Broadcom DX Application Performance Management Reviews

Our project is a logistic domain. DX passes all the infrastructure components which are managed by the Broadcom team. We are just deploying the different kinds of application versions, e.g. related to .NET, WebLogic, and other application agents.

We are also monitoring the infrastructure agents in Windows, Linux, and Unix which are combined into one infrastructure agent. We also do monitoring whenever the agent doesn't have the package that is supported through the infrastructure agent, e.g. Kubernetes from the Broadcom DX Application Performance Management perspective.

What's most valuable about this solution is that it completely monitors code-level visibility. We benefit from this as we're able to capture any performance issues from an application, then raise and forward those issues to the applicable team more quickly.

The occurrence of CPU spikes and memory issues is an area for improvement in Broadcom DX Application Performance Management. To avoid these, we turn on the conservation settings, but it would be best if Broadcom can rectify those issues.

The period of time that passes before they fix issues should be shortened. They should not wait for the next release to fix issues raised by their users.

I'm been working with APM tools for four and a half years. I'm working with AppDynamics and Broadcom DX Application Performance Management.

I've worked with Broadcom DX Application Performance Management within the last 12 months.

It is a stable solution.

This solution is scalable.

The technical support for this solution is good. I'm rating it a four out of five, with one being the worst and five being the best.

The initial setup for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management was straightforward. We used a straightforward technical documentation for building and adding the agent.

This solution was implemented in-house. I did it myself just by following the documentation.

I evaluated AppDynamics, Dynatrace, and the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Tool.

Currently, I'm using AppDynamics and CA APM. It's Broadcom DX Application Performance Management which is similar to AppDynamics and Dynatrace, but I'm currently using AppDynamics. It's for application performance management.

I was involved in the integration of this solution and moving from the lower version: CA APM which was version 10.7, to the new version 20.2 which is now Broadcom DX Application Performance Management.

Out of all the APM tools I've worked with, I prefer Broadcom DX Application Performance Management the most, followed by AppDynamics.

We're using the Enterprise license for this solution.

What I'd like to tell people who are looking into using this solution is that sometimes when we raise issues and open tickets with them, they'll say that the issue will be resolved in the next release. We have to wait for the next release before they are able to solve the issues, instead of solving them more quickly. It is their tool so they should be able to give the right solutions faster. They should not keep saying that the issue will be resolved in the next release. We've experienced this a few times.

I can't think of additional features I'd like to see in the next release of this solution as it is similar to other APM tools. AppDynamics and Dynatrace are the best solutions in the market, because they have better tools than what Broadcom DX Application Performance Management offers. Their market growth is also very good.

I'm scoring Broadcom DX Application Performance Management a seven out of ten.

If the application team requires me to deploy something which I have not deployed myself in the past, e.g. one I have no experience deploying, I can look at tool documentations and learn how to build it. I'll then build it and improve myself at the same time, the way I worked on multiple application agents. I'll build and give them to application teams. This is why I'm rating myself a seven out of ten.

A new concept (APM) to be introduced in our workplace which was never there before. Never had visibility into application (layer) performance. Prior to this our main focus was on server and network hardware monitoring. Having visibility into app performance and backend layer has been quite an eye opener in putting together the entire picture for management. We've put together a complete portrait from an ESM (Enterprise Systems Management) perspective with Broadcom/CA Tools.

We are introducing 10.1 in our dev environment and then prod down the road. APM is a new culture here so we are working with customers in getting them introduced to the product. Want to show them how deep dive provided by APM can help them with DevOps lifecycle as well as proactive monitoring. The previous version v9.5.3. we've had for about a year since we introduced a the product in our environment has been a good hands on experience for our users. Now looking forward to getting hands dirty with 10.1 and utilizing the additional capabilities. Will continue to show customers the usefulness of this tool and how they can use it to generate reports on performance of their app as well as the service it provides. There has also been reactionary situations where we have used APM and pin point the issue or able to narrow down the focus.

Updated - 08/29/2018

We now have v10.5.2 SP2 running in our Dev & Prod environment since June 2018. So, far we've had a really good reception for APM by our internal app owners. The key is now for ESM Tools to be adapted by app owners (physical, network and app layer).

Updated - 2/3/2020

We now have upgraded to v10.7.0_SP3 which has provided yet another set up stability and more capabilities for our app environment. APM Command Center (ACC) has a more features and stability from a admin and maintenance perspective.

The next upgrade (v11) changes a lot of things as Broadcom has decided to go to Kubernetes platform as for as APM upgrade and/or rollout of v11 is concerned. It will be interesting to see how customers react to this and whether it pushes them to take a look at SaaS model.

Deep Dive and Transaction Analysis Triage capability. The AppMap feature is very very helpful in visualizing. Also ACC is a huge help with agent maintenance/management (life cycle).

User Experience is a BIG one. Integration of all of APM components into one swift deployment. Can't emphasis the above two more.

About 10 years.

On Windows Platform, it’s not great and/or stable (from previous experience). We had lots of challenges on that platform back then. But with the current employer we start things off the right foot with RHEL platform :)

Agent metric containment is a VERY BIG challenge for us. Constantly have to normalize the agents to reduce the number of metrics and/or metric explosion.

Customer Service:

4 out of 5

Technical Support:

4 out of 5

There was no application performance management solution prior to the introduction of CA APM. Thus, we are still in infancy from a culture perspective. Customers are still learning as they use it often as possible.

It was complex due to our network architecture. It tool much longer than anticipate with all the firewall hurdles and design iterations.

Implemented through CA (the vendor) with their Services Group.

not yet determined

If you can get a SME to architect and install then definitely go that route vs the vendor itself. There are upside to having the vendor due to the fact that they have access to unlimited resources for assistance.

N/A

It’s a great product and provides a lot of in-depth data. Focus and leverage this product as a deep dive one and have another layer above it (another high-level view product etc..)

My users are satisfied with this solution, most are financial institutions such as banks.

The primary use case is for the monitoring of business applications in production. Banks use it for monitoring Internet banking solutions, internal back-office applications that have high number of users distributed on many locations, monitoring back-office applications for card transaction processing, and also for front office applications monitoring. DX APM is also used in a test phase of apps life cycle especially during a performance testing. 

Business-wise very much. We have the best solution in the local market because we are the most experienced APM vendor in our region and have very satisfied customers. They said that UX is much improved and MTTR is significantly decreased.

The most valuable features are the low overhead, the ability to monitor production on 24/7 principle, the ability to decrease time to discover the point of failure in the IT infrastructure or the application environment in a short period of time, reporting for analyzing the performance of the application for improving the code optimizing process.

DX APM has a space for improvement in covering more technologies. I.e. monitoring of PHP should be solved in a more quality way. 

I have been familiar with this solution for 17 years.

This solution is stable. In the 15 years, we have not had any major issues. It's an excellent product.

We have a good approach and implementation. If we have any problems, we solve it in the testing phase before it's in production. I can't say that we have had serious problems in the last 10 to 12 years.

This solution is very scalable but we have not had the need to scale because our implementations not need more than one EM server. The new version of DX APM rely on microservices technology and scalability is automatized.

The technical support is good, we are satisfied. The transition period was a little bit problematic, but it only took a short time.

When Broadcom purchased CA they changed the support and the portal. We noticed but we had no real issues. They are responsible and responsive.

We are the first line of support the second line of support is done by Broadcom Support.

They have improved by making the documentation available publically, so it's not only available to partners anymore. The software documentation is really nice, approachable, readable, and searchable.

Positive

The installation is absolutely simple. The installation is quick.

You can install the system quickly and get results in monitoring.

The initial installation is not expensive for the customers.

Our company does the implementation for the customers. We have experts in our team to implement the solutions and for consulting the usage in the future.

We are there to support our clients, not only for the installation but also in exploring the solution.

Our customers are satisfied and there is no complaining about the price. All discounts are given case by case to accommodate the client's budgets. Setup is not expensive because projects are relatively short in man/days.

One of our customers has been using this solution for the last ten years since it was called Wily Introscope. They are really satisfied and they are buying more licenses, using the solution for the whole infrastructure.

All of my clients are using on-premises installation licenses. Most of our clients are at the enterprise level and they are some of the largest banks in the region. Broadcom DX APM is not only a tool, it's a solution. We have experts who are there to offer assistance in exploring the solution to give the customers the maximum value. In my opinion, it's the best product on the market.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We are a network operation center. We measure the performance of the system.

We monitor the network and the application performance for any degradation in the performance of the system. 

If it is down then we need to get notified very quickly so that we can inform the consulting team to resolve the issue. 

We also have to inform the management of the incident management process, and the customer response team to notify the customer's agents.

I like that it gives you a wide range of data where you can see the application outage response from concurrent locations and the number of stalled jobs.

I like these variant features that are present.

It's quite easy to understand.

It doesn't have a proper database, and the configuration is very difficult.

Broadcom APM has two solutions. One is the infrastructure monitoring and the other is the application monitoring.

The infrastructure monitoring is not very user-friendly. When it migrates the application APM tool, the configuration it's on an individual basis. There is no template that you can apply to all of the related servers or applications. You have to configure one by one and set the thresholds, set the periods, and the monitoring times. Everything needs to be configured manually, which is pretty bad, it's not good.

The main feature that I am expecting to be included in this solution is the template for the configuration. Also, the UAM tool should be more user-friendly. 

They should have the proper database setup where we can change the values on the backend. We don't have that option, it is mostly XML-based data files that can't be read.

I have been working with Broadcom DX Application Performance Management for almost two years.

We are not using the latest version. We are using version 10.7

There are a couple of issues in terms of stability. 

Sometimes, the interlinking between APM and UAM doesn't happen regularly. You need to restart other services, which is not convenient.

Technical support is good, but you don't always get a solution that works. It seems to be more of a trial and error process. At times you will be told that the issues will be resolved in the next issue, but it doesn't.

They respond immediately, and the communication is good.

We are currently doing a POC with AppDynamics.

It's more or less straightforward.

You deploy the agent based on the type of framework, whether it is Java or, .NET.

You deploy it and reset the services.

Pricing is not my area because I am a technical developer, technical engineer who coordinates the different teams but I know the pricing.

It is definitely expensive for what we get, but there isn't an alternate option at the moment. We can't really compare with other solutions.

I have evaluated other solutions to understand the market and which applications were leading.

I wouldn't recommend this solution. 

I don't have enough experience with AppDynamics but from what I have researched on YouTube and other sites, it seems that Appdynamics is definitely better than Broadcom. 

If they don't have anything in place, I can recommend Broadcom products, such as UAM and APM. It's easy but the configuration requires a lot to be done.

I would rate Broadcom DS Application Performance Management a seven out of ten.

We are a service and solution provider, and this is one of the monitoring products that we implement for our customers.

The primary use case is network monitoring.

The features that I find most valuable are related to network monitoring. One of my colleagues is more focused on the application performance management aspects and has a better appreciation for those features.

It is straightforward to use.

The feedback that I have received from some customers is that they want to see more information on one screen when it comes to IT management. For example, they would like to have IP management, where it detects and shows IP conflicts on the network.

Ideally, the vendor would be better helping vendors by pushing this solution. If they created webinars then it would be helpful in this regard because potential customers need to have an overview of the features and benefits that they can get from it.

Technical support needs to be more responsive and address support tickets more quickly.

We have been using this solution for more than eight years, before the acquisition of CA by Broadcom.

Stability-wise, I think that this is a superb solution and my customers have been rating it high.

Technical support has not been what it was since before the acquisition by Broadcom. However, it is improving. There are a lot of things that they need to fine-tune and get back on track. In particular, they need to respond to issues more quickly.

Sometimes the partners run into problems with implementation. It could be an issue with the environment, for example. When the support ticket is logged, I need them to respond immediately or come online to be able to help resolve it at the time.

Time can be used when they ask for more information, such as sending certain logs. However, I want a situation where when you raise a priority-one ticket, they should be able to log in, take over the system, and help resolve issues as quickly as possible.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We deploy this product for our customers and then we help them to manage it.

This is a product that I continue to recommend to my customers.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We primarily use this product for monitoring our IBM WebSphere environment. It more generally monitors all of our JVMs for our web environments, used for all of our websites.

JVM memory monitoring and connection pool monitoring are valuable features.

It provides visibility into the performance of SQL statements, allowing for the identification of those that are performing poorly.

With respect to SQL monitoring, it would be nice to have a little more information because it doesn't provide the full statement all of the time. If it's really long then it only provides part of it.

It would be nice if the parameters that were used could be reported, as currently, it doesn't.

Having it monitor more of the environment would be helpful because we use applications such as Mule and Informatica, aside from the JVMs.

We began using this product between five and ten years ago when it was known as Wily Introscope.

This is a stable product.

In terms of stability, with our current setup, it is not so much. Unlike a situation where it was on the cloud, we'd have to be involved and it would be difficult to scale it up.

We have about a dozen people in the organization who use it.

We have had to call them and I find that they are not very supportive now.

The initial setup is complex.

We had assistance from either the vendor or somebody that they directed us to and are affiliated with.

The licensing costs are expensive.

We did not implement the latest release because they made some big changes to the framework. They probably have some of the stuff in their newest release that we would like. However, we didn't do that because they went to Kubernetes and some other technology that we weren't ready to adopt because it isn't in our environment yet.

Since Broadcom bought it, I would no longer recommend this product to other users. I think that they increased the price and the support isn't very good anymore.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We are using the on-premise and cloud versions of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management.

Broadcom DX Application Performance Management could improve its supportability to the current technologies and the end-to-end correlation feature should be done automatically without custom configurations. Additionally, there should not be any configuration changes to the client-side when deploying the solution.

I have been using Broadcom DX Application Performance Management for approximately two years.

The scalability is very poor. When you expand your application, you have to do it manually on the deployment.

The support could improve because most of the support has no commitment to their SLAs.

The deployment could improve because it is complicated and not user-friendly on how to deploy the agents. You have to do many changes on the client-side. There are a lot of improvements needed.

The deployment for one client-server or one client target can take approximately 30 to 60 minutes. However, it does depend on the client.

We are implementors of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management. We do the implementation of this solution for clients.

When maintenance is required it can take one to two people up to two days to complete.

The license for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is annual. The licensing model could improve because there is not any limit to deploying the agent, there should be some limits on it.

My advice to those wanting to implement this solution is to do many sanity tests before doing the deployment. It's very hard to find the issue and a high possibility of issues when doing the deployment.

I rate Broadcom DX Application Performance Management a six out of ten.