What's new in Control-M - Identity Solutions

In January 2018 the latest version of Control-M, version 9.0.18, was released with BMC announcing that from now on a new version of the product would be released every year. This move to an annual delivery model is designed to help customers better plan their upgrade activities by delivering what BMC describe as “access to a regularly scheduled stream of innovation that is quick and easy to consume”. As previously, enhancements and fixes will be issued between new versions in the form of fix packs.

Those who have become accustomed to the most recent GUI appearance will be happy to know that there is no change in the look and feel of Control-M – the work areas used to build and monitor jobs and workflows are unchanged and remain visually appealing and easy to navigate.

So, what IS new in 9.0.18?

The most significant improvement from the end user perspective is that it is now possible to perform an upgrade in only a few minutes and reduce downtime to almost zero. With an in-place upgrade there is no need to migrate data from a previous version and there is no need to create parallel environments in which to import data, test connectivity of components and validate job flows – this will help customers realise significant time and cost savings.

Additionally Control-M 9.0.18 reduces risk during the upgrade process … if problems are encountered at any time during the upgrade the environment can be rolled back to the previous version until the issue is resolved.

A new feature which greatly assists in helping to simplify the deployment experience is the Control-M Application Pack. With version 9.0.18 the Application Pack can be used to distribute and deploy application plugins, such as Control-M for Databases, on multiple Control-M Agents in a fast and simple centralised process, similar to the way client and agent upgrades have been deployed in earlier versions.

Beyond these changes we also find a new, modernised Control-M Reporting tool; enhancements to Batch Impact Manager and Self Service; the ability to install Control-M on an external PostgreSQL database and on Amazon Linux operating systems; and new scheduling features such as cyclic folders and the ability to simulate auto edit variables without having to submit test jobs.

So, this is the new, improved Control-M, showcasing BMC’s commitment to continuous innovation.