DX Performance Management vs Fortra's Intermapper comparison

"Scalability is the reason we bought the product to begin with. It was designed from the ground up for carrier-grade services, and we are in effect a MSP ourselves. So we were really interested in looking at something to be able to handle the multi-tenancy and scale as large as possible. This was the only solution that we really considered at that level."

"You can create intelligent alerts so you have enough time to replace the router or interface before it's full. The same is applicable for CBQoS channels.​"

"It saves time having it all on one place, so you do not have to jump around from different tools and try to merge the data. It is already done for you.​"

"We have been able to get a little bit better at seeing more things in real time and more just in time, so we're less reactionary."

"​When devices are having performance issues, it proactively build dashboards which allow us to go and do health checks, and resolve problems before they become an issue.​"

"The solution's performance itself is very good because it is a vertical database that loads very fast in comparison to other products."

"Spectrum is very good at monitoring all network faults and configurations."

"There is a good amount of vendor certification which comes with the product. That's all factory-loaded, no need to load any custom-made files. Most of the metrics are calibrated and captured from the devices based on the defaults available from vendor certification."

"The most valuable features are its: log history, real-time monitoring capabilities, accuracy - the number of false positives is very low, and the mapping features."

"What is really cool about HelpSystems InterMapper is that because of its SNMP base, you can integrate all different makes and models on the same map. You, of course, can have more than one map, but you have an option to have visibility into the entire network from one centralized system. You can monitor IPs, routers, radios, DC power plants, and UPS. You can do it all from one network management and monitoring solution. That's what really makes HelpSystems Intermapper great. Another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper is that you can really bundle different probes under one device. You can have a bundled device. You can monitor the physical status of a host based on the IP availability. You can also monitor services and actually see if anything happens. You can quickly determine whether it is the application layer, host layer, or network layer. HelpSystems Intermapper gives such a unique representation of a network. Ever since we started using HelpSystems InterMapper, we don't have to document everything in a detailed format and store it somewhere. Right now, it is really a combination of network topology, network monitoring, and network analyzing. So, in my opinion, it is awesome. When you have your SNMP topology defined, you don't require a dedicated NMS engineer to manage your system, which is another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper. I see how our operators get so excited by having the ability to map a device or interface and connect interfaces together. HelpSystems InterMapper is also very operator friendly; not just user friendly, but also operator friendly. This is a unique feature, and it works really great."

"It's a nice graphical interface, a nice map, that relates Layer 1 to Layer 3, virtually instantly, to the Helpdesk support staff. It provides a default place to get critical information so we can deploy our staff."

"It's all today portal-based which is a good feature for us."

"Spectrum's topology view sometimes does not rebuild automatically when a device is shut down and reconnected. It requires manual discovery and rebuilding of the topology, which I hope can be improved."

"For CA PM, there should be a way of easily migrating the reports coming from eHealth going to CA Performance Center, since CA PC is replacing eHealth."

"This may be available by now but for server space, when it comes to the disk file system, I'd like to see that graphically represented, or the trend, rather than what I'm seeing now."

"We experience disconnections between the solutions own components."

"Policies could be improved."

"There are some areas in the technology right now, like with VMs, where we are lacking with our abilities to get inside the VM to monitor traffic within the machine."

"​Global synchronization errors. Sometimes it just doesn't finish in time due to the load."

"This solution's implementation process could be quicker. They could also optimize the hardware requirements."

"They can do a better job with SLA reporting. It does some basic reporting, but it really doesn't offer the ability to monitor devices by groups, customers, or carrier to give an overall health performance of specifically-defined environments. That's where HelpSystems Intermapper could have done a better job. I would love to see advanced SLA monitoring and reporting in this solution. They already have a lot of ingredients. They already have SNMP polling. It is really about what people are looking for from SLA monitoring, especially someone who looks at the network topology. You want to see your endpoints. You want to see half of your endpoints by simply analyzing ICMP or SNMP-based availability of your endpoints. Having an ability to define your group and how you bring devices into your group would be a huge benefit."

"It's a smaller solution so tools are not as advanced as you would find in a larger solution"

"I'd love to see more of the network management side of it coming back into it. If we were able to run scripts to bounce ports on switches, that would be great. It's asking a lot, but it's actually very doable because I do it through scripting into other products. If we could incorporate that directly into Intermapper, that would be fantastic."

"I like the licensing model because it's device-based."

"They should provide more scalable licensing for the product."

"Do your homework and know how many devices you will be managing out of the gate. Be sure to project what your growth will be each year."

"We purchase a license to use the solution every three years and we have multiple contracts. They have been increasing the price annually. We have a baseline for three years and then we need to pay the difference from the baseline, and we are in the process of negotiating a new price for all the licenses we need. The price overall is affordable."

"We were looking at other vendors in the marketplace for NetFlow, and CA just beat everybody else in price, cost, and the size to implement. ​"

"The tool's pricing is based on the number of network devices."