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DX Spectrum vs IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

DX Spectrum
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (18th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
IBM Tivoli Business Service...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

DX Spectrum and IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. DX Spectrum is designed for DX NetOps and holds a mindshare of 27.0%, down 35.5% compared to last year.
IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Event Monitoring, holds 4.8% mindshare, up 2.4% since last year.
DX NetOps Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DX Spectrum27.0%
AppNeta by Broadcom28.4%
DX Performance Management25.4%
Other19.200000000000003%
DX NetOps
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager4.8%
SCOM9.4%
BMC TrueSight8.6%
Other77.2%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

PinchasAlbalya - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Monitoring has become centralized and management now sees real‑time health of key network assets
The time investment required is significant, not because of difficulty but because of the need for free time to invest in it. We need to get the knowledge. We know there are many options, but we took an external vendor to install and make the customization. If we want to make others changes without paying for customization, we need to learn it deeply by ourselves. The tutorials are very complicated. They could work on that area. The tutorial part could be more simplified. I know there are many explanations, and you can get help or documents in one click on the current page in the product, but it is not very clear. If you want to do something new that you did not see from the vendor in the installation, it is not very simple. The documents are good for people that know how to operate the product well, but for new users, it is not simple.
reviewer847356 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good technical support, and efficient for working with business data
We use this solution for working with data. The most valuable feature of this solution is the efficiency. This application should be made easier to use because it usually needs training and it is not easy to operate. We have been using this solution for fourteen years. The stability of this…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"As the kind of enterprise that straddles the line between telco size and enterprise size, it scales for us, because we're not all the way at telco yet."
"CA Spectrum is awesome for networks, but when paired with CA UIM, you can have everything: datacenter, networks, virtualization and on."
"The main thing is obviously notifications about alerts, getting ahead of the curve to make sure that we do not have system going down, or if it is down we get to know it earlier."
"Spectrum is a very stable product."
"The Spectrum tool improved our network assurance levels for our business units."
"I can use it to detect whenever things go wrong on my network."
"The response detection of an incident was very low, that is, I could work more efficiently and effectively in my incident management."
"Thanks to Spectrum, we are able to monitor (and send out alarms for) our whole IT infrastructure 7/24 without having more than a minimal number of technical persons."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the efficiency."
"TBSM is a rock, and our house would have crumbled without it."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the integration with other non-CA tools and databases."
"Sometimes the front-line people need to push it up to the second-level quicker."
"We have had one support issue that's been open for a couple of months, and it is currently open."
"Event correlation only works on one server, rather than on all of the servers in the same cluster environment."
"The only pain point I have is some issues with support and the timeliness of getting a resolution."
"I would like to see easier use in some things, such as trying to configure certain correlations I've been working on. It's been a little bit of a hassle, because I'm not super familiar with their products and the best way to go about things."
"I would recommend AI capability built-in so it becomes more predictable and we jump ahead of the curve. This is the one really important feature I would really like to see in any product that provides alarms."
"From the users perspective the looks and feel of dashboards of Spectrum would be easier to use and for understanding as APM will be in 10.5 version which we saw in CA World."
"Yes, Event Storms and other less traumatic triggers the JVM to hang requiring recycles."
"This application should be made easier to use because it usually needs training and it is not easy to operate."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, the license cost will be about 30% of the total TCO for this tool (hardware/support team, OS costs, and OS management)."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"The price is very high."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"The cost of some of these products are a little cost prohibitive, which is unfortunate. We have to find lower cost solutions for some of the things that we have to pull in. For the most part, CA has capabilities in pretty much everything that you would need. You just have to figure out where are you going to spend the most money for what you have to actually get done. You can do all these things but, which ones do you have to do? And that's hard to choose sometimes because you want to do them all."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise90
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
The time investment required is significant, not because of difficulty but because of the need for free time to invest in it. We need to get the knowledge. We know there are many options, but we to...
What is your primary use case for DX Spectrum?
The university purchased DX Spectrum, called ICE. DX Spectrum NAC is working for us only on Cisco 9200 switches. It is not working on any other switch like C1000 or HG or any 2960X. Even other Cisc...
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Also Known As

CA Spectrum
Tivoli Business Service Manager, BSM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
SSGC
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Performance Management vs. DX Spectrum and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.