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Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs OpenText Business Process Monitoring comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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

Cisco Provider Connectivity...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
45th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (43rd)
OpenText Business Process M...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
30th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Business Process Monitoring is 0.1%, down from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Sylvain Germe - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
AD
Implementation is quite easy, synthetic monitoring transactions in place and good elements report-wise
The current challenges surprised me. It doesn't support the latest versions of SNMP(at the time of writing), the standard communication protocol for sending alerts. It's still using SNMP version one, which surprised everyone and required extra processes from the security team. Fortunately, we're not sending sensitive data, so we were able to get sign-off. Otherwise, it could have been more challenging. We expected them to use the standard SNMP version three protocol. Real-time analytics comes up during certain calls, but again, Micro Focus has only mentioned that. They have their own tool as well for implementing. So we had a few calls on that side. It’s all more customer-driven. That is still under discussion, and we haven’t gone much into that yet. But, real-time is something the team is interested in, but at the moment, there are various challenges in terms of funding and things like that. Reports can be enhanced further. There are tools like Grafana, and since I've been part of this process, I appreciate this product. But there are debates about why we can't implement Grafana in the future. There are also discussions about real user monitoring versus synthetic monitoring, and which is better. The interface could be improved; I'd rate it a seven out of ten. This is where it can be also improved. We also faced challenges installing the BPM packages. We eventually got support, but there are situations now where many companies don’t want third parties to come and install the software. They want their own IT team to install these BPMs because they don’t want to give root-level privileges due to security constraints. So, the installation package manuals can be improved a little bit so that any team, whether from Intel or any support team, can understand and install those BPMs. The installation package manuals could be improved so any team can understand and install the VPNs. Monitoring, especially during configuration, can also be enhanced. There are various levels of configurations, and the documentation could be improved. I think AI is everywhere. So, it is something bad at the moment. There are initiatives, but still not visible. There is background work happening, and a few teams are working on those things. But, it is still not visible yet like what level of automation possibilities there are. Various software like UiPath and RPA, robotic process automation, but it’s not really materialized to the full extent. It’s still early stage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One valuable feature we have is real-time monitoring for connection issues."
"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..."
"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."
"I think the analytics features are okay. My customer also likes the interface, the GUI, because it's easy to operate."
"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."
"For us, the most valuable feature is something called TWAMP that allows for real-time traffic in a way that is 10 times lighter than things like SolarWinds. It's in the sub-milliseconds of accuracy, and you can divide tasks so that you can literally see things like the tagging for Quality of Service. That had been incorrect with the carrier, but there was no way on this planet you'd be able to tell a carrier that they're wrong. I have dozens of scenarios where we found "No, that's not right," and got it resolved instantly."
"This solution has helped to improve the interaction between our network, datacenter, and application teams. I have used other tools, but this tool can pinpoint the root cause of my application or network issue in the majority of the cases. So, it helps different divisions or groups in the IT department to troubleshoot together and get an issue resolved. This tool helps a lot in our day-to-day networking application and IT operations."
"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."
"The stability has been very good over the years."
"The tool team was sort of aware of those tools to deal with. And, that helped us to deliver the project on time."
"Automates processes and allows reports and statistics to improve the speed at which changes and assets are managed."
 

Cons

"Some of the Skylight applications are a little newer, and they're still moving through initial revs. There are certain bugs, but nothing is insurmountable... It will just take a little bit of time for their user interface to get a little bit better."
"Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues."
"Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues."
"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."
"I would like to see some improvements in parts of their synthetic transactions, which includes all the latency, jitter, and throughput. I would like to see some Layer 7 analytics in there. I want to be able to do a DNS request, HTTP GET request, or even SIP call point-to-point or via registration."
"The Accedian Skylight user interface still has room for improvement."
"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."
"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."
"The solution should offer better integration with other tools from a service management perspective."
"Product documentation is lacking, and sometimes, incorrect. Having better documentation will allow business analysts and data center personnel to rely on the Micro Focus help desk less."
"It doesn't have SNMP, the standard communication protocol for sending alerts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing is cheaper than other competing products, which is better for our budgets."
"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."
"It's not for free, clearly. But on the other hand, it offers very interesting functionality. We pay around €100,000."
"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."
"It provides value and the cost is not huge."
"On a three-year license package, it was a good deal."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
39%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Accedian Skylight?
Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues. I require more tools to file and resolve these issues efficiently.
What is your primary use case for Accedian Skylight?
I had prepared for COC and the client. I work as a vendor for a client using Flow Mount for network performance monitoring. I focus on resolving client-side issues related to Packy Performance and ...
What do you like most about Micro Focus Business Process Monitor?
Synthetic Monitoring is a very good capability as we can simulate the end-user interaction with the application and proactively we can discover issues before the real end users are impacted.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Business Process Monitor?
The current challenges surprised me. It doesn't have SNMP, the standard communication protocol for sending alerts. It's still using SNMP version one, which surprised everyone and required extra pro...
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Business Process Monitor?
We wanted to have synthetic monitoring transactions in place, and we have used it for a while with previous tools. It’s basically Topaz or HP, then Micro Focus, and now it’s OpenText. We used it fo...
 

Also Known As

Accedian Skylight, Accedian SkyLIGHT PVX, SkyLIGHT PVX, SecurActive, Performance Vision
Micro Focus Business Process Monitor, HPE Business Process Monitor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
United Airlines, Vodafone Ireland, TEB, The Australian Red Cross Blood Service
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. OpenText Business Process Monitoring and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,476 professionals have used our research since 2012.