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BMC Patrol [EOL] vs DX Spectrum vs IBM Tivoli NetCool comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Featured Reviews

RK
Senior Technical Leader at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
It was a monitoring tool with useful features such as database lining for intelligent alerts, but the coupling of it with BMC BPPM caused issues such as data loss.
This was one of the greatest monitoring tools for a long time. Unfortunately, it's gone down pretty fast. After coupling BMC Patrol with BMC BPPM, many features changed which increased the level of complication as well. Now, there is too much maintenance involved, a lot of data collection issues…
ON
Solution Architect at SA Consulting
Provides proactive network monitoring and effective fault detection for large-scale environments
I would like to see improvements in making the interface more user-friendly. Many people find it not simple to use. One of the common customer complaints is about the alarm notifications. Currently, they appear as pop-up messages, but I would prefer having alarm messages shown as a scrolling bar at the taskbar for easier visibility.
Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Monitoring Engineer at Commerzbank
Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed
There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict. And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly. Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
28%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise89
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about DX Spectrum?
The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DX Spectrum?
The price of DX Spectrum is not competitive when compared to other solutions, such as SolarWinds. The high price has ...
What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
I would like to see improvements in making the interface more user-friendly. Many people find it not simple to use. O...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all ...
What do you like most about IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The tool had many built-in automation capabilities.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The main challenge is its licensing model, which is very complicated.
 

Also Known As

Patrol
CA Spectrum
Tivoli NetCool
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alshaya, AtTask customer story video, BNY Mellon, Dell, Florida Hospital, Mitchell International
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, NetScaler and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: January 2026.
881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.