Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager vs SCOM comparison

 

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
15th
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
82
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCOM is 8.1%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

RH
The most valuable feature for my team is the ability to taken event feeds from all/any source tool and put them in a single pane of glass. It's being replaced for our work by another Tivoli tool.
TBSM is being replaced for our work by another Tivoli tool - DASH. This replacement will address the biggest area of improvement. We need the most commonly leveraged real-time metric trends from the source tools in the same pane of glass as the event stream is presenting, and DASH gives a way to do that with logical grouping by type & app.
MarcMermuys - PeerSpot reviewer
Has efficient monitoring with robust integration capabilities
We use SCOM to configure different monitors using several management packs. It integrates systems like Active Directory and correlates them, and it is used for monitoring and managing systems SCOM allows integration of several systems, providing correlation between different systems such as…

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."
"The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location."
"Setting up SCOM is straightforward and takes about an hour as long as you have all your firewalls and DNS settings in place."
"It takes a lot of the headache out of managing your data centers and software in other places."
"The most valuable feature is the extensibility, as there are really no limits as to what you can do with it."
"It has good graphs of what is going on within the operating system.​"
"This solution saves us a lot of work because it reduces the effort that is required in order to start monitoring."
"I like some of their newer features, such as maintenance schedules, because SCOM records SLA and SLO time."
"Being able to make and customize management packs and send out notifications is very valuable."
 

Cons

"This application should be made easier to use because it usually needs training and it is not easy to operate."
"System Center just provided upgrade and update features for Windows clients, and Windows systems, and did not support Linux, Android, or iOS, and other operating systems. They need to provide better integration with other operating systems if they don't already."
"In a future release, they should add email notification alerts."
"I would like to see better support for monitoring Unix-based systems."
"Direct integration with third-party tools, like ticketing systems, is lacking but would be beneficial."
"SCOM is not as straightforward in terms of user interface or general experience, which could be improved."
"We didn't know the solution enough, and therefore, it took a while to set everything up correctly. There was a learning curve."
"SCOM's feature that notifies us when a server is down is not present in recent updates, which has weakened the product."
"The solution can be improved by expanding to cloud usage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We have an enterprise agreement that includes this product as part of it."
"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"Our Enterprise Agreement includes the price."
"We have an EA with Microsoft, and it comes as part of the EA."
"The pricing and licensing are fair."
"Two customers bought the enterprise agreement with Microsoft and paid for Software Assurance. But few customers don't buy it for Software Assurance. They just buy it and deploy it, and they think that we will be using it for the next five years."
"I don't know the exact cost because it's managed by our sales team, but Microsoft is on the higher side."
"We have to pay for a license and the price is fine for us."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Event Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
852,098 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
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?
SCOM is likely to be phased out in favor of more compatible tools like Icinga ( /products/icinga-reviews ) for application monitoring or when moving to cloud solutions like CloudWatch and Azure ( /...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

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: April 2025.
852,098 professionals have used our research since 2012.