Automic Workload Automation

There are several different names that appear to have somewhat similar or overlapping meaings:

• ONE Automation
• Automic Workload Automation (AWA)
  
• Automation Engine

Would someone please define these terms and explain the differences? Thanks.

As far as I remember Automation Engine is the Product & Tool

Automic Workload Automation is the Bundle including AE and some other tools and Programs)

ONE Automation was the former name of AWA

@Automic Guys - please correct me if I am wrong :-)

good things can be named in a lot of ways :)

basically not much to add to Wolfgangs summary,

Automic Workload Automation (AWA) is the whole bundle including the Automation Engine (which would be the Automation Engine processes, UserInterface, Utilities, OS, DB, JMX and SAP Agents...) PLUS the RA Packages, LDAPSync, and other tools. Better description here: https://downloads.automic.com/downloads/quick_start/awa

The Automation Engine is the Core components as described above within the brackets.

One Automation is - as mentioned by Wolfgang - the former name for AWA, but with less components (e.g. LDAPSync, Process Analystics, Proxy have not been within that bundle)

Hope it helps.

Thanks for the information. It’s a bit confusing when product names change, and when product portfolios/suites are renamed & reorganized.

The question arose because I see different names in different places, and there is a lack of consistency. E.g., Documentation Switcher:

Particularly for those new to Automic and its software offerings, abbreviations like ARA and AWA are likely to be insufficiently descriptive. (And needless to say, the word Documentation, used as a category heading and repeated again before both AWA Guides and ARA Guides, is doubly redundant. The description All Guides that appears in several places is similarly superfluous.

And then there is the name of this discussion forum. If ONE Automation no longer exists, perhaps this forum should be renamed to reflect the current name.

Hi Michael,

You are right, it can be confusing. It is always a bit of a challenge if products are renamed not only for the customer, also for designers because there is not a really perfect way. If you change everything to the "new" model, it might be confusing for the ones who did not update to the new product/version/namerange and are not firm with the new terms. If you keep old and new together, it can be misleading.

Both ways are not perfect but somehow possible, in that case the decision was to keep both terms even if it is an inconsistency to ensure that users who are not updated to the new system yet, might feel still familiar.

Could it be possible to use simply UC4 pour everything that is related to basic scheduling functions ?  :)

More seriously, a section "OLD VERSIONS" in the download center could help as some components are used in thier previous versions that has changed name so it is more than confusing.

A simple spreadsheet with "current name and version" and "previous name(s) and version(s)" to get a list of "what is now" and "what was then" would be very very very helpful. I know that marketing people like to confuse users so they can make old things new but it is a bit boring at end .....

We can't use UC4 anymore since  UC4 (company) name no longer exists, and has been changed to Automic, as well as the product component itself is now Automation Engine (and not Operations Manager, when it was still UC4).

There's an illustration here that may help those who are new with using Automic products:
https://community.automic.com/discussion/8383/what-is-the-difference-between-awa-and-ae#latest

A table of names by version/Year would help.

Christine Chavez said:

Product name and release date

https://downloads.automic.com/downloads/product_support_lifecycle

Component name and date released 

https://downloads.automic.com/downloads/component_support_lifecycle?show_eos=yes 

To view out of support versions, check "show versions out of Support"

The list of products does not show the names of these products at the time they were released. Neither list includes ONE Automation or UC4.

Christine said :
We can't use UC4 anymore since  UC4 (company) name no longer exists, and has been changed to Automic, as well as the product component itself is now Automation Engine (and not Operations Manager, when it was still UC4).

1 - UC4 software changes name but I don't think that UC4 name for a product is prohibited as Automic Software is replacing UC4 Software. Or all customer having a contract signed for UC4 product could be in trouble for using an unregistered product  :)

2 - FYI the product was already named UC4 when the company name was SBB ...  in 1996 ! (I'm old yes, don't push it please) It stays like this even with rebranding of the company in UC4Software GmbH.

3 - Operation Manager was a marketing operation for version 8 that fails miserably as everybody was still using UC4.

4 - If UC4 is strictly prohibited, then please do remove all references to it in the documentation, rename all objects, procedure, modules, variables, etc .... that starts by UC and replace them by AE. Guess this may be too much maybe but is following what you are saying (can't use UC4 anymore) ?

Simply taking care of the confusion you are generating each time you change a name would be only customer friendly.

To the best of my knowledge, there were two name changes, each made for different reasons:

1. FromSBB* (company) andUniversal Command(product) toUC4 (company and product), due to a legal dispute over ownership of the old product name, and possibly also due to a conflict with the German name of theSwiss national rail company.
2. FromUC4(company and product) toAutomic(company) andAutomation Engine(product) due to the challenges the company faced when trying to expand into Asian markets, due to superstition around the number four. (See the Wikipedia article ontetraphobia.)
   

* SBB = “Software Beratung Beranek”

The change of the company name from SBB to UC4 was taken place in the time when the founder was still with the company, there was no dispute on this, as far as I know, the product itself was never (or only in very early versions) called "SBB", only the company was named like this until 2003 or 2004, why the name was changed, i dont know, but Michael_Lowry might be right with the conflict with the swiss national railway, and also because the Name "SBB" which was correctly stated as Software Beratung Beranek (Franz Beranek, Founder of Automic Software in 1985) translated Software Consulting Beranek was not a fitting name for an international active company. But you can still see some "relics" of SBB within the Software, e.g. with the SAP transports, which are partially still named with SBB_*

The Name "UC4" consists of "Universal Command" and the "4" consists of the four - earlier - supported platforms which were Windows, Unix, SAP and BS2000 (with "SAP" i m not 100% sure, it also could be ZOS, if Banhammer speaks truth on me, I deserve it ;) )
Also here you can still see some "relics" e.g. the system administrator user UC/UC or the name of the component (ucsrv* (Automation Engine), ucybdbld (Load utility)...), UC* ... Variables

About the name change from UC4 to Automic there are lots of myths, but the thing which is clear is, that at the time of the name change (somewhen around 2010) we already supported much more than these four platforms, so it was outdated. The fact about tetraphobia stated by Michael might also be part of it and also a very interesting topic, i didnt know about this.

It is a bit off topic to discuss about Automic company name while the topic was opened for product names, but thanks for giving me a chance to share a bit of Automic history.

AlainMoisy I dont think that a rename of the objects and "relics" from UC4 like the UC* objects or the renaming of the executables or .ini files is going to happen, but if you like, hand this in as a feature request under ideas.automic.com
Anyhow, the literal "UC" does not necessarily bring up a connection with "UC4" if someone is not aware of the old company name, UC can still stand as what it is "Universal Command"  and thats exactly what the UC/UC User does, and what the UC_CLIENT_SETTINGS or UC_SYSTEM_SETTINGS ... do, they are system or client wide settings which gives you Universal Command about crucial parts of the software.

I was just pushing the envelop because the "legal" use of the name UC4 was never questionned but you can follow a logic line to the absurd.
I heard in my SBB time that UC4 was also user to say "Universal Command For (4)" and you could put any plateform name behind, it was available  :). Maybe again a false assumption propagated by the marketing .... but still a nice story that I like.

Just a pity that the name UC4, even with the asian issue about the number 4  that is real (pronounced like "death" in chinese), wasn't kept as it was beginning to be known largely. Now everybody is confused and the product has gone under the radar for many comparison or studies because no one knows how it is named or can find it with the same name form one site or paper to another.

Nice! This became a good topic with some history and (perhaps) myths about the world of Automic (or SBB, or UC4 or CA...).  :)

In addition, we can't forget about marketing, that is not interested if the product contains only the AE or also RA Agents, and that takes popular terms from outside the company and relates to our products.

What Harald_Heidinger_152 posted is a good summary about the names, and I also agree that it is difficult to balance between the heritage and present naming.

As

Michael A. Lowry

mentioned, having a table with all these names would be helpful.

Perhaps we can create one here at the community.  ;)

I don't think Automic or CA will be able to get away of the UC4 name, the phonetic is easy in almost any language. Also, it is easy to memorize...

Agree with Derick and it is also largely used by people using the product until the last 2 years .... when people start not to know how to name it !