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IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager vs SCOM comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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

IBM Tivoli Business Service...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SCOM
Ranking in Event Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager is 4.7%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCOM is 9.3%, up from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SCOM9.3%
IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager4.7%
Other86.0%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

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…
AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the efficiency."
"TBSM is a rock, and our house would have crumbled without it."
"This is a product that does more generally than any of the competing solutions."
"SCOM provided end-to-end monitoring for all aspects of the infrastructure, including web sites, network devices, databases and applications."
"My customers are using SCOM to avoid business disruptions."
"Having been in IT for over 20 years, with Microsoft, you know what you are getting."
"The solution is used for monitoring the hardware inventory. For instance, it helps with the whole operational monitoring view for the company's infrastructure."
"The inbuilt management pack that Microsoft provides is really helpful. I know it's a mature product, and they keep upgrading the management pack."
"We leverage every component of SCOM; we have dashboards up, customized management packs, and monitors for both Windows and Linux, and we use SNMP traps to pull in information from network devices across the enterprise, so we use it for everything."
"It discovers the components automatically, which is a fantastic thing. The discovery works in an automatic way, and it has a dynamic way of discovering the components, assets, and applications. It doesn't require any manual intervention."
 

Cons

"This application should be made easier to use because it usually needs training and it is not easy to operate."
"Yes, Event Storms and other less traumatic triggers the JVM to hang requiring recycles."
"I find this product very clunky and not very intuitive to use, it took me a while to find my way around and understand where I needed to go to configure or even get a report is a bit complicated."
"Super high cost for the 2012 version due to change to a CPU based."
"We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting."
"On-prem network monitoring is something that could be improved drastically."
"I would like more customized reports. People should have some customization option on the dashboards for whenever they put multiple lists into it. Beyond customizing the content, there should be the ability to customize the colors so that they can engage some priority and mark challenges separately."
"The solution’s initial setup is difficult."
"SCOM needs to improve its usability."
"The solution should be more user-friendly and offer a better user interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We have an EA with Microsoft, and it comes as part of the EA."
"SCOM is very cheap because it's included in the license for the System Center suite, which is around $8,400 per CAL."
"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."
"The pricing is good, and it's part of their system center suite."
"The platform is cost-effective due to our existing Microsoft support."
"We have to pay for a license and the price is fine for us."
"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"It is more expensive than the competition."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
What is your primary use case for SCOM?
My usual use case for SCOM is as an administrator role where I create reports and provide system configuration for Linux and installation of the SCOM agent. I handle deploying and upgrading the age...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Business Service Manager, BSM
System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SSGC
Dialog Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager vs. SCOM and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.