ActiveBatch Workload Automation vs. ignio AIOps

Any large business or organisation that wants to manage their workload effectively and with the least amount of room for error might choose the ActiveBatch Automation tool. Being a consultant I feel that It aids in task automation and has the flexibility to change in response to varying company requirements. It helps to save huge time by doing all the repetitive tasks on daily basis. During the patching activity the schedulers can be stopped. It also help by alerting us if any system/job is down so that SLA can be saved. Overall ActiveBatch Automation stands as a dependable cornerstone for ensuring the seamless operation of our tasks.

Incentivized

-Autonomous alert and incident management related to infrastructure, NW, and applications. -Excellent fit to handle CPU, memory, and disk space alert management - proactive and predictive. -Several automation features (self-healing) - CPU/Memory modifications; disk extensions; patch management -Provisioning of user access and infrastructure servers, etc.

• Makes scheduling easy to understand, follow, and rerun jobs when necessary.
• Allows for cross-team coordination of scheduled tasks which reduces errors.
• Makes stopping jobs easy when needed for server/database downtime.
• Scripting enables us to easily change email addresses for failed job alerts.
• Nested plans/jobs make creating and changing dependencies simple.

Incentivized

• ignio handles 100+ use cases covering the entire organization including applications and infrastructure.
• Centralize the dashboard to view and executed the health of systems in our environment.
• It handles CA services desk Incidents and requests. Using automated tools with power shell scripts.
• ignio event management helps the organization to manage the alerts well and make an informed decision.

• String handling / parsing. I find myself using PowerShell to do a fair amount of text parsing (particularly if manipulations are needed) - not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly a place where ActiveBatch could be improved.
• Debugging - or lack of it! With no stepping debugger, it can be a longer process than many other programming / scripting environments: rather than simply stepping through and observing state changes, I find myself inserting logging steps to excess, then having to clean them up once the error is found.
• The perennial - Documentation! While a near-universal complaint for *any* software, ActiveBatch's developer documentation is somewhat spotty - just where I need detail, I find summary-level info. There is lots of documentation (as there should be for a tool with such a wide range of applications), but it is in mixed formats (some PDF, some CHM), and the descriptions of specific fields within job steps is often little more than I can get in a tool-tip in the GUI. Allowable ranges, expected formats for string data, and similar helpful details are inconsistent.
• The KnowledgeBase at ASCI's web site often has examples which answer the questions I have, but not always - and not always under the search terms one would think to use.

• There is a lot more the desktop tool can do. For example, we need to apply an upgrade to get the tool to talk to our infrastructure while employees are working from home. The tool was initially installed with the assumption that the desktops would be in UserLand. Instead after COVID-19 the desktop/laptops have been used for over a year on people's home networks. As of right now, we have to sync when the devices are connected to VPN. Moving forward with the upgrade, we will be getting this data over TLS when they are connected to the untrusted networks.
• The concept of ignio AlOps requires OCM efforts within most operational teams. This isn't necessarily the fault of the tool itself, but when implementing ignio, or any AIOps tool, the team will get a lot of pushback as an outside team is centralizing the operational improvements. The tool should have a centralized intake process that will allow the collection, ranking, and management of automation opportunities. ignio AlOps should then simulate the proposed efficiencies from implementing something within the backlog. Right now a lot of local teams are having a hard time getting on the same page as the enterprise teams, and a common methodology for prioritizing (even if overly simplistic) would go a long way to enterprise planning.
• These tools are very new and things get added to them all the time. There should be a way for the product's stakeholders and process owners to understand the additional value ignio AlOps is gaining over time.

It is a very good product and it helps our organization.

We can easily add new plans/jobs in our batch schedules. Also, coordination with reporting and QA jobs is simple to do. Building schedules, restarting jobs, triggering dependencies is easy to understand. The system is very stable and allows us to easily see overall processing times.

Incentivized

ignio AIOps version upgrades were a heavy lift. Having to learn a new language versus an industry standard language took time. More consideration on overall internal long-term support needs to be determined.

Incentivized

It was up than Dynatrace

Incentivized

Looks good at the moment

My colleague contacted them directly, I only know hearsay on this but it was not good.

Incentivized

We have built a healthy relationship with the vendor support team throughout the implementation phase, all incidents raised were resolved within the SLA without a fail

Implementation team has provided necessary training & enablement.

Online training materials are shared by the implementation team and it was good.

I am happy with the way team has implemented and shared the product for our organization. However, would like to see it get extended to the other line of business too.

The workload automation solution is based on the specific needs of an organization, as well as the features, capabilities, and costs of various solutions. A thorough evaluation process and consideration of these factors can help ensure the selection of a solution that aligns with overall business objectives and meets the specific needs of the organization.

Incentivized

We generally use Ignio AIOps. It is flexible and works well for AIOPS.

Quite Scalable!

• ActiveBatch can automate intricate procedures and minimise manual involvement, which can boost an organization's production and efficiency.
• Organisations can save money by using ActiveBatch to automate operations, which lowers the expenses of manual labour and potential mistakes.
• Implementing ActiveBatch could come with hefty up-front expenses including licencing, instruction, and consultancy fees, which could have a short-term negative impact on ROI.

• ignio has had a positive impact on our organization by saving 7,000+ hours within Operations and automatically resolving 84% of our service requests.
• ignio has increased our alert coverage by over 60%.