PeerSpot user
Consultant with 51-200 employees
Vendor
CA APM - diving into issues from the top
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: CA partner
PeerSpot user
Ravi Suvvari - PeerSpot reviewer
Ravi SuvvariPerformance and Fault-tolerance Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees
Top 5LeaderboardReal User

Very valuable inputs regarding APM Dan; Thank you for sharing Ravi Suvvari

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it_user108432 - PeerSpot reviewer
Support Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
Valuable features include Transaction Trace Session, Query Historical Errors and Investigator's Dashboards

Valuable Features

Transaction Trace Session, Query Historical Errors and Investigator's Dashboards

Improvements to My Organization

  • SLAs and User Experience improved (most of all- User Experience / Application performance)
  • You can fix complex incidents with a quick look at the dashboards (CA dashboards or your custom dashboards)
  • You can easily be proactive and can help to save departments a lot of time. If you have a great platform, (something that is actually very common in enterprise environments) you have a lot of log files.

Room for Improvement

Probe-based network appliance: Add more protocols (currently only supports TCP, HTTP and HTTPS) Software / Consoles / Dashboards

Use of Solution

Over 5 years

Scalability Issues

Only in old versions (where MOM does not exists)

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

I would give CA customer service a 8 out of 10.

Technical Support:

I would give CA Technical Support a 7 out of 10. They have a great knowledge database and great documentation.

Initial Setup

The initial setup was very easy. If anything, the more complex task was the configuration of the probe-based network appliance SW. To be honest, the only issue was because of an error we had with the ISO for version 9.1.4. Our storage guys "undeploy" a NFS file system from the virtual machine and the ISO (RHEL 5.2 + TIM Sw) fails in the boot. Now you can install a supported OS on your own and then install TIM SW (you can get the TIM SW installer on your own.)

Implementation Team

Our initial implementation was done by a CA spanish consultant and the posterior tuning with a CA partner. Working with them went well.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

The initial setup was a couple of days of work. Our setup cost also included a license and initial contract. There is no day-to-day cost for my company.

Other Solutions Considered

I also evaluated Compuware, Lucierna and Oracle.

Other Advice

If you are not an APM expert and have no hands of experience with any APM solution, I recommend having CA do the initial setup (or via an experience partner).

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Ravi Suvvari - PeerSpot reviewer
Ravi SuvvariPerformance and Fault-tolerance Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees
Top 5LeaderboardReal User

Good Review Jose Antonio.

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Broadcom DX Application Performance Management
May 2024
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it_user647421 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer / System Operation Analyst 2 at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
Agent metrics and customization are valuable features.

What is most valuable?

Agent metrics and customization are valuable features for us because we can set the "resting" metrics to shutdown to prevent overhead.

How has it helped my organization?

The product has given us better visibility of the agent and communication of the WAS application to the MQ server.

What needs improvement?

It should be more user-friendly, especially the CEM part and the agent instrumentation. They should be easier for the customer experience. This is one of the key areas where other competitors, like AppDynamics, beat CA.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with stability, but you should understand how it works and build accordingly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give technical support a rating of 10/10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not use any other solution previously.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing is a key element that needs to be noted in terms of the market for the solution.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other solutions. We selected this five years ago as there were no other such options.

What other advice do I have?

I have no specific advice except that it is a wise choice. Go for it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user598926 - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration And Development at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
The alert capability is helping us to identify and react to issues before they happen and affect our services.

What is most valuable?

The alert, action, and dashboards features are the most valuable to us. The alert capability of the CA APM solution is helping us to identify and react to issues before they happen and affect our services. The dashboard features allow us to see the health status of our applications visually; thus, it helps us to identify issues faster and easier.

How has it helped my organization?

Using CA APM has allowed us to know about the performance of our applications and servers and also to identify issues before they happen.

It helped us be proactive and resolve problems before they become system-wide issues.

What needs improvement?

The dashboards should be easier to build.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this product for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Sometimes, we had stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We did not encounter any scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give the technical support a 10 out of 10. CA has excellent technical support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we were using a different solution. The reason we switched was because CA APM fits better to our monitoring needs.

How was the initial setup?

I think initial setup is a little complex.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing and licensing is reasonable.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate any other solution.

What other advice do I have?

It is a good product and comes with great features.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
Agents can monitor Java and .NET applications out-of-the-box with limited configuration.

What is most valuable?

APM agents are able to monitor Java and .NET applications out-of-the-box, with limited configuration, and are able to provide Operations with insight on application performance.

How has it helped my organization?

Operations are able to view the performance of their applications and the real-user experience in business transactions, all through a single solution, CA Application Performance Management. Customers are able to understand when applications have issues and which component is causing performance degradation. From the end user to web servers, app servers and backend components, all components are monitored.

What needs improvement?

Reporting capabilities require improvements.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used it for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have been using CA APM for more than two years in production environments and no stability issues have arisen yet.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

CA APM is able to monitor hundreds of servers and applications.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support responds fast and solutions experts are available to join in if issues are complex.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not previously use a different solution.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup is simple and straightforward because agents are able to monitor applications out-of-the-box.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The license model is really easy to understand.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options.

What other advice do I have?

CA is looking forward to minimizing the effort required by implementers to build custom dashboards as the Team Center feature is able to provide out-of-the-box dashboards that depict performance of applications through many perspectives, covering all of the different user needs.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are business partners.
PeerSpot user
it_user653628 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at Tech vendor
Consultant
Some of the valuable features are transaction traces and the team center.
Pros and Cons
    • "Dashboards need to be improved in order to make them self-explanatory."

    What is most valuable?

    • Transaction traces
    • Team Center
    • Dashboards
    • Alerts

    What needs improvement?

    Dashboards need to be improved in order to make them self-explanatory.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Technical support is very helpful and supportive.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We did not use other solutions, but we have some ideas about other solutions.

    Other solutions are very much self0explanatory and easy to understand.

    Others have on-premises as well as SaaS solutions.

    How was the initial setup?

    The setup was straightforward and simple.

    What about the implementation team?

    The implementation was done in-house.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Pricing and licensing are not issues.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I was not aware of any evaluation of other products.

    What other advice do I have?

    They need to come up with a SaaS solution. The current requirements are full of SaaS solutions.


    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user572871 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Data Analyst at Frost Bank
    Video Review
    Vendor
    We're currently using CA APM to detect the kind of traffic that our customers are dealing with.

    What is most valuable?

    What we're currently using CA APM for is to detect the kind of traffic that our customers are dealing with. How do we affect our customers in the way that they access our servers?

    With some of the setups that we have on the mobile app, like, is there anything we can do to shorten the time that it takes them to hit and access their account information using the mobile app?

    How has it helped my organization?

    We've been able to detect a lot of anomalies, troubleshoot those and fix them. It helps us with where to look. We're able to find the key component that's causing the issue and drill down into it, get into the details, and then fix the issue.

    What needs improvement?

    I'd like some simpler dashboards; some easier reporting. Everything looks a little too technical. To show our executives, it needs to look a little nicer.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I think it's fantastic. Stability is really awesome.

    How is customer service and technical support?

    I haven’t used CA technical support.

    What other advice do I have?

    It takes care of our issues.

    Let's up that user interface; make it look a little bit better.

    It's better than anything else I've ever used out there.

    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user
    PeerSpot user
    Performance and Fault-tolerance Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Top 5Leaderboard
    CA APM is a great transaction monitoring tool

    How has it helped my organization?

    It has improved our transaction monitoring significantly.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable features are the end-user experience and transaction monitoring.

    What needs improvement?

    The installation could be improved. Also, they need to concentrate more on the cloud for cloud monitoring.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I have not experienced any stability issues with the product.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Customer Service: 4 stars out of 5.

    Technical Support: 3.5 stars out of 5

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We used HPE Diagnostics earlier. But since the client already had an existing license of CA APM, he wanted to leverage the existing toolset rather than going for new tools.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was slightly complex.

    What about the implementation team?

    The implementation was done through the vendor. The vendor, of course, had implementation experience.

    What was our ROI?

    The ROI is good when you have more applications for testing.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We evaluated Dynatrace and HPE Diagnostics.

    What other advice do I have?

    Definitely a good product, worth going for. Since I first reviewed the product here, about two years ago, I would currently not change my rating of eight out of ten. CA APM hasn't changed much in that time.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Ravi Suvvari - PeerSpot reviewer
    Ravi SuvvariPerformance and Fault-tolerance Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Top 5LeaderboardReal User

    Announcing CA Application Performance Management (APM) 10

    www.ca.com

    www.brighttalk.com

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    Updated: May 2024
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