IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs SCOM comparison

IBM and Microsoft are both solutions in the Event Monitoring category. IBM is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.0, while Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 4.0% mindshare in EM, compared to Microsoft’s 9.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

Read 5 IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact reviews

775 Views
659 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SCOM

Read 83 SCOM reviews

8,966 Views
1,435 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

SCOM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

SCOM and IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact are competing in the IT infrastructure monitoring and management space. SCOM has a competitive edge in pricing and support, while IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact excels in features.

Features: SCOM offers seamless integration with Microsoft environments, strong monitoring for Windows servers, and robust alerting and reporting. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact excels in handling large-scale environments, advanced event correlation, and comprehensive data analysis from heterogeneous systems.

Room for Improvement: SCOM could enhance integration with non-Microsoft platforms, improve scalability, and increase automation capabilities. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact can benefit from a simplified deployment process, improved user interface, and streamlined configuration procedures.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SCOM offers an intuitive deployment model, particularly within Microsoft-centric IT infrastructures, with accessible support channels. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact requires specialized expertise for deployment but is complemented by strong technical support.

Pricing and ROI: SCOM's lower setup cost is beneficial for smaller enterprises or those in a Microsoft-focused environment, offering quicker ROI. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact requires a higher initial investment, yet its extensive features and high scalability justify the cost for large enterprises, promising significant long-term ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. SCOM Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. SCOM

April 2026

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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

10th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SCOM

Ranking in Event Monitoring

3rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (14th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is 4.0%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCOM is 9.9%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SCOM	9.9%
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact	4.0%
Other	86.1%

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.

Read full review

Akshita Kukreja

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.

Read full review

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."

"The solution is great at being able to fetch almost any kind of file."

"The stability has been very good for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact, rated around eight or nine."

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

"I can recommend Netcool/Impact because it's the perfect solution when it comes to invoking ISPF APA and using ISPF integration throughout the rest of your other products."

"The operational views and third party connections to fetch the data and to help engage on more activities are the most valuable aspects of the solution."

"This product allows us to make use of open-source products, including running Java code."

"Alerts notify the server or service owner of problems, allowing quick decisions or actions to keep the service running based on configured thresholds."

"The advantages of SCOM are that it is definitely user friendly and a more appropriate solution for what we need."

"It would have to be the ability to monitor services, devices, and operations for many devices from a single console leveraging a wide variety of Management Packs available."

"Because it's Windows-based, it actually reports quite well. It reports everything you can think of on the Windows server and allows you to monitor anything. It's excellent for those in the Windows world as it's very good at it."

"The product has helped our organization with in-depth monitoring."

"It has good graphs of what is going on within the operating system."

"SCOM provided end-to-end monitoring for all aspects of the infrastructure, including web sites, network devices, databases and applications."

"If SCOM is implemented correctly, it can take away the need for administrators to constantly monitor things or perform health checks."

More SCOM pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

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

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

"The stability of this solution is somewhat less than other similar products that I have used."

"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."

"The solution can be improved by expanding to cloud usage."

"Then there is also an issue with capacity and limited space. That is something that needs to be improved."

"SCOM's feature that notifies us when a server is down is not present in recent updates, which has weakened the product."

"Documentation is poor, but the community makes up for it with good blogs and lots of how-to examples."

"I would like to see more standard libraries for the market solutions, out of the box, that you don't need to do a lot of work on."

"If it could have SysLog capabilities and if the Microsoft Management Packs were out of the box instead of a separate download."

"Even though I think there are ways that this product is superior to most other solutions on the market, there are quite a few things that it does not do alone."

"The configurations are difficult. The configuration and thorough day-to-day operations to get them to the level you want takes some time."

More SCOM cons

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."

"We have an enterprise agreement that includes this product as part of it."

"We have an EA with Microsoft, and it comes as part of the EA."

"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."

"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."

"The pricing and licensing are fair."

"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."

"If you have a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, then this is part of the agreement."

"The platform is cost-effective due to our existing Microsoft support."

More SCOM pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Construction Company

11%

Retailer

Energy/Utilities Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	22
Large Enterprise	54

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about SCOM?

The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 22% of the time

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Compared 17% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

IDERA SQL Safe Backup vs IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

Compared 13% of the time

Zenoss Cloud vs IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

WhatsUp Gold vs SCOM

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs SCOM

Compared 5% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs SCOM

Compared 5% of the time

LogicMonitor vs SCOM

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

May 2026

Download IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact product report

Buyer's Guide

SCOM

April 2026

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Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool Impact

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012

Overview

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact offers AI-driven network management and integration capabilities, handling complex tasks with open-source tools. It's widely used for event correlation and data consolidation, supporting seamless connections for effective network operations.

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is extensively leveraged within network management, focusing on event correlation and ticketing. It aggregates data from multiple sources, facilitating streamlined event handling. Essential to Netcool teams, it is employed to manage events inside Omnibus and integrate with ticketing systems like Remedy. Its functionalities cover event management, data enrichment from external databases, and alarm handling through connectivity with tools like Excel. While it is appreciated for its automation, correlation modeling, and custom function creation, enhancements are needed for event flooding management, root cause correlation, and stability. Challenges exist in modern technology integration and better configuration processes.

What are IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact's Key Features?

AI-Driven Network Management: Intelligent network operations through AI capabilities.
ISPF APA Support: Integration with ISPF APA enhances performance.
Integration Capabilities: Connects seamlessly with third-party systems.
Data Handling: Manages extensive volumes and types of data efficiently.
Automation Capabilities: Streamlines processes through robust automation features.
Custom Function Creation: Enables creation of tailored functions for specific needs.

What Benefits Should Users Look for in Reviews?

Operational Efficiency: Look for improved handling of network events.
Data Consolidation: Facilitates merging data from different sources.
Streamlined Events Management: Efficiently manages and streamlines event workflows.
Enhanced Connectivity: Supports connections with databases and applications.

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is implemented across multiple industries for efficient network management, especially where event correlation and data integration are critical. Enterprise environments rely on its capability to handle diverse data formats and volumes. Its integration with enterprise applications and databases makes it suitable for sectors demanding reliable network operations and data management strategies.

IBM

SCOM monitors Microsoft environments with a focus on Windows servers and applications such as SQL, Exchange, and SharePoint. It offers integration with Active Directory and Azure, along with customizable dashboards, management packs, and robust alert mechanisms, aiding efficient management and control.

SCOM provides a comprehensive monitoring solution for Microsoft technologies, helping organizations track performance and availability of applications, services, and infrastructure. It integrates with Active Directory and Azure, offering capabilities for monitoring Windows and Linux environments. Extensive management packs, customizable dashboards, and automated alerts offer a refined monitoring experience. Users benefit from detailed performance data, network monitoring, and auto-discovery features, enhancing operational insights and server management efficiency.

What are key features of SCOM?

Microsoft Environment Monitoring: Specialized for Windows servers and applications such as SQL, Exchange, and SharePoint.
Integration Capabilities: Seamless integration with Active Directory and Azure for streamlined operations.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailor visual data displays to enhance monitoring and decision-making.
Extensive Management Packs: Broad range of management packs for enhanced resource and application control.
Robust Alert Mechanisms: Comprehensive alerting to maintain service stability and address potential issues promptly.

What benefits should users seek in reviews?

Operational Efficiency: Enhanced management of server applications and infrastructure.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Detailed insights into performance and service availability.
Proactive Issue Notification: Timely alerts for quick issue resolution.
Improved Control: More efficient server management through automation and visibility.

In technology sectors, SCOM is widely implemented for its ability to monitor server applications and infrastructure components. Healthcare and finance utilize its monitoring and alert systems for compliance and uptime. Enterprises integrate SCOM for managing complex systems like Exchange, SharePoint, and Active Directory, enabling comprehensive analytics and reporting.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

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

Dialog Telekom

Buyer's Guide

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. SCOM

April 2026

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