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AWS X-Ray vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 1, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS X-Ray
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Provider Connectivity...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
33rd
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (45th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2024, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS X-Ray is 3.9%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Parth Solanki - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 29, 2022
Saves time, is relatively cheap, and helps find errors
It's basically like a cloud stack.  You can trace your entire HTTP request. Once you have submitted any request, it will be addressed as a 500 Error or 401 Error, or if there is any exception happening when this request, and how much time will take. X-Ray can trace all the information about the…
Sylvain Germe - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 9, 2023
Highly scalable, responsive support, but lacking new features
This solution is geared towards on-premise setups, and would not be useful if the company plans to move to the cloud within the next two years, such as Google Cloud for example. If the goal is to monitor bandwidth at remote sites and identify performance issues because the network is under the control, this solution is useful. However, if a company primarily uses cloud-based servers and does not manage the internet connection of its remote sites, the solution becomes less useful. I rate Accedian Skylight a seven out of ten. I have a positive opinion of the tool, but it can be challenging to set up. It is also limited in its applicability to certain use cases. I am familiar with the engineers behind the solution and have a good impression of them. However, I am not pleased with the fact that the company removed many features and raised prices after it was acquired by Accedian.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The most important one is compliance. We're able to achieve our regulatory levels. We're able to achieve the security level that we need for the federal government."
"The most promising feature of AWS X-Ray is that you can debug the issues through the proper logs. You can also get an analysis out of the logs for some use cases, though I have yet to try all the features of AWS X-Ray."
"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."
"AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."
"If [the problem] is something related to HTTP or VoIP, then I can have a quick look into the protocols, a process which gives me some good ideas..."
"The response times, with the performance, are really interesting too, where you can see the packet loss."
"The ability to measure performance end-to-end across the cloud data center allows us to take corrective action to keep our channels online."
"The performance of Accedian Skylight is better than other vendors."
"I think the analytics features are okay. My customer also likes the interface, the GUI, because it's easy to operate."
"What I like most about Accedian Skylight is that it's a UI application, so using it is easy. I also like that the support for Accedian Skylight is helpful."
"It is about finding operational problems. When sites go down, we try to determine who is at fault. While there is not much finger-pointing, the solution is just trying to analyse when there is an outage and where do we start looking to fix it. The very nature of why organization chooses to use the solution is to accelerate the meantime to resolution and find where problems lie to get them rectified as quickly as possible."
"Capturing traffic [is very interesting]. Currently, with our configuration, we don't capture the payload of the packets, just the header. But when we want the body, the payload of the packets, we can do a PCAP, and then analyze it within Wireshark."
 

Cons

"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."
"Like most Amazon products, the user interface, configuration, and tuning aren't the easiest. That's the biggest reason why people tend to go to products like TerraForm and Terragrunt. We use TerraForm and Terragrunt. So, for setting things up and interacting with X-Ray, it's definitely the user interface that can be better."
"I do not have any notes in terms of improvements."
"They can improve how traces are sent to other providers."
"What needs to be better in AWS X-Ray is the log filtering. Predefined filters could be helpful because the power of analytics comes from how you can filter the data. I also want to see more KPIs from AWS X-Ray."
"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."
"Because of the policies in Vietnam, we cannot connect the system to the Accedian cloud. It would be good if Accedian could provide a local cloud. In the next release, I would like them to focus on improving and adding more reporting features. This will help the operations teams."
"It needs the possibility to export data because it is not easy to see larger data sets, e.g., for one month. It would be interesting to export data into a PDF or dashboard to keep a history of the situation."
"The UI interface of Accedian Skylight could improve."
"This solution is expensive compared to some others."
"There should be an option to update and upgrade the solution to the new version without having to re-buy it. I have clients switching to other solutions. The old solution is great, but if you change your license to a new one, you have to almost re-buy it completely."
"It's a bit slow. When I execute a query, something general with a short timeframe that covers one month, for instance, and I do not specify the IP source or IP destination, it can take ages because it has to query the whole database."
"For the PVX, they are in the process of getting the results to export to cloud and SaaS for analytics. They told me that this will happen later this year. Right now, for the most part, I create that data myself."
"If you want a new version, you go to the website. The hardest part is finding the link, where is that .bin file? Sometimes it's pretty hidden in a document... it's hidden in the release notes or in another file somewhere. And it's usually not on the first page either."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As you develop a relationship with Amazon, your pricing gets lower. You get credits for the amount of the system you use, and then if you're the government, you can get government pricing. For commercial users, there's a hump when you go from small to medium to big enterprise. Small businesses can live pretty easily off the free tier in a lot of cases, but when you go from a medium to a big enterprise, it becomes more expensive on a per-user basis. I'd like to see that curve going in a different way where pricing can be driven down while people are trying to adopt the technology."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."
"The pricing of Accedian Skylight is really good. The sensors are low cost. Their model to analytics for sensors is by license, endpoint, or session. With the probes for their analytics, if they get deployed virtually, they are free. The licensing is only based on flows. So, you can effectively deploy probes everywhere in your network. Then, if you want to look at a specific type of traffic, you can enter into it with a very low cost license. You can just use things like spam ports, mirrors, TAPs, and aggregators to optimize what sort of traffic you send to these analysis tools. Then, if you want to start looking at more, you can up your licensed as you go. You are not getting forced into expensive appliances or subscription models."
"If you look into Riverbed, it's a licensing nightmare. You need to pay for every type of analysis... If you don't look into licensing, Riverbed and SolarWinds are pretty comparable. But if you look into licensing it would not be smart to go for either of them. On the pure, bare-metal basis, it's the same. But when you get the bare metal and a few basic licenses, then you need all those other licenses just to be sure that there's no issue... One of the great things about Skylight is you have them all, and you actually need them all."
"We understand there's a significant cost difference, but have yet to investigate fully."
"The pricing is cheaper than other competing products, which is better for our budgets."
"It's not for free, clearly. But on the other hand, it offers very interesting functionality. We pay around €100,000."
"Pricing is a little bit expensive."
"The solution was previously well-regarded, but after being acquired by Accedian, the prices have significantly increased. This has made it challenging to sell the product due to its high cost. It is an expensive solution."
"The price is competitive overall, depending on the type of customer."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
40%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS X-Ray?
AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.
What needs improvement with AWS X-Ray?
They can improve how traces are sent to other providers.
What do you like most about Accedian Skylight?
The feature I used to like the most was its ability to decode layer seven protocols, although this is becoming less useful now that encryption is so widespread.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Accedian Skylight?
The solution was previously well-regarded, but after being acquired by Accedian, the prices have significantly increased. This has made it challenging to sell the product due to its high cost. It i...
What needs improvement with Accedian Skylight?
There should be an option to update and upgrade the solution to the new version without having to re-buy it. I have clients switching to other solutions. The old solution is great, but if you chang...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Accedian Skylight, Accedian SkyLIGHT PVX, SkyLIGHT PVX, SecurActive, Performance Vision
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow
T-Systems, Thomson Reuters, Bordeaux Metropole, CGI, Citadelle Regional Hospital Center, Lorraine Institute of Oncology, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Groupe BPCE, Group S, Splitpoint, Horus-Net, Audatex, Indexis, Province de Liège, EASI, Spie Batignolles, Faymonville
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS X-Ray vs. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.
801,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.