We performed a comparison between Fortra's JAMS 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: Fortra's JAMS is praised for its efficient handling of job dependencies and its automation features such as File Watchers, notifications, and code-driven automation. IBM Workload Automation is highly regarded for its ability to incorporate additional features upon user request, trigger jobs in multiple nodes, and maintain stability in monitoring batch applications.
Fortra's JAMS could enhance their user interface, search functionality, exception management, and reporting features. IBM Workload Automation requires improved navigation, job dependencies, daily schedule updates, and reporting visibility.
Service and Support: Customers have expressed satisfaction with Fortra's JAMS customer service, describing it as responsive, knowledgeable, and always helpful. The support team promptly addresses concerns and provides solutions to different problems. IBM Workload Automation's support is also highly praised, especially for assisting with issues that are out of customers' control. Nonetheless, some difficulties may arise in pinpointing the cause of specific problems.
Ease of Deployment: Users find the initial setup for Fortra's JAMS to be uncomplicated and user-friendly, as they are able to easily follow instructions on the webpage and deploy tasks efficiently. The initial setup for IBM Workload Automation may pose difficulties for individuals unfamiliar with IBM tools; however, with guidance, it becomes relatively easy.
Pricing: Fortra's JAMS has an initial investment in the first year, along with a yearly upkeep fee. Users consider the pricing reasonable and budget-friendly and appreciate its flexibility to accommodate expansion. IBM Workload Automation's pricing structure is personalized to each customer's agreement, varying between five and a thousand licenses based on usage.
ROI: Fortra's JAMS has been commended for its impressive return on investment, offering time savings, enhanced productivity, and cost-effectiveness. IBM Workload Automation's ROI is more uncertain and necessitates thorough research and analysis to gain a clearer comprehension.
Comparison Results: Fortra's JAMS is the preferred choice over IBM Workload Automation. Users appreciate JAMS for its user-friendly setup process, efficient handling of job dependencies, automation features, interactive agents, code-driven automation, flexible scheduling options, and detailed logging for problem-solving.
"JAMS is easier to use and cheaper than our previous solution. The installation is more straightforward, and JAMS has a graphical user interface, so it's more accessible."
"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."
"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."
"The scheduling and execution of jobs are the most valuable features. The scheduling is important because if there is a task we want to execute at 4:00 AM, there's no way we will have someone who can manually run the job. In addition, we execute 100 to 200 jobs per day, and manual intervention is not an option."
"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."
"The code-driven automation for more complex scheduling requirements frees up time because it's really easy to use... It's almost like a stand-alone software that we can't live without."
"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."
"Our company is based on data. Everything we do is data-driven, so it has been very valuable having one place where we can process all of the data and do batch schedules with chunks of data."
"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 support from Cisco is very good. I was with them as a company for 40 years"
"Technical support from IBM is very good."
"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."
"The most important feature is the creation of folders. It's a really great feature because you can organize the process with naming conventions."
"The DWC, when configured correctly, is a great GUI tool to provide Self-Service Scheduling capabilities to the user community."
"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."
"The ACL or access permission area needs to be improved. When it comes to defining and providing security permissions, it's a bit confusing if you are new to JAMS. JAMS needs to improve the features for security access or permissions."
"The tabs in the JAMS file transfer could be clearer. It would help us demonstrate to our client that JAMS not only automates jobs but also does fast transfers, and it's an alternative that supports and filters different kinds of platforms. Filtering file transfers will be highly beneficial to them."
"The client is horrible. Every time JAMS puts out a survey on what they can improve, I always say, "The client: When you are setting up jobs, it is quite horrible." The response has been, "Well, we are just using the Windows foundation," and I am like, "Why isn't it only your product?" We can get around it now that we know its quirks, but it is not the most user-friendly of tools out there. The UI is completely unintuitive. We had to go and open up a support ticket with JAMS just to get something back. It is not user-friendly at all."
"There could be a better simulation for banning the termination. You have to simulate every one of the processes in order to have an idea for better planning. This kind of simulation is broken and needs improvement."
"The only thing that they could improve on is the fact that they don't have a browser version of JAMS. They've got all the bits and pieces there if you want to build your own web version of it. It does come with a web client, but it's pretty clunky. They could improve on that."
"I would like a simple web interface that I could give to my team to go in and kill jobs or see why jobs died so that we don't have to drill down deeper into the application and know everything about it. It would be good to have a really clean web engine that would say here are the jobs running. We can then click to see the time running and whether any of them fails and other similar things. I know they have one, but it's not very simplistic."
"I'm not sure if they have fixed it in a newer version, but there is no global search in the version I have. If I have multiple sub-folders that are named for business units, like HR or IT, and I have to search for a job, I cannot search from the top. I have to go to the HR folder to search for a particular job, or to the IT folder."
"As an admin, I would like to have a web-based GUI instead of a client application that we have to install on our PCs."
"There should be more custom documentation, specifically around Java APIs. There should also be more training. In terms of features, we are currently using only 50% of its features. We don't use all features that are available, but there is always room for improvement in all of the tools."
"Scalability-wise, it can be a little bit challenging."
"The configuration of IBM Workload Automation has some challenges. We have a difficult time customizing it, but it is similar to other solutions."
"The schedule refreshes daily and that's a challenge for us."
"It should support other schedulers that aren't IBM products."
"It is missing some features and can improve in areas where the competition is somewhat better like linking job dependencies."
"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."
Fortra's JAMS is ranked 5th in Workload Automation with 27 reviews while IBM Workload Automation is ranked 13th in Workload Automation with 28 reviews. Fortra's JAMS is rated 9.0, while IBM Workload Automation is rated 8.2. 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 IBM Workload Automation writes "With an easy setup phase in place, agent-based installation can be done in minutes". Fortra's JAMS is most compared with Control-M, Tidal by Redwood, AutoSys Workload Automation, Redwood RunMyJobs and VisualCron, whereas IBM Workload Automation is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, HCL Workload Automation, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Tidal by Redwood. See our Fortra's JAMS vs. IBM Workload Automation report.
See our list of best Workload Automation vendors.
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