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DX Spectrum vs OptiView XG [EOL] 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)
OptiView XG [EOL]
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
MW
President at Bitwise Micro
A valuable, impressive, and portable product that saves time and has great scalability and stability
It just saves time. We have run into situations where contractors come in, and they plug in a WiFi device that is handing out DHCP addresses, which affects the rest of the network. To be able to quickly identify from where the problem is originating, you need a network tool that can identify the device that is doing this. It just brings into clear focus the exact issue when there is a problem or outage. When there is a crisis and you've several people wanting to know an estimate of when things are going to be back up and running again, you need to have answers. I have been at places that didn't have a tool like that. I know one place that had an outage for almost a week, and it was craziness. It turned out to be just a bad cable. That's all it was. They were having trouble with their email server, which was an on-premise email server, but emails were taking six hours to appear. The whole problem was because of a bad network cable. When I plugged in the Fluke analyzer, it analyzed and told me immediately that there were transmission errors on this one port from one switch. It told me this within 10 minutes. It is an incredible product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Out of all of the CA products that we use, I would say this is the most stable."
"The containerization of different objects was very helpful in building an org structure. Being able to separately manage your MSP clients with separate visibility was also helpful."
"The capability of handling and monitoring with SNMP and working with the SNMP traps is much better than other products."
"The response detection of an incident was very low, that is, I could work more efficiently and effectively in my incident management."
"The Spectrum tool improved our network assurance levels for our business units."
"Discovery: Scheduled, on-demand, synchronized with eHealth."
"Spectrum is our correlation engine and an integration point of external monitoring tools."
"By using event rules and procedures, we got an improved event management process, and CA Spectrum is very useful for event handling and brings us a robust manager of managers console."
"Gives us the ability to see our network."
"We used different solutions, such as Wireshark, but they had limitations, and this brought everything to one solution."
"In this way, I think OptiView XG is the best all in one solution."
"It allows us to be able to troubleshoot, predominantly in the field, with the tools that we would normally have in the lab."
"OptiView XG helps us troubleshoot problems faster than we would normally be able to."
"I like the fact that it can map my whole network when I plug it into my router, my switch, that it can literally discover nodes and clients."
"We are using this product to improve our view of what is happening with the packets."
"All the wireless features are valuable."
 

Cons

"What I additionally would like to see is utilization information."
"DX Spectrum is stable. However, now and then there are some issues, but overall it is good."
"I would say integration between performance monitoring and CA Spectrum, as well as improved graphing capabilities."
"It's really tough to say because it really does have a lot to do with how much time you put into it."
"The tool fails to launch sometimes, and this was a frequent occurrence."
"The report area is very poor and we cannot work properly with additional information and the custom reports."
"I think they should improve or add advance performance reporting in the reporting part of Spectrum, they have recently replaced CABI with Jaspersoft in new version as a reporting integration."
"We have had one support issue that's been open for a couple of months, and it is currently open."
"Its price was a bit excessive. The device that I had died; it is under warranty, and they want $20,000 for another one, so I am trying to find an alternate solution."
"I think that the maintenance is ridiculous on some of the products, including OptiView."
"It's bulky; it's a big tablet. The physical dimensions need to change a little bit; it needs to be more portable."
"Initial setup was complex."
"I haven't been able to really get the mobile app to function right, but that's minor."
"I would like a built-in tap feature which doesn't interfere with the network, and it allows you to see what is happening there."
"The reports I got back from the guys I sent to training said the guy spent more time telling stories, war stories and that type, rather than actual training about the product."
"Also, the overall weight of the product is a lot to carry around for a long period of time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"It is very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"The price is very high."
"Its price was a bit excessive. The device that I had died. It is under warranty, and they want $20,000 for another one. I just don't want to spend that kind of money, so I'm trying to find an alternate solution. They have annual maintenance on it, which probably was 10% a year, so it all starts to add up."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
11%
Non Profit
10%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise26
 

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
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
XG is used in all industries. Example customers include: Republic National Distributing Company, Titelive, CitiGroup, Los Angeles Unified School District, Saudi German Hospital, DeKalb County Schools, Valdosta State University, The Everett Clinic, Bio-Reference, Miami-Dade Library, Mitel, Borsa Istanbul, Cimarex, Air National Guard Lowndes County, High Point City, Carrollton City Schools, Kern County, Pruitt Communications and Bosch Group.
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