Control-M

One of the most impressive aspects of the BMC product is how you can design the workflows. It features a very good tool for designing the workflows and offers excellent functionality for setting different triggers for different actions on the flows. The interface is quite intuitive, particularly for those experienced with workflows; it truly feels out-of-the-box and delivers precisely what we require. New team members can adapt and utilize the product quite rapidly, which is facilitated by the quite good training material we have internally. Additionally, BMC provides very good training and documentation material in this area. In terms of vendor support and service, my experience has been exceptional. Whenever we raise a support ticket, they are consistently responsive, answering out of out of those, as fast as possible. The critical capabilities consistently perform at a high level.

1) responsive (no lags when performing operations) 2) comprehensive 3) history function useful

There are several standout aspects that I particularly value. Its proficiency inbatch job processing & automationis highest, as it is a core function we heavily rely on. It handles various types of batch processing effectively, accommodating the complexity that varies significantly depending on the use case. I appreciate itsintegration capabilities through its open API architecture, which enables seamless interoperability across different platforms and applications within our ecosystem. This flexibility is crucial for connecting it with other systems, preventing data silos. Its very flexible as its built on an open kind of architecture or an architecture that supports interoperability. ItsDevOps abilityis extremely beneficial, streamlining our development and operational workflows. This support for modern practices is a significant advantage for our team. Itsworkflow automation capabilities in hybrid environmentsare special as was evident in my previous role where it managed complex workflows across different companies and brokers operating in a hybrid setup. This robust feature set, was a primary reason for our selection, offering comprehensive solutions for current and future needs. Another advantage is theease of use and the thoughtful design of its user interface. Compared to others, this has a much quicker learning curve, making new users productive in a relatively short period. The drag-and-drop interface contributes significantly to its usability. Moreover, its scalabilitymakes it a reliable choice for long-term growth. We specifically chose it because it is an enterprise-grade, production-ready product, which ensures it can handle increasing demands and new feature additions as our organization expands. This approach, including reviewing their product roadmap, is integral to our selection process. The product's customization, driven by its open API architecture and intuitive drag-and-drop UI, makes it adaptable to enterprise's specific needs.

While the product generally performs excellently for our use cases, an area that can be approved is its integration with hybrid cloud environments, specifically with Azure and Google Cloud. This is a point where I believe there is room for improvement. In terms of critical capabilities, artefact management is good but not on par with the other features. More notably, intelligent automation is a more significant area for enhancement. It is important to note that our current deployment is an on-premise solution. This design was established with high availability from the beginning, and as a result, we have not encountered any performance issues or downtime. It is not a cloud-oriented product for our specific implementation. For our existing use cases, we operate the tool and platform as it is, again out-of-the-box, and we have not needed any additional tools or plug-ins to enhance its effectiveness.

1) UI cannot be saved from one session to the next 2) UI hard to personalize 3) UI rather dense

While BMC Control M is a robust and highly capable product, my primary suggestion for improvement revolves around enhancing its intelligence through AI enablement. As an automation tool, integrating Artificial Intelligence, particularly generative AI, would significantly elevate its functionality. I believe there are numerous areas where AI could be incorporated to make the system much more intelligent and the user journey more cognitive, moving beyond traditional automation. This intelligence could bring substantial value by making the automation processes more dynamic and adaptive. For example, by integrating AI into different parts of the system, it could predict potential issues, optimize workflows more autonomously, or even offer smarter suggestions for managing batch jobs. Given that many other major products, including those from large vendors, are already implementing AI, I am confident that BMC, being a large and saturated organization, likely has this on their product roadmap. Bringing this kind of cognitive capability would make an already strong product even more advanced and aligned with the evolving landscape of intelligent automation. This is the main enhancement I would like to see.