Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Cisco and VMware are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Cisco is ranked #33 with an average rating of 9.0, while VMware is ranked #40 with an average rating of 7.5. Cisco holds a 0.3% mindshare in APM, compared to VMware’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 23 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews

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641 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 9 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

2,050 Views
1,862 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

VMware Aria Operations for ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 1, 2024

VMware Aria Operations for Applications and Accedian Skylight are both advanced application performance management solutions. VMware Aria Operations for Applications has an upper hand in ease of deployment and pricing, while Accedian Skylight stands out in features and support.

Features: VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers effective monitoring, insightful analytics, and seamless integration. Accedian Skylight provides granular visibility, high-quality network performance metrics, and flexible deployment options. Accedian Skylight appears superior in offering more detailed and adaptable features.

Room for Improvement: VMware Aria Operations for Applications could improve scalability and intuitive design. Accedian Skylight needs better documentation and a more intuitive setup process. VMware's design needs enhancement, but Accedian's documentation issues put it slightly behind.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Operations for Applications is straightforward to deploy and has responsive customer service. Accedian Skylight complexity in setup but has a proactive support team. VMware is easier to deploy, while Accedian offers better support post-deployment.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Operations for Applications is cost-effective with good ROI due to lower setup costs. Accedian Skylight comes with higher initial setup costs but offers substantial ROI from advanced insights. Users feel the higher initial investment in Accedian Skylight is justified by its performance improvements.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

33rd

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (39th)

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

40th

Average Rating

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (42nd), Container Monitoring (9th), Cloud Monitoring Software (32nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 0.8%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Sylvain Germe

Application and Network Performance Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

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.

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Yves Sandfort

CEO & Majority Shareholder at Comdivision Consulting GmbH

Aug 1, 2022

Easy to deploy, worth the money, and helpful for uptime monitoring and performance insights

Its billing model is consumption-based. I understand the consumption-based model, but it is not necessarily easy to estimate and guess how many points or how much we are going to consume on a specific application up until we get to that point. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more. The other thing for us is that while it is great that we have all these standard metrics, it would be good if we can also more easily define standard metrics to be consumed for our own application. At the moment, for a lot of applications, we have to reinvent the wheel every time. If there was something so that we can build our own packaging of metrics, it would be helpful. In the future, we might be deploying our software to other customers as well. So, they should make it easier to redeploy that. There should be more customizable dashboards. The Wavefront dashboards are very technical and a more business-oriented dashboard design would definitely help.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I always have the Skylight dashboard on one of my screens... Now you can create your own dashboard, specific to an application, specific to a server, or to something else."

"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."

"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 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."

"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..."

"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 performance of Accedian Skylight is better than other vendors."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

"The solution is great for virtualization and preparing the infrastructure in Tanzu to test products. It's very fast and has good visibility."

"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."

"People are very pleased with the implementation."

"For us, the ease of deployment in combination with TMZ was the most important part because we don't have to manually deploy a complex monitoring solution. We can more or less do that with the click of a button, and we are not dependent on the developers to provide us with all the necessary features and functions to make that work. We can just deploy it on a workload cluster and monitor at least a good part of the workload. If we want to go into detail, we clearly need to make changes, but for a good part of application monitoring, it gives us good insights."

"No issues with stability."

"The features I find most valuable is the querying and alerting capabilities."

"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."

"VMware comes with a support team, and if you have trouble, you can easily create a ticket, and VMware will help you. Therefore, the best aspect is the support."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

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."

"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."

"This solution is expensive compared to some others."

"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."

"The Accedian Skylight user interface still has room for improvement."

"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."

"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."

"The UI interface of Accedian Skylight could improve."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

"It could use a URL document server. Everything in the market is moving towards automation and everybody's looking for the single click operations as well relational data locality."

"In the new version, I would love to see more prediction capabilities. It would be great if one could see the alerts get a little more enriched with information and become more human-friendly instead of the technical stuff that they put in there. I think those would be really awesome outcomes to get."

"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."

"The main problem I have is that the license cost is very high."

"They could make it more easy to plug-in data so that a nontechnical person will be able to use it, like accountants or finance people. That way they don't have to ask us."

"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."

"The initial setup should be easier and more seamless."

"The documentation and integration with Kubernetes could be improved."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

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."

"We understand there's a significant cost difference, but have yet to investigate fully."

"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 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's not for free, clearly. But on the other hand, it offers very interesting functionality. We pay around €100,000."

"The pricing is cheaper than other competing products, which is better for our budgets."

"It provides value and the cost is not huge."

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."

"I don't have the details. In our case, there is a mixture in place. We have production usage, and we are also doing training for VMware. So, we also have a training instance. It is worth the money you would spend on it. That's because if you were to build all of this yourself by using some of the open source tools, then you would need a lot of time."

"The licensing costs are very high, particularly when you consider that we have to purchase a level 1 license for every integration, such as the load balancer, HAProxy, and the MSSP. And if you want to use vSAN, that's another license. Then, of course, Tanzu Observability has its own separate license."

"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

39%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

VMware comes with a support team, and if you have trouble, you can easily create a ticket, and VMware will help you. Therefore, the best aspect is the support.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

I would rate the pricing as three out of five.

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

It's hard to set up Tanzu clusters. It's hard to do a POC. Once you set up a customer's environment, you easily see the problems. The initial setup should be easier and more seamless.

See all answers

Comparisons

ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 47% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 15% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 10% of the time

Dynatrace vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 7% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 5% of the time

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Grafana vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 14% of the time

Dynatrace vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 10% of the time

Zabbix vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 7% of the time

Datadog vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 7% of the time

Prometheus vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

November 2024

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

October 2024

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

Download VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report

Also Known As

Accedian Skylight, Accedian SkyLIGHT PVX, SkyLIGHT PVX, SecurActive, Performance Vision

Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability

Learn More

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Cisco

VMware

Overview

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance offers real-time application and network performance monitoring, VPN management, and network diagnostics across multiple sites.

Organizations use Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance for active and passive monitoring, stress testing, and troubleshooting performance issues. Deployed both on-premise and in the cloud, it supports IT infrastructure, security, and analytics with end-to-end performance measurement across cloud data centers. The modern, intuitive interface features TWAMP for real-time traffic accuracy and standardized reports, along with insightful dashboards for circuit performance, latency, jitter, and throughput monitoring.

What are the most important features?

TWAMP: Provides real-time traffic accuracy and standardized reporting.
Insightful Dashboards: Monitor circuit performance, latency, jitter, and throughput.
Security Integration: Compatible with tools like Splunk for enhanced security.
Application Support: Facilitates comprehensive network performance analysis.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Quick Corrective Actions: Immediate response capabilities for performance issues.
Easy Navigation: User-friendly layouts simplify monitoring and troubleshooting.
Comprehensive Analytics: Advanced tools for in-depth network performance insights.
Cloud and On-Premise Options: Flexible deployment to meet different needs.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance ensures robust performance monitoring and quick diagnostics for VPNs and internet lines. It aids in maintaining the integrity and security of data transference, facilitating active and passive monitoring, stress testing, and performance troubleshooting across geographically dispersed locations, ensuring seamless operation and compliance with industry standards.

VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront is a powerful tool for monitoring and analyzing the performance and availability of applications and infrastructure in real-time.

With its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, visualizing and analyzing data becomes effortless. The real-time alerting system ensures timely issue resolution, while scalability and a user-friendly interface provide a seamless experience for smooth operations.

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

1. Atlassian 2. Cisco 3. Databricks 4. DigitalOcean 5. Equinix 6. Fidelity Investments 7. Google 8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise 9. Honeywell 10. IBM 11. Intel 12. JetBlue Airways 13. LinkedIn 14. Lyft 15. Mastercard 16. Microsoft 17. MongoDB 18. Netflix 19. Nvidia 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Pinterest 23. Qualcomm 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. SAP 27. Spotify 28. Square 29. TMobile 30. Twitter 31. Uber 32. VMware

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

October 2024

Free Report: Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

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