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Aruba Airwave vs DX Spectrum comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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

Aruba Airwave
Ranking in Network Management Applications
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DX Spectrum
Ranking in Network Management Applications
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (22nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (22nd), Network Troubleshooting (7th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Aruba Airwave is 7.8%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DX Spectrum is 2.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Prashant-Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution has multi-vendor support, and it can be used for network management
Aruba Airwave is an on-prem solution, so you have to manage it with your servers to be deployed. You can also deploy it on the cloud if you have your own private cloud. All the configuration guides and the different types of designs you need are available from Aruba Airwave's portal. I would recommend Aruba Airwave to other users. Overall, I rate Aruba Airwave ten out of ten.
DickBaker - PeerSpot reviewer
An all-inclusive monitoring solution that adapts to emerging technologies
The product helps to correlate events.  The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability. DX Spectrum needs better documentation on its complex features.  I have been using the product since 2005.  I rate DX Spectrum's stability an eight point five…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution gives you a lot of reporting capabilities, and it has a very good interface."
"It's scalable because it's licensed per device and we bought licenses with each device. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability."
"The solution's initial setup process is straightforward."
"This solution is definitely stable."
"What I like best about Aruba Airwave is its orchestration feature because it saves configuration time. I also like that it allows you to do ZTP installations for new Aruba equipment."
"The technical support services are good."
"The solution's most valuable features are its usage, bandwidth existence, device capacity, and utilization."
"The most beneficial feature for network monitoring in Aruba Airwave is the Live Heat Map. It helps identify interferences, coverage issues, and user connectivity issues. The device management capability of Aruba Airwave is good. It provides end-to-end visibility from the user to the access point, the switch, and the internet breakout. From a monitoring, management, and orchestration standpoint, it is very effective and can manage any scale of deployment."
"It creates transparency and makes everything work by being more transparent."
"Some of the most valuable features are it's highly scalable, the carrier is great, and if something has SNMP, it can monitor it. It's a great network fault management solution."
"It is easy to understand and determine when and/or where the network is failing."
"Offers a lot of functionality."
"We can monitor MPLS network VPN, network configuration, and backups. It's highly scalable for network configuration management."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to put health checks in place not only for the infrastructure but for some of the services that are on top of the infrastructure."
"​The stability of the product is key. It never breaks, really. The stability and reliability of the Spectrum product have been top-notch.​"
"The tool is very mature, and its valuable features are monitoring and configuration management."
 

Cons

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"The main challenge we've faced with Aruba Airwave is its high cost, especially regarding high availability and failover licenses, which can be relatively expensive for customers. As for recommendations for improvement, considering that Aruba is planning to retire Airwave soon and introduce a new solution, it's crucial that the new product meets or exceeds the current Airwave's feature set. Customers expect a seamless transition without losing any functionality, so Aruba needs to ensure that the new solution is ready with all the essential features and capabilities from day one to avoid any gaps or dissatisfaction among users and partners."
"We're looking for more device compatibility. Like compatibility with third-party devices."
"The tool's expensive nature is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We sometimes have problems with troubleshooting between the GUI and the CLI manipulation."
"Its pricing and support could be improved."
"Cost is always a big issue for partners."
"I would like to see an integration of services into one system, rather than having multiple systems to do multiple things."
"For my use case, incident coordination was an area of improvement. The internal software engine for coordinating outages could use improvement because sometimes, we used to get false alerts for unrelated devices. They did a really good job of trying to make sure that you got one major alert and any of the subsequent devices downstream were just additions to that, but occasionally, the engine wouldn't properly catch the right things, and we used to get a flood of alerts."
"From the users perspective the looks and feel of dashboards of Spectrum would be easier to use and for understanding as APM will be in 10.5 version which we saw in CA World."
"There should be better integration with other Broadcom products, like network performance manager. Currently, for every part of a product, you need a separate server environment. You have something for Spectrum, you have something for network performance, and you have something for NetFlow. There are a lot of islands and server farms with different technologies. They should be redeveloped to get one platform for all."
"We want to make our own choice for the AIOps solution and do not want to be forced to use the Broadcom OI solution by default."
"Make it easier to certify devices."
"If they could interact with the MIBs of vendors better, and have a lot more pre-loaded ones, that would be amazing for us right now."
"A better integration with the UIM, as far as being able to do root cause analysis and that type of analytics."
"Needs better integration with all the other products in the Agile suite of tools; anything they could do to make that less complex, would be great."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is perfect because the devices have a lifetime warranty, and the licensing is good as well."
"The tool is expensive. If one is bad or expensive, and ten is very good or cheap, I rate the product's price as a six."
"Aruba Airwave's licensing cost is not that expensive."
"Licensing and pricing are extremely straightforward."
"AirWave is a very expensive solution. If you implement it in a wide range network, it will cost a lot. There is no option to sell it outside that price segment, which is a problem."
"It is an expensive solution."
"It's device-based licensing. One device requires one license."
"This product is not expensive."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"The cost of some of these products are a little cost prohibitive, which is unfortunate. We have to find lower cost solutions for some of the things that we have to pull in. For the most part, CA has capabilities in pretty much everything that you would need. You just have to figure out where are you going to spend the most money for what you have to actually get done. You can do all these things but, which ones do you have to do? And that's hard to choose sometimes because you want to do them all."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"Since the acquisition by Broadcom, we have not had such a good experience with licensing and pricing. Since they were bought by Broadcom, every sales contract is getting complicated. It's very complicated, and it's much more expensive than before. It's not a good pricing strategy from Broadcom."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Aruba Airwave?
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aruba Airwave?
The tool is expensive. If one is bad or expensive, and ten is very good or cheap, I rate the product's price as a six.
What needs improvement with Aruba Airwave?
The tool's expensive nature is an area of concern where improvements are required. The product's scalability can be improved.
What do you like most about DX Spectrum?
The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DX Spectrum?
We are a customer of Broadcom, we use a group license that covers various CA products, including DX Spectrum. The company purchases the licenses they need from this group license, and we do not hav...
What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
Support from Broadcom could be better. Sometimes we wait a very long time for a solution to level three problems. Challenges and Limitations The only other challenge is the price, which is the main...
 

Also Known As

No data available
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Henkel, University of Findlay, University of Minnesota Duluth, University of Iowa
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba Airwave vs. DX Spectrum and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.