We performed a comparison between Stonebranch Universal Automation Center and Tidal Automation based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Stonebranch Universal Automation Center is highly regarded for its strong performance and visually appealing presentation. Users appreciate its capacity to establish connections between tasks and its efficient rerun feature. The platform boasts a user-friendly interface and a practical task monitoring tool. Tidal Automation shines with its exceptional job scheduling capabilities, enabling users to effortlessly schedule numerous tasks with interdependencies. Its unified interface provides a comprehensive view, granting flexibility to execute jobs across various servers.
Stonebranch could make the software available on the cloud to enhance safety and scalability. Additionally, the analytics feature and task monitor could be enhanced for better functionality. Users also suggest the addition of a mobile app for easier monitoring and calculation of job hours. Collaborating with the vendor for new solutions is also recommended. Tidal Automation users find the graphical user interface to be busy and tedious to navigate. They suggest simplifying the pricing model and improving the user interface, especially when it comes to drilling down into details. The process of migrating jobs and production statistics reporting could also be improved.
Service and Support: Users appreciate the technical support provided by Stonebranch, describing it as very good, excellent, and always available. Tidal Automation also receives positive feedback, with reviewers mentioning a responsive and knowledgeable support team.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Stonebranch was considered moderately difficult due to the complexity of the infrastructure, resulting in some challenges. The initial setup for Tidal Automation was described as simple and easy, with a deployment process taking around three weeks. Users also found it relatively easy to learn how to use the system.
Pricing: Stonebranch Universal Automation Centercost-effective with favorable pricing ratings. The license requires annual payment. Tidal Automation offers fair and predictable pricing, accompanied by transparent licensing.
ROI: Stonebranch has proven to be] cost-effective. Tidal Automation offers a range of benefits including cost savings, improved efficiency, increased productivity, better risk management, and centralized job management.
Comparison Results: Stonebranch Universal Automation Center emerges as the preferred choice compared to Tidal Automation. Stonebranch stands out due to its intuitive and user-friendly interface, offering a graphical user interface (GUI) instead of relying solely on a command line.
"We lean a lot on the multi-tenancy that they offer within the product, the ability to get other people to self-manage their estate, versus having a central team do all the scheduling."
"The features are upgraded, and every six months they're releasing patches."
"When it comes to agent technology and compatibility with other vendors, from a platform perspective it was the one vendor that fit all the platforms that we have, from your old platforms - mainframe, NSK, IBM i - to the new ones, going into cloud and container"
"The ability to monitor tasks that are on the open-system side as well as our mainframe side gives us a one-window view of all our processes."
"I like the dashboard and the various workflows."
"The support is good from Stonebranch Universal Automation Center."
"I have found the agents to be so much simpler, when compared to ESP."
"We like that it has GUI and is not just a command line."
"Tidal Automation allows organizations to automate complex workflows and processes, reducing the need for manual intervention and improving operational efficiency."
"It's easy to use and easy to administer, and it's very flexible."
"Thinking of all the people involved in checking jobs on a daily basis, manually running jobs or auditing them through standalone tools, and trying to connect them. We have saved hundreds of hours weekly, which is substantial."
"We have to run about 12,000 jobs every day and the majority of them need to be launched from our ERP, JD Edwards. The native compatibility of the Tidal platform with JD Edwards dovetails with our greatest need. It's directly connected to the heart of our IT system. We couldn't work without it."
"The best feature is that it allows task scheduling based on particular occurrences, like the receipt of files, database updates, or system notifications."
"It's the most efficient tool in doing repetitive tasks and saves a lot of time with minimum possibility of error."
"With the varied features in the varied adapters provided, we use Tidal Enterprise Scheduler because we want everything to be scheduled in one place. Tidal provides that for us with its tools and varying platforms in our organization. Tidal provides all the connectors to the platforms. This is very useful because we don't want to look for another scheduler for scheduling certain jobs. We don't want to look at those schedules manually between platforms."
"Tidal Automation’s most valuable feature is customization. It can work and connect with any app."
"I would rate Stonebranch somewhere in the middle for ease of setup. It wasn't too straightforward for us because our infrastructure is complex."
"The Universal Controller is decent for the money it costs... It needs some work to have full features, compared to other products that are out there, specifically IBM's Workload Scheduler."
"It would be ideal if they had the exact same features as the CA Workload Automation DE series. It would be helpful to have calendaring options."
"It can't handle negative written codes."
"One hiccup we've had is due to the fact that we have other internal scheduling tools. We're able to talk to them, but we have trouble with some of the networking between them, so we're still trying to work out the kinks there."
"There is a component called the OMS, which is the message broker. We rely on infrastructure, resiliency, and availability for that piece. If that could change to be highly available just as a software component, so that we don't have to provide the high-available storage, etc. for it, that would be a plus. It would just be cheaper to run."
"I have a request regarding our agent on the mainframe. It may time out when communicating to the Universal Controller, when the mainframe is extremely busy. That can cause a task which is running at that time to not see the results of the job that ran on the mainframe. It happens sporadically during times of really busy CPU usage. We're expecting that enhancement from them in the fourth quarter."
"Occasionally, we have an agent that doesn't come back up after patching. That doesn't happen very often... It's really just a restart of the agent and it comes back up. But that might be one thing that could be improved."
"One thing I would like to see improved is that, currently, when an action is executed and finishes in Tidal, it's marked as either "success" or "failure." I would like more options that would flag a job according to multiple options, rather than just "good" or bad"... Tidal has told us that it's possible to do so through the product or with a workaround."
"One area for improvement is the command-line interface and the API to bulk-load jobs. It's a little bit kludgy, but we still manage without it. They're working on it and it's getting better all the time. In addition, the documentation for their API for creating jobs needs to be updated. It's a bit of a learning curve."
"When we patch to the next version, there is often a little thing that breaks. It has rarely been a big deal, but I always seem to have to follow up on one tiny issue. It would help if they had some better QA testing of their patches."
"Their software installation and update process could use some improvements. I'm pretty sure they're working on that, but that's definitely an area where it could be streamlined a lot. There's still a lot of manual work that you have to do with the schedule when you deploy masters or do the agents."
"Tidal Automation could be further integrated with other systems used in the operation of tidal energy systems, such as weather forecasting tools, energy management systems, or asset management software."
"The UI might have the potential to provide a more polished and user-centric encounter, promoting seamless engagements and simplifying the navigation process for individuals interacting with the software."
"Some users have complained that the initial setup process is complicated and time-consuming, while others have suggested that the software could offer more freedom in customizing processes."
"The biggest improvement they need to work on is doing better QA checks before they release new patches and service packs. We do find that you can't trust getting the new product right away, as they have to get some bug fixes out. They do tend to have some bugs in the first iteration."
Stonebranch is ranked 16th in Workload Automation with 26 reviews while Tidal by Redwood is ranked 2nd in Workload Automation with 37 reviews. Stonebranch is rated 8.8, while Tidal by Redwood is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Stonebranch writes "Allowed us to develop workflows without having to train and develop very specialized skillsets". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tidal by Redwood writes "Great visibility with a single pane of glass and a low learning curve". Stonebranch is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, Control-M, Redwood RunMyJobs and ESP Workload Automation Intelligence, whereas Tidal by Redwood is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation and Redwood RunMyJobs. See our Stonebranch vs. Tidal by Redwood 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.
