Broadcom DX Application Performance Management Reviews

• Proactive alerting is one of the key elements of APM and works really well. The ability to detect problems before they become widespread high severity incidents is critical when you are managing production systems. All of our APM is visible to our global support operations centres, and each service is represented by a RAG summary alert button. Any AMBER/RED status alerts are checked instantly by our 24/7 support teams.
  
• Ease of deployment
• Product stability

APM is the tool used by all support areas to monitor Java application and infrastructure performance. We have standardised support for the services running on the Java platform into one tool.

Dynamic instrumentation, at the moment, I think it is a bit clunky to use and it should be available outside the transaction tracer. It can only be enabled during a transaction trace session. Ideally it would be nicer if this could be done via the Investigator view, and the available options are shown with a right click. That way they could be done without having to invoke a transaction trace session.

I've used it since 2004.

No issues encountered.

No issues, it's one of the main strengths of the product.

No issues, the product has evolved to increase scalability on existing infrastructure which is very good.

Excellent, really top quality always.

Same as customer service, top quality.

No, but we have retired similar solutions in favour of APM, e.g. Tivoli.

Straightforward, but we had professional services from the vendor to guide us as well.

Combined, and the vendor team was top quality.

It's not easy to quantify as the product is used to prevent mission critical services from going down. We can’t really put a figure on it.

Two full time employees are needed to manage the whole operation, which covers all production environments and two test environments.

Not before, but we have evaluated others since, such as AppDynamics, Optier, Dynatrace and others.

• Stay close to the vendor guidelines at all time
• Don’t customise it too much
• Always patch
• Join the user community

Monitoring of customer applications. 

It has performed well. I won't necessarily say better than other solutions, but there's more focus because of the customer applications. 

A good example for us is Hurricane Irma. We have service territory that was impacted and our executive dashboard for APM was up and everybody under the sun was watching that, and keying off of that, for issues that were popping up, because we were performing storm restoration.

The executive dashboard we created gives a lot of visibility out there, so from that standpoint if somebody sees something go red and they say, "Hey, what's going on?" we have to be on our toes. There's no working on something for a little bit before someone knows.

But having said that, there's a lot of flexibility in being able to see stuff in those customer systems, which is vital for us.

The ability to have anything we want scripted feeding in there, and to add to it fairly quickly. So if we do see something that we need to change or monitor, we need to add something, we're able to get those in pretty quickly. 

For example, finding something that's not performing well on one of our applications. We had one not too long ago where we simply didn't have a threshold on something, something we hadn't seen before. We found it, and then were able to get in and put something in pretty quickly. So now we're prepared for that situation in the future. 

The APM SQL feature doesn't perform like we would like it to, and we actually have some open cases that are working through that. I know that's a new feature with 10.5, so it may be one of those things that gets a little better. But I would like to see that improved because, although it's not a major problem, we feel like it should run faster.

The stability is very good. We recently upgraded to 10.5, and the performance has been fantastic, especially since the upgrade. We had a few minor things before the upgrade, but once we've upgraded it's run like a champ.

No issues with scalability. We're able to add stuff to it without any issue. We've got a decent license count so there are no issues there, it's been easy.

We have used tech support. I would evaluate it as so-so. Part of the issue is, I've got some seasoned guys. Tech support is always saying, "Hey, what's with these log files," and the like, and we feel that we waste some time upfront because we've already checked A, B, and C. It's like if you called tech support, and they say ,"Well have you turned your computer on and off?" "Yes, I've done all that!" It's like that. We go through some stuff that we feel if we skip that we might get to some resolution faster.

With version 10.5, we went to it fairly early and we discovered some things that broke some things in the past. We did get through those. But I would say the bigger issue is, if we're at point A and we want to get to D, we want to skip B and C.

We do get the right person when we call, there's not really any run around.

And we have, I don't know what her title is, a service manager, and we meet every couple of weeks to review all the cases, and I feel that if something's not getting addressed she'll help us escalate that or push it forward. It's just some of the upfront stuff that gets a little frustrating at times.

My most important criteria when selecting a vendor have to do with the issue that vendors say, "Yeah we can do this, yeah we can do that." I want to see examples of where you did that. And I want to understand how hard it is to get to that point. Because a lot of times, sure, they can do that, but it entails all of this work, or all of this customization and maintenance and, at the end of the day, it may be a huge issue to get to that point. I want more transparency. 

And if it is that that additional work, that may be okay, but we want to know about it ahead of time so we can plan for it.

Brand may be important, but sometimes companies get lazy, saying, "We're so and so," and they don't feel they have to work as hard. I know there's a vendor that we had - not CA - but it was just, whatever you're doing, you know that you're going to have problems. They are a big brand name and they just do a poor job. So that's why I say the brand doesn't always make that big of a difference because it's more about your ability to come through and deliver on your commitments. And deliver on your commitments, meet deadlines, without us having to do a fire drill every day.

I give CA APM a nine out of 10. It does a really good job for us, the infrastructure seems pretty easy to maintain. We had to do an upgrade so that obviously threw a bunch of work in there but, outside of that, it seems to run pretty smoothly so we're not spending a bunch of time dealing with that. We're able to work with the monitoring functions of it and set some things up. 

The Team Center piece seems to be working really well now, we're starting to implement some of that so it's taking advantage of some functionality that was already there but didn't really work that well. We're starting to use that and add some more value to our customers.

Based on those things I'd give it a little bump up. It works well for us, gives a lot of visibility.

I would recommend it to a friend. I would just say make sure you understand your environment, and compare your environment to somebody that's already implemented, to understand some of that work. Get the right reference call.

In the newer versions of the application, they had something called a Triage Map. That basically breaks it down from a service perspective. You actually see it from a service perspective and then you see what components make up that service.

It really helps the business. They are not seeing individual servers or individual devices, they're seeing it from a service level, which is what everybody wants to see. It works the logic, the mapping, and how the application sticks to the database or the web server. It automatically creates that map for you.

• Acts as a troubleshooting-like application
• Deals with performance issues
• Helps in trending, like the data mine, the load which is running on the application servers
• Helps the development team to fine-tune and proactively manage the application.

Some of the reporting features. we are running maybe two versions behind, so we haven't explored the reporting functionality.

I believe the latest version of APM 105, there is a reporting capability, which we would like to leverage when we do the upgrade.

But I think that was something which was missing. Right now, if I need to run some reports, I need to run some manual queries, which is very time consuming.

Hopefully in the later releases, which is out there, we can explore the reporting functionality. There are some features that I would have like to see, which are not there in the current version.

I haven't had any prior stability issues. The only issues I have usually, is more like a question. In other words, if this can be done or it cannot be done. But I don't have that many issues pertaining to performance or the system going down or anything. I really love the product.

There were no real issues with scalability. If you have proper scaling, it depends on how you implement the product. You need to make sure it's a scalable solution, depending on the number of agents that reporting to the manager. In terms of providing scalability, it should be fine. I haven't seen any issues.

I would give technical support a rating of 8/10.

I have been here since 2010 and they have been using APM since. I really didn't have a APM solution, so this is the first time we've used an APM.

They use a database called Postgres, which is an open source database. When setting that up, we always run into issues. The application itself is not that complicated. You'll need to get it installed and then configure it. But when installing the database, we've seen a bit a lot of it, and there are issues with it.

We didn't really evaluate other options, but right now, we are in the process of doing it. Right now, we're trying to compare with AppDynamics. That's something we are working on.

They can surely give this try, but there are some other tools out there. When we implemented this back in 2009, there weren't that many competitors or vendors for APM. There were less nine years ago. There have been quite a few, like we have AppDynamics, you have Dynatrace, and they're pretty good tools too.

I would suggest that they can do a proof of concept depending on what the requirements are. Some features are good in one product, but the other product has something else to offer. It's still a good product, but then they can always look at some other solutions too, before making the final decision.

CA APM makes our customers very happy with one of its most important features. It has a random transaction trace which gives our customers the ability to look at how their transaction performs: The average response time of their transactions with the application which runs those transactions. It helps them understand whether the application is taking long to run, whether any transaction takes longer than expected to run, or if it is running within an optimal time for that particular application. It is very helpful, because they are able to figure this out with the help of the tool. That is one of the major things. 

Another thing that I can think of right off the top of my head is the customer experience part which comes with it. We do a lot of transactions. It is a retail company, so customer experience is very important. As far as our data moves from point to point, it is very important for us. This is why is the application is very helpful.

My production environment is still way back in the versions. I am only trying a sandbox of the newer technology. I have not yet exploited what it can or cannot do to the fullest. 

However, I am going to upgrade everything to the latest version level by the end of the year. Hopefully, next year when I have to come back to CA World, I will be able to tell you more about what I would like to see, if anything.

I would rate it as a nine out of 10. The reason why I am not going to 10 is documentation needs to be centralized. I keep saying this. It is all over the map. It is not easy to navigate to get documentation on CA APM. If it is all centralized, it would be a lot easier. 

It is fairly stable. I have used the solution and have seen it improve throughout the years. I started using it when it was Wily. My first encounter with it was in 2008. 

I have seen a significant improvement with the upgrades which have come with it. It has come a long way. It is like night and day. The application is very stable and extremely useful. 

It scales pretty well. For instance, I can give you an example of what I am doing right now. It is one of the few applications that pulls data every 15 seconds. The majority of the applications that I am aware of pull data in five minutes time. This application pulls data in 15 seconds. You can imagine the enormous amount of data which streams through. 

What I am happy with is their latest version has something called SmartStor, which has been improved for the database. The scalability, it has gotten much better. 

You are able to archive your historical data on two different collectors, then use your live data to be able to run the application effectively. That is what I do. It is very scalable. The number of collectors one can use per MOM. I have gone over that and the application is still stable, and it is very scalable.

Technical support has come a long way. Back in 2008, it was a different thing altogether. It would be maybe overnight before you would get a callback. Now, it is maybe within minutes, depending on how you put in your request. If it is something that you need or if it is a tool, someone is calling you within minutes of opening your problem. They will stick with you and make sure that it is resolved. It has gotten better. I can't complain.

In my current role, I came and the tool was already there. I was hired as a subject-matter expert on it, because I have had previous experience with it. I did not have to make that choice about changing solutions. 

I have gone between companies, where different companies use a different application performance monitor, and used the likes of Dynatrace. The difference between the two is the ease of navigating your way through the application. They both do the same thing, except how easy it is to use Wily. It is very intuitive in a lot of ways, which other applications are not.

The tool itself is a great tool. I will recommend it to anyone that wants to use it.

The most valuable feature of APM is gaining insight into the application performance so we can proactively take actions before the customer calls to report an issue.

We have used CEM to get insights into what the user is actually experiencing.

There needs to be more ability to report on the performance of the applications, so you could easily have a report run and give you all your performance stats for an application at the end of the month, or week, or after a release. This currently is not easily done, and you can’t schedule it.

In the beginning, there were issues operationalizing CA APM to work with our company. I wasn't involved at the time, though.

We have encountered issues with stability when best practices were not followed. It became more stable after using best practices.

We haven't had issues scaling it.

I'd rate customer service an 8 out of 10.

Technical support is an 8 out of 10.

I was not working in APM when we brought it in, so I don’t know for sure if it replaced anything.

I wasn't involved in the setup.

It was implemented with a vendor team.

We have an ELA with CA APM and it is very competitive with their competitors from that perspective.

Our company did evaluate another option, but I was not involved at that time.

Make sure to test as many application types as you can in your POC phase so you can work out issues early in your implementation. Also, make sure load tests are included in that testing.

Its ability to deep dive into the application code is the most valuable feature for us. It has help us to be more proactive instead of reactive when it comes to incident management.

It's improved our ability within the instant management realm. We are able to get the root cause faster than we had done before. We had to uninstall it two years ago, it was a matter of looking through log files and then making basically and guessing as to what the root cause was. It allowed us to avoid the same incidents occurring over and over.

Continued improvements with the integration of the URL and the ability to use AWS would be great. Understand that it may at first potentially break your application, but it might just be a case that maybe it's just poorly written and it's not Interscope that's the issue.

We've been using it for about eight years.

We ran into all kinds of problems and most of it was because of just the onboarding as our new-product education was a huge issue.

It's pretty stable. I just don't think that we've done a very good job of lifecycle management of the product.

We've had no issues with scalability.

We had nothing in place previously.

The setup was straightforward, but the interaction of it initially with our applications was the tough part. We needed to make sure the instrumentation itself did not break our application.

We did use some professional services to assist us in getting both the buy-in and in helping us to set up some bells and whistles to really get people excited about the product.

Our ROI is the fact that our applications have the ability to stay up longer because we are more proactive in how we monitor and performance test our applications so that when they go to market, they're fully functional.

I was not part of the process at that time.

If you purchase this product, work closely with their technical teams to help plan and deploy it. Make it as much of a repeatable process as possible.

The feature that I have found the most valuable is its user interface.

They can make it easier to configure. 

I have been using this solution for about four months. We're doing a proof of concept. We've currently deployed it on-premises, but we've also been looking at a SaaS model.

I didn't contact their technical support.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. It took a couple of days to deploy.

We have our own team for maintaining this solution.

Broadcom is a better and cheaper option from a financial perspective. It also depends on the DLP plug.

You should look at the Broadcom DX version 11, which will be available from early 2021. It is a lot better than version 10.7. There are a lot of big upgrades in version 11.

There are not a lot of differences between AppDynamics and Broadcom DX Application Performance Management version 11. The user interface of AppDynamics is better, and the configuration for AppDynamics is a little bit more straightforward.

Broadcom offers a wider range and a bigger suite of applications. The APM module is just a part of it, whereas AppDynamics is a specialist at APM. AppDynamics is a better solution at the moment. You need to weigh the extra functionality you might get with AppDynamics and see if it is worth it. Dynatrace is also a better solution.

I would rate Broadcom DX Application Performance Management a seven out of ten.

We look at the load patterns and server health by looking at server health parameters. Heap memory is of prime importance as well as how the heap is behaving and how the memory is behaving under load, as well as the CPU utilization. These are generally the parameters we will check.

In a production environment we check all the parameters. We can detect any leakage, any problems, whether RAM is sufficient, and whether CPU is crossing a threshold. We can determine if we need to add new servers or RAM or adjust the heap settings.

It helps save resources for a company.

It also helps us look at business-critical transactions and how fast they are happening. It helps us pinpoint the methods or functions that are taking longer to operate and we can advise the development team to look into it and fine-tune those areas. They can make adjustments immediately.

For me, the most valuable feature is being able to check memory patterns. We check them when we do load testing or soak testing to see if there are any memory leaks.

A CA APM agent takes a lot of memory. That is one disadvantage. If you configure CA APM correctly it will still consume around 15 to 20 percent of memory.

We haven't had any issues with its scalability.

When you submit a support ticket it will take them two to three days to reply. They told us they would resolve issues within 24 hours, but so far that has not happened.

There have been times when we were doing performance testing, load testing, where it didn't capture the required information we were trying to monitor. We called the CA APM support team. They suggested we increase the RAM and restart the agents. That was the solution they gave us.

The setup is not straightforward. It is a bit complex. I have not configured CA APM myself, but I use it for performance testing. When we are doing performance testing, we configure CA APM for a pre-production environment which is similar to the production environment. We will do load testing and take all the parameters and observations and send them, along with our recommendations and conclusions, to development. But I have not really configured CA APM.

Dynatrace is the most expensive of these tools followed by AppDynamics which is "medium-expensive." Both CA APM vs Dynatrace and CA APM vs AppDynamics are a bit lower in price. Because of this, our clients insist on using CA APM.

In my opinion, if you can afford it, go for AppDynamics instead of CA APM. But if our customers don't have the budget, we'll go with CA APM.

We have a comparison chart showing the license costs for AppDynamics, Dynatrace, and CA APM and other monitoring tools as well. We provide that information to our clients along with the advantages and disadvantages of a particular tool. We provide our opinion on which it is best to go with but we also listen to our clients' opinions. We discuss this at length to finally come up with a decision on which tool to go with.

I use many tools, such as LoadRunner, Silk Performer, and IBM. I also use AppDynamics and Dynatrace. The last two are actually the best for me at the moment because they support even the database level. CA APM does not support that much. It will only give me minimal information about the DB.