BMC Accelerates Development of New BMC Helix Control-M SaaS Offering Using AWS SaaS Factory Program

BMC Software Inc. (BMC) used the AWS SaaS Factory Program to help develop a software-as-a-service (SaaS) version of one of its signature products. BMC, a US multinational firm delivering information technology and services solutions, wanted expert guidance to develop a top-notch SaaS version of Control-M, a long-running and popular product. By participating in the AWS SaaS Factory Program, BMC received helpful insights into the business and technical aspects of SaaS development. With guidance from the AWS SaaS Factory Program team, BMC optimized costs, improved business agility through various models and approaches, and reviewed plans to improve operational resiliency as it prepared its SaaS solution to go to market. 

BMC had been part of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN) since August 2013, but it was not fully aware of the AWS SaaS Factory Program—which helps AWS Partners at any stage of the SaaS journey—until it began investigating cloud vendors to help develop its new SaaS version of Control-M. By joining the AWS SaaS Factory Program, BMC experienced the smooth and successful development of its new BMC Helix Control-M platform while enjoying cost savings and improving its business agility, operational resiliency, and staff productivity. Plus, the new product offers customers the advantages in cost, time, accessibility, and compatibility that are making SaaS so popular across industries today.

“Having spent so many years delivering an on-premises solution, we’re very good at that,” says Tim Eusterman, Senior Director of Solutions Marketing for the Digital Business Automation Unit at BMC. “But when you bring a SaaS solution to market, your processes and business model need to be challenged. The AWS SaaS Factory Program helped open our eyes to the process, the go-to-market, the technical merits of the architecture, and many other aspects of delivering a SaaS offering to the market.” 

BMC is a US multinational firm delivering information technology and services solutions from local offices in 40 countries. BMC’s Control-M offering has been available for more than 25 years and makes it simple for a wide variety of companies to build, define, schedule, monitor, and manage application and data workflows in production. “Control-M is a leading solution in our historical space,” says Eusterman. “We’ve been watching the market very carefully and working with many of our top customers for several years to determine the right time to bring a SaaS version of Control-M to market.” In creating that version, BMC saw an opportunity to expand the value delivered to customers by providing them with a highly accessible, complete, and single-system capability that can accelerate business value by simplifying the adoption of new application, data, and infrastructure technologies with a simple-to-use and consumption-based SaaS model.

When BMC decided to begin developing the SaaS version in 2019, it evaluated multiple cloud providers to select the right vendor to work with, ultimately choosing AWS. BMC’s digital business automation unit had never launched a SaaS product before, so choosing the right provider was essential. “Our choice was based on the track record and capabilities of AWS,” says Eusterman. “By understanding the AWS SaaS Factory Program offer and all the things AWS could help us do, it added a level of confidence in our decision process.” 

BMC also involved AllCloud, an AWS SaaS Competency Partner, to assist with the project. AllCloud worked closely with the AWS SaaS Factory team to strategically enable BMC as an extension of the customer’s team and to accelerate the momentum to launch the SaaS offering on AWS. “AllCloud and the AWS SaaS Factory helped our business and technical teams to accelerate momentum by providing hands-on guidance, in-person strategy workshops, and proof of concepts,” says Karol Smeczechowski, VP of Research and Development, Digital Business Automation at BMC.

On the business side, the AWS SaaS Factory Program team provided insight into areas like SaaS product design standards, packaging and pricing, customer journey mapping, and SaaS-buyer persona refinement. On the development side, the AWS team helped BMC with its architectural road map, its choice of AWS services, its agent registration and management process, and its business continuity plan. According to Eusterman, collaborating with the AWS SaaS Factory Program team helped BMC’s technical and business teams stay on the same page. “One of the benefits of the program is bringing multiple functions in your company together and discussing issues within a proven framework,” he says. “That was a really positive outcome of the live sessions we had with the AWS SaaS Factory Program team.” Alongside the AWS SaaS Factory Program team, BMC optimized costs, improved business agility through various models and approaches, and reviewed operational plans for better operational resiliency. 

Launched in December 2020, the BMC Helix Control-M SaaS offer carries multiple benefits for the customer. It provides visibility, reliability, and governance in production as well as significantly reducing the risks and hidden costs that might result from using disparate application and data workflow automation and orchestration tools. It also drives agility for all personas, with a "Jobs-as-Code" interface for developers and a web interface for operations and business users to build, run, and manage all application workflows and business services from a single-enterprise view. In addition, the new product helps accelerate business value with its deep operational and enterprise-scale production capabilities, out-of-the box integrations, and one-time interface development capability.

Eusterman says another big benefit to customers is the expedited onboarding process. “With BMC Helix Control-M, we can literally get people onboarded, designing, and developing application workflows in minutes,” he says.

BMC believes these benefits will help existing customers and drive new growth. “We have an expectation that many current Control-M customers will adopt BMC Helix Control-M,” says Eusterman. “We also believe there are many new customers who prefer to go SaaS-first that will now be able to access all the value that Control-M delivers through BMC Helix Control-M.” 

Eusterman credits the AWS SaaS Factory Program with helping BMC develop the best possible SaaS version of its Control-M product. “As we were developing BMC Helix Control-M, it was challenging to think about how to organize across our functional teams so that we didn’t have anything slip through the cracks,” he says. “Through the AWS SaaS Factory Program, AWS shared all it has learned helping other companies on this journey. This helped us uncover potential gaps and come up with great solutions to bring more value to customers.”