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DX Spectrum vs IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

DX Spectrum
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (8th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

DX Spectrum and IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. DX Spectrum is designed for DX NetOps and holds a mindshare of 24.7%, down 30.4% compared to last year.
IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus, on the other hand, focuses on Event Monitoring, holds 6.9% mindshare, down 9.9% since last year.
DX NetOps Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DX Spectrum24.7%
AppNeta by Broadcom30.7%
DX Performance Management27.4%
Other17.200000000000003%
DX NetOps
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus6.9%
SCOM9.9%
ServiceNow IT Operations Management8.4%
Other74.8%
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.
RS
EMEA Senior Sales Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Customization and robust network monitoring enhance operational efficiency
The most useful functions for monitoring purposes with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus are that it can be automated in many ways. Most importantly, it can communicate with many network components without requiring any medium connectors. You can directly integrate it if you have SNMP, which is great. The main benefits that IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus provides are that it's an umbrella tool that can be placed on top of any existing monitoring system. You can monitor the entire network from this tool. The underlying interfaces can be many, but you can keep it as a single tool in IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus and it can manage the load on its own. It negates the need to train the user base with other tools. I can provide this single tool and have hundreds of different tools underlying, but I only need to train one single user base, which is a great advantage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Offers a lot of functionality."
"The capability of handling and monitoring with SNMP and working with the SNMP traps is much better than other products."
"The stability and reliability of the Spectrum product have been top-notch."
"DX Spectrum has been great for us; it's the strongest available, the main problem is the pricing, but it's in accordance with the features."
"It has a highly scalable architecture that is designed to ensure accommodation of the growing network setup for our client."
"What I like best is the configuration management functionality."
"The monitoring just comes to us: "Oh, there's something wrong with that machine." It tells us. There are some 50,000 machines or so, all doing different things. And if they go down we hear about it."
"The automation we have in place saves us some head count and data is now more accurate."
"The most useful functions for monitoring purposes with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus are that it can be automated in many ways, and most importantly, it can communicate with many network components without requiring any medium connectors."
"Offers very good event/alert drill-down and statistical reporting capabilities."
"This is an amazing product and you will fall in love with it."
"It also offers us everything we need in terms of features and functionality."
"This solution is highly scalable; we have hundreds of probes running on more than thousands of devices, gathering millions of alarms and creating thousands of tickets, and yet we have never seen any performance issue."
"It's good for managed systems. The end query on the user interface is good. You can view lots of charts and graphs."
"Very stable tool and good for all types of event integration and automation."
"The biggest plus points for me are the configurability and scalability of the solution, as well as the multi-tenancy of the platform."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the integration with other non-CA tools and databases."
"The visual is good but it's a little archaic."
"No good technical support from CA."
"The documentation of this product is not very easy to understand without any screenshots or application windows."
"New areas (NFV, SDN, APM) are covered by new technologies. As such, products should have tight integration with modern data science platforms."
"Yes, IM was very shaky and it seemed like CA were throwing hotfixes at us to fend us off until the next release."
"In my opinion, it's the documentation that I find is not up to the mark."
"I did not see the best level of usability."
"Yes often problems appear after resolving a previous one."
"There should be an easier-to-understand model, more of a flat-structured model rather than different tiers of licenses which complicates licensing."
"The web portal and typical event controls are a little outdated."
"The solution needs to invest in the development of a knowledge base and use of AI services for providing event resolution and intervention directions."
"The solution has limitations in database integration as it cannot integrate with databases other than IBM DB2."
"Its GUI can also be better. As compared to other tools, it is not user friendly, and it is not easy to do stuff through GUI."
"Its integration could be better. They should provide an easier integration for all the monitoring stuff, and it will make things easier for us. Currently, there is a complexity in integrating it with a vendor application, and we have to use another tool to integrate it with a vendor application. To integrate some applications with NetCool, I need to install an IBM tool on top of it. It would be good if they can provide an API or any kind of interface that we can leverage while developing a new protocol interface or application. We should be able to use an API or interface with NetCool. Its GUI can also be better. As compared to other tools, it is not user friendly, and it is not easy to do stuff through GUI. Whenever we do anything on the GUI, it takes time. They need to focus on the GUI part, especially the dashboard. They should focus on how users can effectively drill down from one box to another. The visual appeal of the dashboard is as important as the data and functionality."
"The web portal and typical event controls are a little outdated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"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."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"You have to have the right level of budget to afford this solution."
"Its license cost is a little bit more than other solutions. Our customers expect a standard market price that is comparative to other products. For each and every NetCool OMNIbus component, we have to purchase a separate license. These components are not free with the product."
"It is a costly solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise90
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
I would rate the pricing for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus as three, where one is a high price and ten is a low price.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
Based on my experience and my colleagues' feedback, IBM can improve IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus in automation with respect to using AI, as it lacks considerably compared to other tools. The integrat...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
My current use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is for monitoring the networks.
 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Consolidated Communications, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Capgemini