SCOM Reviews

The solution is used for monitoring the hardware inventory. For instance, it helps with the whole operational monitoring view for the company's infrastructure.

The product was relatively stable even a few months back. But people now evaluate other solutions like VMware and third-party solutions like Ivanti.

Stability and some performance issues exist and they need improvement. I got a response from the TCS that whenever they try to patch or throw some updates to any of the computers, it takes a lot of time to apply and to get the job done on the recipient. As the system is very slow, people only opt for it a little and instead go for solutions like Ivanti and other third-party solutions.

I have been using SCOM for seven to eight years. Also, I sell the solution.

The stability of the solution needs improvement.

For the system center, we have worked with eight to nine customers; those are mainly from the FSI side, which is the banking side. These days, we have two more customers, one from oil and gas and another from TCS, which is the biggest courier company in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, people get the solution deployed but don't monitor, control, or upgrade their systems. When Microsoft releases a new version of it every three years or two years down the road, they don't upgrade the existing one or install the bug fixes. So, there are problems where the customer needs help finding answers quickly on the internet. That is when they ask for support from their systems, reporting that the sensor or the things are not working correctly or have missed configurations. During such instances, it takes time to address the customer's queries because we take step-by-step procedures to mitigate the error and sometimes apply the update patches and then plan for the upgrade from the older version to the newer version.

The initial setup is complex. It also depends on the current infrastructure and Active Directory for this level. Sometimes there are some misconfigurations, or you may have faced configuration issues that need to be fixed at the infrastructure level about the ADA and other elements.

There are different phases in the deployment process. After planning the deployment then, you install the SCOM

server management. You install the additional management server and the agent on the infrastructure system server. You need to collect a debt and monitor the system.

Then, of the incident, you configure all those agents and define your monitoring objective. Like, how you want to create the tools and classify and configure the alerts notifications. And once it's done, you'll start configuring the reporting or want to

see other reports concerning performance and availability. Once that is done, if we do the test and validate the deployment, it will be done as per the plan we did in the initial phase.

So once that's done, then there is the monitor and the routine maintenance required.

Three staff helped with the deployment.

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.

From a technical perspective, I recommend going for Azure, using Sentinel, using Azure monitoring services, which give in-depth results and monitoring opportunities.

Microsoft is known for its integrated solution. But what happens when those solutions have several issues, like SCOM or any other solution?

But some companies get solutions to those areas to address those issues. So people start moving towards them, like, i.e. VMware or Ivanti, as I mentioned. These companies emerged as Microsoft solutions could not provide detailed or ease of accessibility and utility to those software solutions.

I rate the solution a five out of ten.

We use the solution essentially for the management of the endpoint and the management of assets.

The fact that I'm able to see all my devices and the status of them has been extremely useful. It's mainly the device visibility and device status. 

The stability has been great. 

It is very scalable. 

We haven't upgraded the SCOM version yet, however, there's a few of the versions where we would like to have improvements in terms of more visibility into some of the details of the device. 

We'd like to be able to configure and push more granular policies into the device.

Using iOS is an issue for us. It's not as deep as the Microsoft offering. We'd like more detail in the iOS version. They also need more advanced iOS support.

There is a lack of documentation.  

We didn't know the solution enough, and therefore, it took a while to set everything up correctly. There was a learning curve. We'd like more help in planning and training. 

I've been using the solution for eight years. 

It really is stable. The performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches. 

The solution can scale well. It's actually more suited for larger enterprises. 

We didn't have any issues with scalability.

We have about 800 users on the product currently. That's about 1,400 devices. 

We use the product fairly regularly. 

Technical support takes work. They're knowledgeable, yet it takes a lot of time. You have to go through the reseller first - before you get to speak to Microsoft. 

Neutral

We're going to, eventually in the next few years with SCOM, move to the cloud management features of Microsoft.

The initial setup took a lot of time. I can't remember exactly what the timeframe was. However, it took longer than we expected. I'd rate it 2.5 out of five in terms of the ease of setup. While it's not difficult, it does take time. We had to do and redo a few things during implementation. They didn't have any documentation for us to work out of, which would have helped. 

We handled the setup ourselves in-house. 

I don't have an individual cost for SCOM. We buy all our licenses under the program. We get invoiced for the quantities of each of the products without having an individual cost for SCOM. If you buy certain licenses or servers, SCOM automatically comes with it. 

At the time, we didn't investigate others. We didn't investigate a lot of other technologies as we're a Microsoft shop. We use Microsoft products. We are resellers. We're distributors of Microsoft. We didn't go much further out from there. Recently, we also haven't investigated a lot. We are starting to research the management of endpoints with the Microsoft cloud platform. That looks a little bit easier right now.

We're using a lot of Microsoft products. We are also resellers and distributors of Microsoft.

Whether this solution works for you or not depends on how you do your model. If you outsource everything, then you don't have the problem even if you're an SMB. However, if you have an IT department inside your organization, you will likely need this. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

Mature product, strong brand, many customers, Gartner awards

Excellent Microsoft server/application monitoring capabilities

Fast and consistent UX for system admins

Extensive dashboarding capabilities

REST API available

Excellent technical support, rich user community

Designed for on-premise installations

After reviewing alternatives based on our existing needs, we decided against SCOM for the time being.

Lacks common network monitoring features found in alternatives.

Poor support for non-Microsoft systems at this time.

User dashboards require posting to Microsoft SharePoint Server.

Very high administrative burden, requires constant maintenance.

Application transaction monitoring only available in .NET applications on IIS.

Limited analytics capabilities (you must build your own in SSRS)

Full monitoring capabilities requires integration with the rest of the Microsoft System Center suite

2 years

Yes, many. Official documentation fails to list all required TCP/UDP ports necessary for installing the base server as well as gateway servers that are members of remote domains.

We also encountered many issues with each service account used by SCOM that took several days to resolve (domain account rights can be troublesome if not set up correctly from the beginning).

No. Once SCOM was up and running we never had a failure.

No. Scalability is one of the hallmarks of SCOM. It is designed for scaling up/out.

Good.

Very good. Microsoft's technical support team for SCOM is very knowledgeable and is responsive. Most of your technical support documentation/ information can be found on TechNet as well.

Initial setup was extremely complex with security certificates, multiple installation options depending on the server roles in the system, multiple service accounts are needed, as well as delegation of rights for each account. It took several days of troubleshooting to resolve each issue as they were found during initial installation.

Our own team installed the system in-house.

None.

With regards to licensing, if your organization has Enterprise CALs then SCOM is typically included in the suite and may help you if you are trying to save operational costs.

SCOM truly demands it's own support team to manage and administer it (not to mention applying the monthly patches) and is designed for monitoring mid-to-large on-premise environments. If you have a somewhat small environment, or if you do not have the people resources to support a SCOM install then I would recommend to look for alternatives. However if you are an existing Microsoft Enterprise CAL customer SCOM is worth the evaluation.

We are using this solution for monitoring our Microsoft servers.

In the beginning, we used this solution to monitor our Exchange servers. After we started using it, we went on to SharePoint, and then all of the Microsoft servers.

I am a member of the monitoring team. This solution saves us a lot of work, mainly in creating monitoring packages for Microsoft products, since those packages, created by the product team in Microsoft, can be downloaded directly from the console.   

All of the areas of reporting are very bad and need to be improved. It is not simple to get a report. Even the monitoring people, who are supposed to be familiar with the system, are having difficulty generating specific reports. Also, the information in the reports is not user-friendly.

The console is very slow, and not user-friendly. Even the browser for the web console is not very friendly, and I would not consider it useful compared to other ones that I have worked with.

I would like to see the inclusion of more monitoring templates, where I would just have to enter variables and nothing more. If there were a template then it would save time, rather than have to create it again.

The monitoring of Linux servers needs to be improved because it is hard compared to other products.

This is a very stable solution, and we have not had major issues within the past few years.

We started in a really big environment, and it did not grow, so I cannot really comment on the scalability. I don't expect our usage of this solution to increase because we are already at the maximum number of servers.

We only had one problem that we needed Microsoft support for. They helped us with the problem but it took time. It is difficult to rate their support given that we have only opened a single ticket in the past.

Prior to this solution, we monitored our Windows servers using HP Operations Manager, which is now owned by Micro Focus. The switch was made because we already had SCOM integrated within the company. We were already paying for it as we were monitoring the Exchange environment, and we didn't want to pay double. It was a simple business decision. It was not based on a technical comparison between products.

The initial setup of this solution is very simple. It is not complex to establish the environment.

While the setup is easy, we have a large environment, so it took some time to complete. In total, the deployment took between two weeks and one month.

We used a field engineer from Microsoft to assist us at the beginning. They also helped us out from time to time to upgrade the system, although I took care of the last installation of patches myself.

We have a lot of servers in the company and we needed some kind of monitoring solution. Eight years ago we started using Microsoft Exchange, and we asked Microsoft how we should go about monitoring the Exchange environment. They suggested this solution and we adopted it.

This is a good solution, especially if your company is based on Microsoft products. For example, there is a new version of Active Directory and they contacted us to let us know that the monitoring is supported. On the other hand, the interface needs improvement, and there should be better support for monitoring Linux servers.

If the user interface, reporting, and support for other operating systems are all improved, then this would be a perfect product.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We're using SCOM to monitor the health checks for the Windows servers in our organization.

It would be hard to talk about features. In maybe four months, in January, there is downtime for service, where we're able to look for the issues and proactively check everything.

The stability has been very good so far. 

Technical support has been very responsive.

We have found the scalability capabilities to be okay.

What we need in SCOM is the ability to share a lab console with our customers so that our end-users or customers in SCOM can navigate by themselves. It could be similar to how we use DRDG in PRTG where all of our customers can set up their monitoring on their own. Right now, in SCOM, only our team can set up their monitoring. 

The initial setup could be easier. 

The solution should be more user-friendly and offer a better user interface.

I've been dealing with the solution for two years. 

The stability is very good. We haven't had any issues. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable.

The scalability potential is good. If a company needs to expand it, it can.

The technical support on offer has been great, generally. When we have questions for Microsoft, they respond to us quickly. It's good for our end. We are quite satisfied.

The initial setup could be more straightforward and the deployment could be simplified in SCOM.

In terms of pricing, I'm not sure how much the company pays. As far as I know, our company gets a Microsoft package and SCOM is already included in the package. It's not separated out.

I'm just a customer and an end-user.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

SCOM is a great monitoring tool. It's just pretty complex to set up, however, if you invest your time in learning SCOM, you can understand how it works and it will make things much easier.

We work with our global team to produce software delivery packages and patches. We push the changes to the servers as well as to the computers of the end users.

I enjoy its integration with the Microsoft Active Directory functions, which means users, computers, or other group policies can connect with Windows Active Directory.

There are some negative points about this product. Sometimes, the capabilities of the software don't appear, and you can't directly see the results. You have to wait for a long period to refresh the policy to push it to the software or other patches.

I have been using this solution for five years.

It is very stable.

We can easily scale-up when we have a new global site. It is just so easy to extend this solution to other sites, which is an advantage. 

On the IT side, we have 30 people working on this platform, and on the user side, we have 600 people. We use it every month to push down new patches.

We used LANDESK and Manager Engine. Both of these solutions are similar to SCOM and suitable for the simple purpose of management. 

SCOM is just one user interface. It is a Microsoft service user interface. However, it is not user friendly like Manage Engine, which has a self-service desktop where users can log in and change their password themselves. The software also sends out an automatic notification. Manage Engine has a user-friendly interface.

It is very complex to install because you have to plan the whole deployment. You have to design the central server, the deposit server, and the domain. It is a little bit complex as compared to other common server installations. The deployment took two months.

We have a consultant.

This is a good software. I would definitely recommend this software.

I would rate SCOM an eight out of ten.

System Center Operations Manager is basically for windows monitoring. We use SCOM to monitor metrics, such as CPU and memory disk, and a lot of applications, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Office 365, Active Directory, RDBMS, Skype, and Citrix.

It discovers the components automatically, which is a fantastic thing. The discovery works in an automatic way, and it has a dynamic way of discovering the components, assets, and applications. It doesn't require any manual intervention.

They can focus more on cloud monitoring instead of on-premise monitoring. We should be able to monitor cloud-related applications. They can include this feature in the next release.

If it is in the cloud, we can have scalability by using Kubernetes. The container is containerized, packaged, and managed using Kubernetes. This feature is not there in SCOM. Going forward, if they can focus on that, it will be great.

Its scalability works well. In our environment, we are monitoring 150,000 Windows Servers by using System Center Operations Manager. Its usage keeps increasing.

I am satisfied with their support.

Its initial setup is straightforward. It doesn't take long.

We evaluated other options. We found SCOM to be suitable for Microsoft Windows applications, so we decided to go for it.

I would rate System Center Operations Manager an eight out of ten.

We mainly use SCOM for monitoring and reporting purposes. The system enables me to monitor the usage of the system and to change the target or number of logs. 

SCOM has improved our organization by simplifying the monitoring process. The system tells you what the bi-weekly or monthly usage was and that enables us to report this information to the manager. It shows if there was a connectivity issue that needs to be fixed and it's easier to concentrate on what needs to get fixed. System errors, therefore, get fixed faster.

At the moment the monitoring feature is the most valuable. It allows me to monitor the usage as well as the format of the system. Whatever the system owners want to know from our side, I am able to help with.

I don't really think anything needs to be improved. We will soon be trying to use it with Microsoft to log analytics and that will be cloud-based. 

I would like to have the ability to schedule my reports via email or through SMS. 

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

The nice thing about this solution is that you tell it what you want and then it will give you what you want. I love this about SCOM.

Our company currently has 280 employees working on this solution and we don't have any problems. We will soon be upgrading to the newer version, as well as moving office. I am not currently monitoring any of the network devices but at our new office, I will be monitoring the network connectivity. There will probably be even more people working online than we have right now.

The customer service and technical support was very good. There was a human error from our side. I am not sure if it was from the database or not because I was unable to restore my data for a couple of weeks. The Microsoft engineer came on site, and he assisted us with that. He sorted the issue out and explained to us why we are unable to get it sorted out ourselves. 

Since I started working with our company we have been using the 2016 version of SCOM. We are currently upgrading to the 2019 version.

The initial setup was done with the help of a Microsoft engineer. From what I saw, it wasn't a complex setup.

This solution makes people's lives easier. Especially that of our manager. No matter what report or information you have, sharing it with him it makes his life easier. It enables him to see if there is capacity that needs to be increased or if there are things that can be deleted. 

I would highly recommend it. I would rate it a seven out of ten. I wouldn’t rate it a ten because I would like for it to be fully cloud-based.