Broadcom DX Application Performance Management Reviews

It helps you get to the root cause much faster when you have issues.

The visualization of the solution takes you to the problem areas much faster.

The GUI feels sort of archaic. It doesn't have a modern look and feel to it.

I'm looking forward to some of the stuff on the new version that automatically maps the topology. We're just getting started with the tool in my group, so we're not actually utilizing it yet.

It's very stable. We have had no incidents of crashing.

It does scale well, from what I understand. I'm not the person who does the deployments.

I'm not a person who gets to make the investment decisions. I basically get to use whatever the company provides or makes available.

Some of the previous versions were available, but they were much more difficult to implement. The newer version takes a lot of that complexity out of it.

I'm more of an end user of the product, and it's much easier. Some of it is automatically implemented. That's what I like about it.

I was involved similar to a customer. We have an internal team that does the deployments and they got it done. They don't really have issues with it. It's really a straightforward setup.

When selecting a vendor, accessibility is important. We've had issues in the past with some vendors who kind of disappear after they sell you a product. We like having a contact person who is readily available to guide you or refer you to somebody else who can help.

The most valuable feature for us with APM is the depth to which you can go into the actual instances that are occurring. So, whether it's SQL or the Java agent, you're able to get really deep information.

We're just now adopting APM, but we anticipate that it'll be very helpful with level-3 and level-4 triage.

I'd like to see more source code at the exceptions level. I'd like to be able to get down to the actual code-class file and know what the issues are there. With APM, we stop at just a hair above that, but to be able to get down to that specific level would be nice. I'd like to be able to get that granular.

We've had no issues with deployment.

We've had some challenges in the integration with the agent. It's had some conflicts from a Java-server perspective, but outside of that it's been very stable.

No scalability issues so far. That's been fine.

I don't use tech support for anything. We have our own internal team.

I wasn't involved in the setup.

Take a look at what you're using it for because it's not for every application.

This solution gives feedback exactly the way that we need it with data specific to tasks, timelines, and analyses. It ensures we are making the most of our production and QA stages.

They tried to streamline the organization, that was the initial point of using APM. It led to so many internal changes, but it didn’t affect the organization much at all in the end.

But the good thing about the solution is there is little overhead. It has a very small footprint on the system and it doesn’t affect the performance of the CPU.

We will move to version 10.1 when the time is right, but we're exploring our options for something that will in-fact streamline our organization.

We have no issues deploying it.

It’s very stable. We haven’t had a single problem with this product.

This solution is entirely scalable from our point of view.

I think it’s very good, you can talk to them and you get good support. We have never had an issue with the support from CA.

We used when it was still Wiley Interscope. Then they were then bought by CA, so it was a natural progression into the CA product.

The setup was quite complex initially. They came to us and worked with us in-house, which was great to learn from them.

We have had big discussions about changing, but we have recently decided not to. We are staying with them for now.

I recommend that they should look at their options deeply.

The monitoring features - transaction tractability and visibility.

Also, BRTM in v9.x and the differential analysis in v10 are valuable features that are very helpful in monitoring and maintaining the application performance.

In the market, the CA APM 10.x is already out and doing well. It is much improved and meeting customer’s expectations. Moreover, the implementation is bit complex for a distributed environment.

The tool has improved a lot and still updates are there on the way. It would be easier to understand if the components involved could be less about providing the same capabilities as it already does.

I have experience of approximately two-and-a-half years on CA APM.

The issue we faced was on sizing and implementing the APM architecture as it involves multiple components in a distributed environment.

The monitoring stats we get are only 70%-80% reliable. We cannot depend completely on the monitoring view provided.

I have experience in AppDynamics, BMC, and HP APM. It all depends upon the client’s requirements. I chose this product as it was fulfilling all the stated requirements.

We have implemented the clustered architecture of CA APM. Initially, there were less complexities but when it comes to distributed deployment, it was complex.

I have experience of implementation of in–house as well as through a vendor also. Both are equal, just experience and a clear understanding of all the tool components is a must.

Expected returns gained.

CA APM is a brand name. It is easy, proactive, intelligent and collaborative. All of these features leads every business transaction, it's a loyalty-building interaction.

The transition to APM Team Center as the primary console in APM 10 will definitely be the most valuable feature.

The ATC shows a lot of potential on how we view performance metrics on the front-end and back-end connections in a single view.

An APM tool should have the capability to provide a high-level view of the monitored application and APM 10 is heading in the right direction by just doing that. A single-window view of performance metrics, timeline, applications, alerts and heat maps (DA) throw a lot of data to an engineer in a quick glance.

Another new feature may just have to be Entry Point Discovery. The capability of the agent to detect the application entry point and create custom pbd for this. Interesting concept of automatic discovery and prescriptive change.

CA APM strength is the Custom Instrumentation - just having the capability to capture performance metrics for classes and methods in the application makes this tool a elite candidate.

CA APM is the go-to tool for any performance-related issues. It is always there monitoring the non-production and production environment. It is becoming part of the DevOps stack and becoming a key support tool for Performance testing.

The tool has supported many times in identifying slow transactions and the bottlenecks in applications.

APM 10 has jumped leaps in feature improvement over the last few releases which in itself is an achievement.

The UI still feels a little outdated (though there is change) especially for Dashboards. New widgets and dynamic actions needs to be in place for this part of CA APM.

Integration with other DevOps toolsets. CA APM needs to provide easy integration capability with CI/CD and ALM tools which will provide strong value to all stages in an SDLC.

APM 10 Team Center provides a faster way to diagnose environmental issues and complements the existing APM WebView.

The enhancements related to Smart Instrumentation, Differential Analysis, and tracing will all contribute to enhanced troubleshooting during an issue and the ability to provide more intelligent alerting from the systems.

Implementation is underway currently, but there are various parts of APM 10 which will improve the use within the organization compared with APM 9.5.

Team Center requires a number of tweaks to allow per-user/group configuration to customize the interface for groups of users, though I believe these are already in the product roadmap.

In this version of CA APM team centre, everyone sees the same view of the server configuration. Ideally, groups of users would see a subset of the data which they are interested in by default. Currently, they can do this through filtering, but a user/group setup would allow pre-defined filters to be created for particular groups of users. Alternatively, users could be restricted to see a smaller section of the overall monitored services. In the current version, anyone who logs in sees everything, and can create their own filters.

I use it to track performance on the production environment and QA environment.

The time it takes to track problems in applications is the most valuable return that we have from this solution. 

The transactions rate feature is the most valuable feature. It shows the deep histories of everything that's running on an even transaction. That's why it is so useful.

I would like for them to develop a feature that controls .net agents remotely. It would be very useful and we don't have this feature now.

They need to improve the crossing over of data from large files and they should use LUNIX heavily. There's room for improvement there. 

I have a good impression of the stability. 

I use technical support a lot. They've performed well. They always respond quickly and they are assertive. We have had a good experience with support.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The quality of software is one of the main criteria that we consider when evaluating a solution.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. The reason it's not a ten is because they don't focus enough on improving over time like other competitors do who have a more modern and complete tool. 

They should develop the user experience so that you don't need to put in other agents. Today you have to use another host to bring up your vision. If they would have a single agent with all this information, it would be perfect.

• System incident analysis 
• Performance monitoring

We run a very large OLTP system: Six IBM AIX 780 high-end applications and DB servers. Daily transaction amount 100,000,000 per day.

WAS GC monitoring enhanced our application performance and DB SQL performance.

It is very useful and helpful with the analysis of historical performance data.

• E2E monitoring
• DB web WAS monitoring
• App crash report
• User customizing report
• DB connection usage from WAS

• System incident analysis
• Performance monitoring