as managed as well as possible. They need to manage it themselves, if possible, because our team is not growing but the number of customers, applications, and jobs are growing. We need to hand back some of the responsibility to the customer for them to resolve and action it."
"The monitoring tool is very good. It's very easy for expert and entry-level users to use on short notice."
"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."
"Maintaining and monitoring of workloads have been and continue to be the most valuable feature in our environment."
"The most valuable features are the managing of file transfers and the product keeping up with technology."
"We use Control-M for maintenance on our Oracle and SQL Server databases. It automates maintenance on packages, including standard procedures on the databases themselves, snapshots, checking integrity, verifying the RDBMS of the databases, etc. It ensures they aren't clogged and that they are running smoothly and that there aren't any jobs stuck, eating up the performance of the server or any of the CPU cores."
"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."
"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."
"Offers secure file transfers with a fast and efficient protocol for very large files."
"Automation is the most valuable feature."
"Security is the most valuable feature of this product."
"The Security Plus feature of this solution is excellent, and allows you to send encrypted files very securely to remote destinations."
"With the current version update, I'm not sure why we needed a separate database upgrade. Why not put it all in one package? Previously, you could do it either via a manual upgrade or an in-place upgrade but it wasn't separate."
"The documentation could be improved, and I'd also like to see automatic upgrades."
"Some of the features are not available. We were about to deploy the REST API, but we had some challenges. We had to use a third-party application. So, it should be improved in terms of integrating REST API jobs. That was something that was lacking. The customer was not that happy in terms of getting the desired output. So, we had to use a third-party application called Hangfire. We would like to have more videos on REST API integration, and we would like to have easy integration with the Control-M application through the REST API."
"Sometimes, with technical support, they will take feedback, but you don't know where that feedback goes or if it proceeds along in the thought process."
"Its installation can be better. Currently, we have to install it manually. The file transfer feature can also be improved. It is not very easy to transfer a file from business to business. In terms of new features, they can include new technologies. It can have API integration."
"Control-M doesn't have any dynamic reporting facilities or features."
"I'm not sure how the solution fits together with our business modernization initiatives, as there are things outside of my area, even though Control-M is the scheduling tool of the company. They may use other things, e.g., Big Data."
"The reporting functionality needs a lot of work. We have faced problems with different versions where we run the right report, but it gives us blank entries. Then, when we run the same report again, it gives the correct data."
"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."
"User interface is not user friendly."
"Technical support is the number one concern."
"Sometimes we face issues and can't figure out the cause of failures."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"This solution cannot be deployed on a root_squash NFS, which limits superuser privileges."
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Control-M is ranked 2nd in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 110 reviews while Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is ranked 8th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 7 reviews. Control-M is rated 8.8, while Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct 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 Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct writes "Good automation features but needs improvement in the monitoring dashboard ". Control-M is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Rocket Zena, ESP Workload Automation Intelligence and Automic Workload Automation, whereas Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is most compared with IBM Sterling File Gateway, Kiteworks, Aspera Managed File Transfer, MOVEit and CA XCOM Data Transport. See our Control-M vs. Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct report.
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