IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server comparison

IBM and IDERA are both solutions in the Event Monitoring category. IBM is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.0, while IDERA is ranked #15. IBM holds a 3.5% mindshare in EM, compared to IDERA’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of IDERA users who would recommend it.

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

Read 5 IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact reviews

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380 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manage...

Read 9 IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server reviews

1,162 Views
209 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manage...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact and IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server compete in IT infrastructure management. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is more advantageous for integrated network management, while IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager shines in SQL Server performance monitoring.

Features: IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact offers automated network operations management, comprehensive integration with various data sources, and customizable alerts. IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager provides real-time monitoring, predictive alerting, and SQL Server-specific deep diagnostics. The significant variance lies in NetCool's broad network management against IDERA's SQL-specific optimization.

Room for Improvement: IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact may need enhancements in easing integrations, simplifying the user interface, and shortening the learning curve. IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager could benefit from improved scalability, a wider range of database compatibility, and enhanced reporting functionalities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager is noted for its straightforward deployment and exceptional customer support, ensuring smooth setup for SQL-focused enterprises. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact might require complex integrations and presents a steeper learning curve, but it offers robust support options for intricate environments.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact usually involves a higher initial setup cost due to its extensive capabilities but targets ROI through its comprehensive network management features. IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager provides competitive pricing, focusing on swift ROI via effective SQL Server monitoring, catering its cost structure to businesses needing specific database solutions. The pricing strategies reflect IBM's network-centric approach versus IDERA’s SQL-focused strategy.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server

December 2025

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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 NetCool Impact

Ranking in Event Monitoring

9th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manage...

Ranking in Event Monitoring

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database Development and Management (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is 3.5%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server is 2.9%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Event Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact	3.5%
IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server	2.9%
Other	93.6%

Event Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Hennie Du Toit

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.

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reviewer2317098

Assistant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Offers effective monitoring of resources but lacks the ability to connect to an AWS instance and write custom queries.

We use it mainly for monitoring, including CPU, memory, and disk space, and for troubleshooting purposes We've set up alerts to notify us when performance deviates from the baseline we've configured for each resource. So, whenever that happens, we get an alert and can investigate immediately. So,…

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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 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."

"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."

"It is easy to integrate with other models such as Oracle, other systems, external systems, and to reach events."

"SQL DM made troubleshooting much easier and allowed multiple people to look into an issue with confidence."

"Monitors and alerts on our mission critical instances in real-time on a 24/7 basis."

"The best part of SQL DM is the ability to customize alerts and counters. This allows our team to find an issue then alert on the issue at a granular level."

"Memory and CPU utilization features are good."

"The most valuable features are disk space projections for planning, and also the Snapshotting ability, to look back in time, to see what was going on the server at a particular time. It's basically the output of an sp_who2."

"We're able to diagnose issues prior to their actually becoming issues. Without the alerting, we wouldn't have a clue as to what was going to happen. With the alerting, it gives us a heads-up that a specific threshold has been met, and we need to take specific action."

"The ability to go back and look at historical data is the most valuable feature."

Cons

"The solution is somewhat complicated. It's not exactly straightforward."

"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."

"Stability-wise, this product needs to be improved."

"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."

"IBM is not investing in the development of the on-premise version of this solution."

"One thing I'd like to see is the ability to view the execution plan and have the system automatically recommend potential query optimizations, especially at the query level."

"I would absolutely love to create customized dashboards but, unfortunately, they don't provide me the information that I need to create the report. The report I need is the detail or the transaction detail that's happening on those Snapshots. I'd like to be able to go back through time and search for things. I don't have that functionality, which is very disappointing. That's pretty bad and frustrating because I could query it and find out so much information about what's hitting my environment and when, but instead, they want control over it and to not give me that information. So it's encrypted. I can't pull it out and that is really bothersome."

"I'm going to do an upgrade which may resolve my issues, but one area for improvement is its ability to handle the amount of data that we collect with it. We're likely one of the largest installations, with over 300 servers being collected with this product, and sometimes there are gaps. That would really be my only concern, in terms of how the data is collected and stored, for consistency."

"They can improve checking the status of the CPU, memory, and IO utilization from each task."

"The initial setup gives too many user rights to the server, so you have to put a user that is part administrator's group - that's the preferred way - on each server, which is kind of a risk. You want to do least privilege and you're not doing that."

"It would helpful if SQL DM could mark when changes are made within the program."

"We don't find that it helps us with performance monitoring and diagnostics. We find that SentryOne does that better. Also, in terms of alerts, we had to customize them dramatically so that we didn't get alerted on every little thing."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The pricing is reasonable, it's comparable with the competitors."

"We were upgraded to Premium Support without their actually asking us, when we were quoted. Then I asked for Standard Support and that they had to re-quote us that. But they don't do that by default. They upcharge you by default, which I didn't think was very nice, without even asking."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Comms Service Provider

10%

Healthcare Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?

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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 ...

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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...

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Product Reports

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IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server

December 2025

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server report

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Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool Impact

IDERA SQL DM, IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager

Overview

IBM Tivoli Netcool Impact is an enterprise and network management software that automates the support of business-critical functions. The software helps to enrich events with business context, provides an integrated view of data from multiple sources in context and enables custom automations.

IBM

SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server helps database administrators to find and fix SQL Server performance problems in physical, virtual, and cloud environments. Unlike its competition, it provides effective scalability, advanced SQL query analysis and optimization, prescriptive analysis with corrective SQL scripts, powerful automated alert responses, broad PowerShell integration, complete customization, and extensive support for current and legacy SQL Server and Windows.

IDERA

Sample Customers

Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)

Padnos, University of Notre Dame, D4, Infeon Technologies, Chevron, LC Waikiki, Sisters of Saint Francis Health Services, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, CVE, Colorado State University, St. Charles, Chaucer PLC, 1-800-Flowers, Ancoris, Money Management, National Opinion Research Center, California Department of Health, Plexus; Aviva, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CBS, Comcast, Google, Merck, Regions Financial, Schneider Electric, Tata Consultancy Services, Verizon Communications, Zurich Financial Services

Buyer's Guide

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server

December 2025

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