The Growing Importance of Intelligent Workload Automation
Workload automation (WLA) plays an increasingly vital role in ensuring flawless execution of business processes across today‘s digitally-driven enterprises. As organizations adopt cloud platforms, migrate legacy systems, and pursue infrastruture modernization initiatives, they generate exploding volumes of automated workloads. Managing and orchestrating these workloads effectively has become pivotal to delivering consistent customer experiences, meeting compliance needs, and driving competitive differentiation.
MarketsandMarkets predicts the global workload automation market size to grow from USD 2.0 billion in 2022 to 4.1 billion by 2027, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15.2% during the forecast period. This growth highlights the soaring demand for scalable and resilient automation solutions.
However, traditional job schedulers often struggle to address the scale, flexibility and intelligence needs of fast-evolving business landscapes. This is driving a notable market shift – rather than just schedule workflows, today‘s leading solutions provide end-to-end automation with embedded self-service, predictive analytics, and no-code simplicity.
As an enterprise relied upon by IT teams globally, Broadcom‘s Dollar Universe Workload Automation is a longstanding fixture in many organizations‘ tech stacks. Yet there is room for significant modernization to bring it up to par with customer expectations. This makes exploring alternatives imperative.
Dollar Universe Workload Automation – Overview and Limitations
Broadcom positions Dollar Universe as an enterprise-grade workload automation solution, currently on version 8.1. It delivers core capabilities like:
Centralized multi-platform workflow orchestration
Dollar Universe enables defining, scheduling and monitoring interdependent jobs across varied infrastructure like Unix, Linux, Windows Server, IBM i, and cloud.
Visual workflow assembly
Dollar Universe provides a GUI-based console to model data pipelines and application workflows using predefined modules.
Built-in alarms and notifications
Users can set up alerts for critical events, create chatbots and customize notifications.
Calendar-based scheduling
Jobs can be configured to run on specific dates, recurring schedules, or custom calendars.
Real-time monitoring
Dollar Universe enables tracking status, progress and performance of workflows through dashboards.
Sample Dollar Universe workflow visualization:
While meeting baseline automation criteria, Dollar Universe has notable limitations:
- No native integrations with leading cloud platforms like Salesforce, Workday.
- Minimal use of AI/ML for value-adds like predictive analytics.
- Steep learning curves for non-developers.
- Lack of packaged no-code/low-code automation templates.
These gaps coupled with mediocre peer reviews make evaluating feature-rich alternatives imperative.
Methodology for Analysis
In compiling this dollar universe alternative guide, I relied on insights from:
Trustworthy industry reports:
- Gartner‘s 2022 Magic Quadrant for Workload Automation and Critical Capabilities reports providing unbiased technical and buyer-centric evaluation.
Public customer feedback and ratings:
- Review metrics from leading B2B platforms including G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius across relevant selection criteria.
Vendor evaluations:
- Questionnaires and product demonstrations to determine version release cycles, roadmaps, and real-world customer use cases.
Hands-on trials:
- Downloaded developer editions across shortlisted options to test core workload automation capabilities based on priorities like scalability, cloud orchestration and ease of use.
Combining these sources lends credibility and a well-rounded perspective to this comparative analysis.
Analysis of Top Alternatives
Many compelling alternatives address Dollar Universe‘s shortcomings with more scalable, resilient and intelligent workload automation. Here we analyze the top three:
ActiveBatch – The Workload Automation Leader
Key Stats
- 4.6/5 rating based on 246 Capterra and 2100+ G2 crowd reviews
- 90/100 G2 score, Leader in Summer 2022 Workload Automation segment
- 8000+ global customers across banking, retail, healthcare and manufacturing
Overview
Part of Redwood Software, ActiveBatch provides award-winning, enterprise-grade workload automation to orchestrate and monitor business processes enterprise-wide.
Key Features
- 130+ turnkey integrations with apps like SAP, Oracle Fusion Cloud.
- Multi-environment job scheduling for on-prem, cloud, hybrid infrastructure
- One-click setup for complete automation projects with inbuilt templates
- Visual workflow designer enabling codeless build.
- Predictive analytics powered by machine learning algorithms.
Sample Automation Blueprint/Template
IDEAL FOR:
Organizations running workload-intensive ERP platforms seeking no-code simplicity paired with enterprise scalability and baked-in intelligence.
RunMyJobs – Intuitive No-Code Automation
Stats
- 4.7/5 average rating on 1200+ G2 and Capterra reviews
- Steady growth with 75+ new global enterprise customers annually
- Runner Up, Best Workload Automation Software – G2 Awards 2022
Summary
RunMyJobs provides an award-winning SaaS-based workload automation solution tailored to IT needs of large regulated enterprises.
Why RunMyJobs:
- Wizard-based approach for quick no-code automation of SAP workflows.
- Low-overhead agentless automation maximizing performance.
- Inbuilt integration with Boomi and SAS solutions.
- Holistic governance dashboard providing end-to-end transparency.
- Packaged solutions for automating ITSM, database and cloud admin tasks.
Sample RunMyJobs Wizard
BEST FOR:
Large enterprises running SAP systems seeking optimized change management and admins aiming to eliminate manual IT duties.
Stonebranch – The Universal Automation Platform
Vital Stats
- 4.5/5 average rating based on 1400+ peer reviews
- 90/100 G2 score, Leader in Mid-Market Workload Automation
- PARTNERSHIPS with AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Snowflake
Summary
Stonebranch offers an integrated approach to IT process automation spanning job scheduling, automation management and real-time visibility.
Capabilities
- Over 300 native integrations with modern tech stacks.
- Built-in automation analytics identifying process optimization areas.
- Seamless scaling from simple workloads to complex multi-step workflows.
- Universal connectivity adapters eliminating migration barriers.
- Automation-as-code options even for no-code templatized processes.
Value Stream Workflow
IDEAL FOR:
Large IT teams managing intricate multi-application interdependencies seeking maximum visibility.
In-Depth Pros and Cons Comparison
| ActiveBatch | RunMyJobs | Stonebranch | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scalability | Handles extremely high workload volumes and use frequencies without performance drops. | SaaS delivery model offers flexible scalability. | Easily scales to automate vast hybrid ecosystems. |
| Ease of Use | Intuitive drag and drop designer, extensive documentation and community forums provide good learning resources. | Simplifies complex multi-step workflows with step-by step wizards. | Steeper learning curve due to comprehensive capabilities. |
| Security | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 certification. Role-based access control, audit logs and data encryption. | SSAE 18 SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II audited. | HITECH, HIPAA, GDPR compliance capabilities. |
| Technology Support | 130+ connectors spanning ERPs, databases. REST APIs for custom systems integration. | Specialized SAP integration beyond standard connectors. | Universal connectivity to 300+ apps and platforms. |
| Hybrid/Multi-Cloud Automation | AWS, Azure and Google Cloud workload automation out of the box. | Focused on automating SAP-centric ecosystems. | Seamless orchestration across hybrid toolchain. |
| AI Powered Analytics | Auto-predict batch durations. Proactively alerts on potential failures. | Basic historical analytics for previous run audits. | Process optimization insights identifying automation gaps. |
| Pricing | Premium pricing but cost savings from process efficiency and FTE liberation offset spend. | Affordable pricing tiered by number of jobs. | Moderately priced but lower TCO through increased productivity. |
When is ActiveBatch the Right Choice?
ActiveBatch balances robust enterprise functionality with intuitiveness catering to both expert developers and business users. The extensive pre-built integrations and turnkey no-code automation accelerators make ActiveBatch ideal for organizations standardizing on solutions like SAP, JD Edwards, Oracle EBS with high-frequency batch workloads.
When Does RunMyJobs Hit the Mark?
With specialized capabilities tailored for SAP landscapes, RunMyJobs stands out where lightly-coded or no-code automation of ECC, S/4 HANA, SuccessFactors and other SAP modules is a key priority. The agentless architecture and SaaS delivery provide turnkey scalability with minimal burden on infrastructure teams.
When Does Stonebranch Outperform?
For complex IT environments interweaving vast hybrid footprints with intricate dependencies between processes, Stonebranch‘s advanced workload automation converges key capabilities – not just job scheduling but also automation management, orchestration and real-time analytics. This makes it a prime fit for large IT teams overseeing business-critical, high-volume workloads.
Key Takeaways and Recommendations
As today‘s disruptive business landscape shakes legacy companies across sectors, automation is no longer just nice-to-have but a do-or-die imperative for enterprises worldwide. Yet simply digitizing processes using robotic task bots creates automation islands. The connective tissue of workload automation, becoming the command center integrating otherwise disjoint efforts, is pivotal to realizing the full efficiency promise.
While traditional solutions like Dollar Universe provide a sound starting point, IT architects need to set their sights wider towards increasingly business-centric, versatile and intelligent alternatives.
As this analysis indicates, offerings like ActiveBatch, RunMyJobs and Stonebranch check all the boxes – ease of use for coders and non-coders alike, security hardening for compliance needs, scalability to handle spikes, world-class integrations to unify data, and embedded analytics empowering data-driven decisions. Rather than constantly struggle upstream against overburdened administrators, these automation leaders harness breakthrough innovations like hyperautomation, AIOps and process discovery to deliver self-driving simplicity.
Equipped with the evaluation framework and leading recommendations here, IT strategy leaders can align workload automation renewal decisions with larger digital transformation roadmaps. Ultimately by selecting feature-rich, future-proof substitutes purpose-built for the modern enterprise technology canon over datedincumbents, technologists can consistently and proactively meet accelerating business demands rather than reactively fight fires.