With the rising pressure to deliver services faster than ever, companies are seeking workload automation and optimization strategies. Job scheduling, for example, can be automated and managed by a variety of automation tools, including ActiveBatch and BMC Control-M.
What is BMC Control-M?
BMC Control-M is a workload automation tool for managing and scheduling batch processing jobs. These jobs include tasks like data processing, ETL (Extract, Transform, Load), and report generation. Control-M enables businesses to streamline and automate IT processes across platforms, including cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.
Control-M offers a single user interface with a centralized view of all jobs and dependencies. Additional Features include predictive analytics and workload optimization, with additional functionality to reduce download, ensure compliance, and minimize manual errors.
This tool supports multiple platforms and technologies, including mainframes, distributed systems, Hadoop, and cloud services like AWS and Azure. BMC Control-M is used by organizations in various industries, including banking, finance, healthcare, and retail.
What is the Control-M Automation API?
The Control-M Automation API is a set of RESTful web services. The API enables users to automate and integrate Control-M with other applications and tools. Developers can programmatically interact with Control-M to perform tasks like creating, monitoring, and managing jobs, workflows, and other objects.
This automation API provides a simple, secure, and efficient way to automate and integrate Control-M with other tools and applications, like CI/CD pipelines, ITSM systems, and other DevOps tools. Users can leverage the automation API with Control-M to create custom integrations and workflows.
Other tasks that can be performed using the Control-M automation API include submitting jobs, retrieving job status, obtaining job output, and getting log files. Advanced functionality includes creating and managing job definitions, monitoring workflows, and creating and managing job schedules.
Control-M Automation API designed for developers, offering comprehensive documentation, sample code, and SDKs for programming languages, such as Python, Java, and PowerShell. It also supports both XML and JSON formats for input and output data.
BMC Control-M API Use Cases
The BMC Control-M API provides developers with a powerful and flexible way to automate and integrate Control-M with other applications and tools. Here are some examples of use cases:
- Integration with CI/CD pipelines: Developers can use the Control-M API to automate scheduling and execution of jobs within CI/CD pipelines, ensuring builds and deployments are completed on schedule and without errors.
- Integration with ITSM (IT Service Management) systems: The Control-M API can be used to integrate Control-M with ITSM systems, allowing organizations to track and manage IT operations and incidents more efficiently.
- Self-service portals: Create custom self-service portals for end-users to submit and monitor their own jobs, reducing work for IT ops.
- Custom reporting: Developers can create custom reports on job status and execution metrics, providing greater visibility and control.
- Batch processing automation: Automate scheduling and execution of batch processing jobs like data processing, ETL, and report generation.
Workload Automation with Control-M Workbench and Agent
Control-M, developed by BMC Software, Inc, is a leading workload automation tool used by businesses worldwide to manage and streamline their batch processing workloads. The Control-M Workbench and Agent are essential components of the Control-M environment, allowing developers to build and test Control-M jobs, and enabling the execution of these jobs on remote servers. The Workbench provides a graphical user interface for designing job workflows, while the Agent serves as the runtime component that executes the jobs.
Control-M offers powerful features such as the ability to integrate with Docker and Hadoop, connect to Oracle and SQL databases, and generate Control-M reports to track SLA compliance. The tool supports various configuration options, including JSON files and Git version control. With Control-M, IT teams can simplify their workload automation processes and increase productivity, especially in Linux environments. The flexibility and ease of use of the Control-M Workbench and Agent make it a top choice for organizations seeking to optimize their workload automation.
Alternatives to BMC Control-M for Workload Automation
There are numerous alternatives to BMC Control-M for workload automation. Some of the most popular include:
ActiveBatch for Workload Automation
Using ActiveBatch for workload automation, teams can orchestrate their entire tech stack with no-code connections and low-code REST API. Numerous areas of a workflow can be optimized and automated, including IT, managed file transfer, script lifecycle management, and more.
Redwood RunMyJobs
Redwood RunMyJobs is a workload automation solution that includes features like job scheduling, event-driven automation, and more. Teams can streamline security across any application, service, or serve through a single platform.
Tidal Task Scheduler
The Tidal Task Scheduler is an enterprise automation solution that enables businesses to automate and manage IT workloads across platforms, including cloud, virtualized, and traditional infrastructure.
IBM Workload Automation
IBM Workload Automation is a comprehensive solution that allows organizations to manage and automate complex workloads across platforms, including cloud, mainframe, and distributed systems. Features include workload management, job scheduling, and workload optimization.
CA Automic Workload Automation
CA Automic Workload Automation is an automation solution to manage and automate IT workloads across platforms, including cloud, mainframe, and distributed systems.
ActiveBatch for Workload Automation & Job Scheduling
For over three decades, ActiveBatch customers have seamlessly transitioned from BMC, Broadcom/CA, IBM, AutoSys, Stonebranch, and other platforms. We offer a comprehensive automation plan to meet the demands of the digital age, complete with exceptional customer support.
- Prevent unexpected expenses and confusing licensing structures.
- Utilize pre-built features without costly add-ons or connectors.
- Receive round-the-clock proactive assistance from our internal team.
- Benefit from a committed customer success manager for your Control-M jobs.
- Simplify orchestration and connection profiles with efficient validation and user session management.
Frequently Asked Questions
ActiveBatch’s SaaS architecture eliminates infrastructure overhead and ongoing maintenance costs of the workload automation platform. With Active Batch’s simple pricing model, you only pay for the jobs you run, gaining enterprise-grade flexibility and scalability.
See the full comparison between ActiveBatch and BMC Control-M.
Workload Automation software manages data and dependencies across various tools such as managed file transfers/ETL tools, business process applications, ERP tools, BI platforms, and more.
Dig into the benefits of batching your work with automation.
No, BMC Control-M is not an ETL tool. While it can extract and manipulate data, ETL tools are specialized in pulling from multiple sources, linking and cross-referencing data between diverse sources.
Looking for ETL solutions?
Yes, BMC Control-M can be managed using both a graphical user interface and a command-line interface. The GUI provides a visual representation of batch processing activities, while the CLI is used for complex operations, automation, and integration.
We’ve broken down the differences between BMC Control-M and its alternatives.
One reason for looking at BMC Control-M alternatives is that the tool itself is old, which makes it much less flexible end-to-end. Also, the infrastructure is complex. For example, if an upgrade is needed, BMC Control-M often requires teams of people, multiple notifications, and dedicated downtime. It is also expensive and can be error-prone. So, there is a chance that the optimizations you have made do not work. Lastly, scalability is challenging for BMC Control-M as you grow, despite cloud-based technology changing over the last 20 years.
Review the comparison between BMC Control-M and other industry leaders.
IT administrators, IT operations, and DevOps from enterprise companies use it to manage their batch processing workloads and streamline their operations.
Want to understand the best use cases for workload automation?
Control-M is the product name, where “M” stands for mainframe (the central data repository, or hub, in an organization’s data processing center), which stems from when the product was introduced many years ago. BMC or BMC Software is the company name.
Review Control-M features and drawbacks here.
Yes. REST APIs exchange information and update records across various applications, databases, and web services.
Look into integrations and extensions with ActiveBatch.
Yes, it’s possible to integrate BMC Control-M with GitHub using APIs or other integration tools to automate processes or share data between the two systems. For example, you could use a BMC Control-M API to automate the scheduling and execution of jobs in your batch processing environment and use GitHub to store and manage the code for those jobs.
See all developer resources here.
Yes, Control-M supports jobs-as-code, which is a concept where you define your batch processing workflows in code rather than through a GUI. You can use languages like Python and Java to define your workflows as code and then use Control-M Automation API to validate and submit your job definitions to the Control-M environment.
Enhance your workflows and improve productivity with job scheduling.
Debugging Control-M workflows involves validating the workflow design, checking for errors in the job definitions, and tracing the runtime execution of the jobs. You can use the Control-M Enterprise Manager to monitor the jobs’ execution, view the logs, and identify errors. You can also use Control-M Automation API to retrieve job statuses and logs programmatically.
Discover how ActiveBatch’s core capabilities can simplify your workflow.
A Control-M endpoint is a resource that represents an external system or application that interacts with Control-M. For example, you can define a Control-M endpoint for a database server or a web service, and then use it in your job definitions to execute tasks on that endpoint.
Coordinate and consolidate for a cleaner process end to end.
The Control-M development environment is a platform for building and testing batch processing workflows before deploying them to the production environment. It includes tools for designing workflows, defining job definitions, and validating them against the Control-M environment’s runtime environment. You can use languages like Python and Java to develop and test your workflows in the Control-M development environment.
Learn more about the development environment available at ActiveBatch.
Control-M provides several security and authentication mechanisms, such as LDAP and Active Directory integration, role-based access control, and SSL/TLS encryption. You can configure authentication and authorization rules to restrict access to Control-M resources, and you can monitor user activity through audit logs. Control-M also provides self-service capabilities, allowing users to request and manage their own jobs and workflows within predefined boundaries.
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