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DX Spectrum vs IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact comparison

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 (11th), Network Monitoring Software (30th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Network Troubleshooting (8th), DX NetOps (1st)
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

DX Spectrum and IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. DX Spectrum is designed for DX NetOps and holds a mindshare of 24.3%, down 32.5% compared to last year.
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact, on the other hand, focuses on Event Monitoring, holds 3.8% mindshare, up 2.8% since last year.
DX NetOps Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DX Spectrum24.3%
AppNeta by Broadcom34.7%
DX Performance Management27.1%
Other13.900000000000006%
DX NetOps
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact3.8%
ServiceNow IT Operations Management11.8%
OpsRamp9.4%
Other75.0%
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.
Hennie Du Toit - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Specialist Architecture and Governance at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Event management strengthens with automation but needs better event flooding handling
Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal with that. Better root cause correlation and faster processing for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be helpful. If there can be more end-to-end functionality, such as observability tools built in natively, that would be great. With correlation, IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact has many functions, but we've built them custom-built. Functions such as automated logging, automated dispatching, and automated notification of engineers could be native in the tool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product’s stability and robustness are valuable."
"It provides us complete visibility into both company networks with one tool, which we didn't have."
"Overall it is a good tool."
"Its scalability is very good, as it can be used in huge environments."
"Spectrum is very useful for us, because the product lets us monitor and control all the various components of our infrastructure that support our business from an IT perspective."
"I switched from Spectrum to Nimsoft because it's a better product for me."
"It is easy to navigate."
"From the business perspective, they have improved MTTR significantly, creating an elevated ROI ratio."
"The most valuable feature that comes with Netcool/Impact is the ISPF APA support. It is inherent to Netcool/Impact, so I can use the ISPF of any other product, which I can invoke and consume through Impact, and do integrations, which is great. I run the Netcool desktop application so I can integrate with other applications in the ticketing system. It's a great ability being able to invoke ISPF and integrate."
"This product allows us to make use of open-source products, including running Java code."
"I can recommend Netcool/Impact because it's the perfect solution when it comes to invoking ISPF APA and using ISPF integration throughout the rest of your other products."
"The stability has been very good for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact, rated around eight or nine."
"The solution is great at being able to fetch almost any kind of file."
"The operational views and third party connections to fetch the data and to help engage on more activities are the most valuable aspects of the solution."
"It is easy to integrate with other models such as Oracle, other systems, external systems, and to reach events."
 

Cons

"The biggest issue is our integration right now between UIM and Spectrum is lacking."
"When we have a high capacity of traffic, we have problems with the stability of the system."
"Needs better integration with all the other products in the Agile suite of tools; anything they could do to make that less complex, would be great."
"Event correlation only works on one server, rather than on all of the servers in the same cluster environment."
"There should be better integration with other Broadcom products, like network performance manager. Currently, for every part of a product, you need a separate server environment. You have something for Spectrum, you have something for network performance, and you have something for NetFlow. There are a lot of islands and server farms with different technologies. They should be redeveloped to get one platform for all."
"We want to make our own choice for the AIOps solution and do not want to be forced to use the Broadcom OI solution by default."
"Reporting and network bandwidth monitoring features needs to be improved."
"I think the management or configuration of devices needs some improvement."
"The solution is somewhat complicated. It's not exactly straightforward."
"Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal with that."
"For improvement, I'd say the dashboard and the overall GUI could use some work."
"Stability-wise, this product needs to be improved."
"For improvement, I'd say the dashboard and the overall GUI could use some work. Although, I don't think that there's much improvement that Netcool really needs to achieve in this area, because when we're talking GUI, Impact is able to integrate with any third-party system and it comes with ISPF APA. It's more beneficial than Netcool/OMNIbus in this respect, and it's quite easy to handle."
"The solution is somewhat complicated. It's not exactly straightforward."
"IBM is not investing in the development of the on-premise version of this solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"The price is very high."
"Since the acquisition by Broadcom, we have not had such a good experience with licensing and pricing. Since they were bought by Broadcom, every sales contract is getting complicated. It's very complicated, and it's much more expensive than before. It's not a good pricing strategy from Broadcom."
"Licensing of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact depends on the number of nodes on the element that you are monitoring."
"The licensing is yearly, and although I'm happy with the pricing I do think it could be better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
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...
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal wit...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is our event management tool, specifically the umbrella fault management tool set. All of our events across the network correlate the data for us, and we have certain use ...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
We remain a partner with IBM Tivoli and continue using their products. We use IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact's AIOps functionality. We experienced some skills issues, but currently receive assistance fr...
 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
Tivoli NetCool Impact
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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)