Quest Foglight for APM [EOL] Reviews and Pricing

it_user138165

Vice President - DB Analyst/Admin at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 13, 2014

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Realtime email and pager alerts and history reports provide valuable information for DBAs to resolve the issues.

What is most valuable?

Realtime email and pager alerts and history reports provide valuable information for DBAs to resolve the issues.

How has it helped my organization?

Monitoring data provides valuable information for DBA to monitor space usage and tuneup database parameters which help to reduce outages to critical applications.

What needs improvement?

Migrating to newer versions is always a challenge with Foglight. I look forward seeing improvements there.

For how long have I used the solution?

5 years

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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We haven't encountered any issues with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't encountered any issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We haven't encountered any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't had direct interaction with the tech support.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, we evaluated IBM Tivoli monitor.

What other advice do I have?

Foglight has been our go to monitoring tool for several years in the DB2 and Oracle space. Real time monitoring alerts and history reports provide useful information for DBAs to respond and resolve issues in a timely manner. I recommend the use of this product for anyone looking to monitor & stabilize their environment.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user116742Oracle Web Administrator at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Jul 13, 2014

We haven't encountered any issues with stability.

it_user136047

Database Administrator at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

Jul 2, 2014

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Improved the way we respond to database issues as it has made us more proactive.

What is most valuable?

The features of the product most valuable to me are the alert system, Performance tuning (PA) and the monitoring capability.

How has it helped my organization?

The product has improved the way we respond to database issues as it has made us more proactive. For example: the alerts systems now gives as a global picture of locks, thresholds, etc. for our database systems.

What needs improvement?

The monitoring capability and performance tuning.

For how long have I used the solution?

3 years

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We had issues with deployment in the beginning until we had an expert guide us through the process.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is not an issue if you have enough resources on your system to handle the load.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

So far so good. We have not encountered any issues with scalability. This solution is being used to monitor 20 plus databases.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service: The level of customer service is good.Technical Support: The level of technical support is good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have a separate solution which is core for all of our other systems. Foglight was solely brought in for our databases.

How was the initial setup?

The whole setup process is not complex at all. It helps to be very good technically to understand the architecture.

What about the implementation team?

We did the implementation through a vendor team and they were very skilled and knowledgeable.

What other advice do I have?

The advice I will give to people regarding Foglight is that the technical team who will be using this product will have to be trained well in order for the company to fully benefit from the product.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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it_user118989

Application Support Analyst with 501-1,000 employees

Jun 22, 2014

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Valuable features include the Transaction Recorder, Transaction Response Time and Management Server

Valuable Features

2 years

Foglight Transaction Recorder
Transaction Response Time
Foglight Management Server

Improvements to My Organization

We are able to capture the real time user experience of our solutions and we have an understanding of overall performance.

Use of Solution

2 years

Deployment Issues

We didn't have any issues with deployment.

Stability Issues

We had stability issues for FTR. The player used to get hung while running the robot scripts.

Scalability Issues

We didn't have any issues with scalability.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service: GoodTechnical Support: Very Good

Implementation Team

I think we implemented using a vendor team.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user118992

Software Engineer III at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jun 13, 2014

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I've used Nagios, HP SiteScope, CA APM and others but Foglight could do most of what CA could do plus much more.

What is most valuable?

The ability to make any number of amazing dashboards in the Foglight Management Server is probably the most useful feature for me. This is really enhanced when you add the data from some of the other tools such as Foglight Experience Monitor.

How has it helped my organization?

I can give several examples of how this product improved how the organization functions.

What needs improvement?

When we first turned on Foglight for the first time, it was like a fire hose. It was difficult to tell which alerts were important and what was not. It took several weeks to sort through all the alerts and tune the thresholds to appropriate levels etc. It is a double edged sword because it is important to see all the data and find out what is important for your organization but it is a lot of work.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Foglight professionally for about 2 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Dell came down and setup a demo of Foglight into our dev environment. This made it much easier to setup when it came time to do so in our production environment. We still ran into issues but with help from Dell Support, and the forums we worked through them until everything was working.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes, we had problems with stability after experimenting with custom agents that didn’t work properly. We were able to get everything resolved through support channels.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We didn't experience any issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service: 4 out of 5 – Every once in a while it would be hard to get the proper help through their ticketing service. I would have to call/message our sales rep and get them to kick the service guys in the butt. Definitely better than average.Technical Support: At one point Dell had a guy coming to our office once a month just to check how we were doing and answer questions. They did that for FREE.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Nagios, CA APM, HP SiteScope, PeopleSoft Performance Monitor and many more. We had a very large organization with different departments using different products. Many other tools are capable, but IMO not as flexible or powerful except for particular applications. Some of the CA tools were really great with JAVA applications, but Foglight could do most of what CA could do plus much more.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup was relatively complex. My organization opted to purchase the entire Foglight suite. It was tough trying to understand how to get everything talking. We had the FMS (Foglight management server), Foglight experience monitor and viewer (hardware), and Foglight performance monitor for the databases. For many of the agents to work properly on the servers you install a Foglight agent manager on each server you're monitoring.

What about the implementation team?

In-house

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, HP’s various products (I say various because they have a lot of overlapping tech in this area), CA APM and other tools, and various other products. In my honest opinion Dell’s offerings (formerly Quest) is the most mature.

What other advice do I have?

If you are just starting out, get a Foglight management server and install the agents. After seeing what that alone can do for you, then branch out to the other products especially FxM and FxV.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user305181Director of Projects at a consultancy

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Sep 3, 2015

Hi,
Have you ever used Quest Software Spotlight ? Can you compare foglight and spotlight ?

it_user4851

Infrastructure Expert at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

Mar 6, 2013

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Cost effective APM, but complicated and confusing.

Valuable Features:

A lot of features for the price: Java/.Net instrumentation, End User replay (similar to TeaLeaf). Huge library of monitoring cartridges

Room for Improvement:

Complicated setup/maintenance. Different components don't integrate well together: FMS, FxM and FxV. Confusing product. You'll need lots of training and implementation consulting.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user121935Works

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May 28, 2014

We’ve been using Foglight Suite of products for the last 3 years.
It’s a great Product suite which gives in-depth details of your Application. The Java and .NET cartridges are exceptional and is in its own class.
The product support team is also great to work with.

Cons
FTR aka Transaction recorder is not a stable Product
The FMS is a product which needs to managed with great care as any other Application.

it_user3984

HR Staff at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jan 26, 2013

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Excellent monitoring capability and business service views...

Valuable Features:

Excellent monitoring capability and business service views

Room for Improvement:

South African skill is scarce

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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