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SCOM vs System Center 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

SCOM
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (3rd), Network Monitoring Software (14th)
System Center
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Software Asset Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

SCOM and System Center aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. SCOM is designed for Event Monitoring and holds a mindshare of 9.9%, up 7.8% compared to last year.
System Center, on the other hand, focuses on Software Asset Management, holds 21.4% mindshare, down 36.8% since last year.
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SCOM9.9%
ServiceNow IT Operations Management8.4%
OpenText AI Operations Management7.7%
Other74.0%
Event Monitoring
Software Asset Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
System Center21.4%
iQuate iQSonar15.2%
ManageEngine AssetExplorer13.2%
Other50.2%
Software Asset Management
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user3483 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at Unify Square
Aug 13, 2015
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Ted Mbugua - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Have faced challenges managing cloud endpoints and support response has been slow
System Center alone just being able to handle cloud endpoints has always been a challenge, even from Microsoft's end. Just looking at how best can you do it without Intune on System Center when it comes to cloud, it becomes a challenge. You'll find that for System Center, it purely looks at on-premise solutions; if maybe you have an Azure or an AWS virtual machine, it might become a challenge when looking at how you're able to manage that. On the reporting capability of System Center, there are some reports that you really need, but sometimes they are a bit shallow or sometimes they are not even there, so maybe on the reporting capability, more improvement is needed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution primarily drives system information, and I believe it works fine."
"I like the historical reporting of observer metrics."
"It is very good at monitoring Microsoft Server."
"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 System Center 2012 R2 is really powerful, all products work great together, is not so expensive anymore, easy to license, and can cover from end to end (Networking, Hardware layer, OS, App and services, ports, etc.)."
"SCOM's most valuable features are the network path feature, reporting, and integration with business intelligence."
"The product has helped our organization with in-depth monitoring."
"We were supporting a bank infrastructure using SCOM, and their application availability improved a lot as we had the real time monitoring of the applications due to which application issues were fixed before the end user comes up and complains."
"Time is money, so saving on time means you're also saving on costs, especially when looking at how quickly you're able to patch endpoints and servers when it comes to updates, the whole System Center family, if you're able to integrate the whole SCCM functionalities, you're able to harness more."
"Everything, from patches to deployments, can be done remotely."
"System Center is easy to configure."
"The System Center is a comprehensive solution that can help support the organization."
"The most valuable feature of the System Center is the easy management of everything."
"The most valuable feature of System Center is remote deployment."
"System Center helps us manage everything in the company."
"Compared to the early versions, System Center 2012 is a major breakthrough."
 

Cons

"Price is always an issue with Microsoft and could be improved."
"The management of the servers could be better."
"Overall, support is not great but it's not bad."
"Because SCOM currently runs on a Citrix session, SCOM sometimes becomes slow or crashes when there is too much going on."
"The solution’s initial setup is difficult."
"At this point, only monitoring a network device is not good enough."
"Very expensive now that you are forced to buy entire System Center suite, although comparable to other monitoring solutions that include basic APM."
"The end-user components, including the dashboards, the administration console, and the web console, need to be improved."
"Sometimes the updates don't work as they should."
"Future versions should integrate more with non Microsoft Operating systems, whether its virtual machines or hypervisors."
"System Center should make its interface and console easy to understand and operate."
"The way the backups can be done could be easier."
"SCCM is expensive for me personally."
"The security of the System Center can be enhanced."
"The support experience rates at a five; you really struggle to get support, and by the time you're getting support, they have to take you through their collecting logs before they can actually give you the technical assistance."
"The integration could improve in the future. Additionally, a single reporting feature for databases would be useful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't know the exact cost because it's managed by our sales team, but Microsoft is on the higher side."
"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."
"The pricing and licensing are fair."
"Our Enterprise Agreement includes the price."
"The pricing is good, and it's part of their system center suite."
"We have an EA with Microsoft, and it comes as part of the EA."
"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 licensing fee is yearly."
"I rate the price System Center a six out of ten."
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Answers from the Community

it_user3483 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at Unify Square
Aug 13, 2015
Aug 13, 2015
I believe the answer is "it depends". How much visibility do you need into your servers, network, applications? All of these questions need to be answered before you can justify the System Center Suite of products. A typical small business could live with a server going down or a misconfigured DNS server but if you need to put a magnifying glass up to any Microsoft product then the suite is ...
2 out of 5 answers
it_user149673 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Sep 30, 2014
1. What kinds of VM you are running? if they are Hyper-V, good match. If they are any others, I guess there are better tools in the market. 2. Yes some products included in the suite is not applicable, but they are included and you have it no matter what... like DPM, even you have the licenses, you might still go for other tools like backup exec or so.... 3. For ROI... it is the same for all management software I believe, how critical is your application? How much downtime you can afford?
it_user78465 - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
Sep 30, 2014
I have no experience in that regard.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

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?
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 needs improvement with System Center?
System Center alone just being able to handle cloud endpoints has always been a challenge, even from Microsoft's end. Just looking at how best can you do it without Intune on System Center when it ...
What is your primary use case for System Center?
When it comes to device management, I am working heavily with Intune and System Center in terms of the co-management functionality. We have implemented it and it works wonders, especially when look...
What advice do you have for others considering System Center?
We are using other Microsoft solutions including the Defenders. We started off with on-prem, but with the co-management functionality with Intune, now we are able to do the hybrid, where we can mon...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dialog Telekom
PKP Energetyka S.A., Florida Atlantic University, Bank Alfalah Ltd., Dimension Data, Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H
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