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DX Performance Management vs DX Spectrum comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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

DX Performance Management
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
26th
Ranking in DX NetOps
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure Capacity Planning (2nd)
DX Spectrum
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
21st
Ranking in DX NetOps
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (6th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), Network Troubleshooting (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the DX NetOps category, the mindshare of DX Performance Management is 37.5%, down from 40.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DX Spectrum is 32.5%, down from 41.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
DX NetOps
 

Featured Reviews

Sandip Kheni - PeerSpot reviewer
The vertical database loads faster than any other product available
We experience disconnections between the solutions own components. In the last five years, there have been many intermittent connection issues with the four components and we still don't know the reasons. The solution has issues when loading groups that have been created in the application interfaces. It would be nice to have a mobile application. In the current industry and technical word, the mobile phone is the only thing that is always in your hands. Other Broadcom products have mobile applications but the solution doesn't offer one. It would be great to view device parameters and view or download graphs from a mobile device.
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

"Spectrum is very good at monitoring all network faults and configurations."
"The feature that is inherent to its core, of being able to graphically represent a trend and status, is nice."
"There is a good amount of vendor certification which comes with the product. That's all factory-loaded, no need to load any custom-made files. Most of the metrics are calibrated and captured from the devices based on the defaults available from vendor certification."
"You can have thousands of devices inside and hundreds of thousands of interphases without a problem."
"When we deployed it, right out of the box we were able to stand up Performance Management within two weeks, in our production environment, with full discovery and relevant information, actual information, that we could use in our command center, our 24/7 operations center."
"Since the implementation of the tool, it has cut down on probably 60% of our outages and letting us know what is going on."
"I can get it to run a report showing, for instance, what root drives are in the critical range in terms of being full, like 90 percent full, and disseminate that information to the other areas of the organization."
"What is most useful is visibility."
"This product provides good visibility into applications at the backend."
"It is easy to navigate."
"The containerization of different objects was very helpful in building an org structure. Being able to separately manage your MSP clients with separate visibility was also helpful."
"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 most valuable features have been the interface and the ability to do equipment management."
"It creates transparency and makes everything work by being more transparent."
"The product’s stability and robustness are valuable."
"The tool is very mature, and its valuable features are monitoring and configuration management."
 

Cons

"Spectrum's topology view sometimes does not rebuild automatically when a device is shut down and reconnected. It requires manual discovery and rebuilding of the topology, which I hope can be improved."
"CA PM Business Hours Filtering: I understand that all monitoring systems have defects. The Business Hours Filtering does not always function properly. Sometimes, when applying business hours to CA PM reports that are 30 or more days in duration, the report generation times out and does not display results. We have other CA PM reports that, when we apply Business Hours Filtering, the report results displayed are the same as without the filter. We are not sure if this is a defect in CA PM or if it is a result of our complex configuration (folder structure) and application of business hours."
"We experience disconnections between the solutions own components."
"This may be available by now but for server space, when it comes to the disk file system, I'd like to see that graphically represented, or the trend, rather than what I'm seeing now."
"I think it would be helpful having a more comprehensive set of certifications so that I could natively deploy devices to my environment and the tool would immediately recognize and immediately be able to provide relevant performance information without a lot of tuning on my part."
"There are some areas in the technology right now, like with VMs, where we are lacking with our abilities to get inside the VM to monitor traffic within the machine."
"The quantity of views which are tied to specific metric families is too high. Also, the problem is the view doesn't tell you which metric family it uses, so you don't know why you don't see data."
"We would like to be capable of reporting network performance with a report strictly focused on the times outside business hours, which CA PM does not currently support. We have discontinued the use of the Business Hours Filtering until CA engineers are able to resolve or offer guidance."
"I would recommend AI capability built-in so it becomes more predictable and we jump ahead of the curve. This is the one really important feature I would really like to see in any product that provides alarms."
"DX Spectrum needs better documentation on its complex features."
"Support from Broadcom could be better. Sometimes we wait a very long time for a solution to level three problems."
"There's a little bit of complexity to the initial install because you're dealing with operating systems. You have to make sure all the prerequisites are done, anti-virus exceptions, etc. Then there's the bringing it up and then there's discovery of the network and setting that up. It takes time."
"A better integration with the UIM, as far as being able to do root cause analysis and that type of analytics."
"It was somewhat complex to implement."
"I would suggest improving the web GUI to improve the device monitor configuration and to improve or to integrate the new tool for reporting."
"DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is based on the number of network devices."
"We were looking at other vendors in the marketplace for NetFlow, and CA just beat everybody else in price, cost, and the size to implement. ​"
"I like the licensing model because it's device-based."
"Do your homework and know how many devices you will be managing out of the gate. Be sure to project what your growth will be each year."
"They should provide more scalable licensing for the product."
"We purchase a license to use the solution every three years and we have multiple contracts. They have been increasing the price annually. We have a baseline for three years and then we need to pay the difference from the baseline, and we are in the process of negotiating a new price for all the licenses we need. The price overall is affordable."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"The price is very high."
"In general, the license cost will be about 30% of the total TCO for this tool (hardware/support team, OS costs, and OS management)."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"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
Financial Services Firm
33%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about DX Performance Management?
The tool helps us understand network performance.
What needs improvement with DX Performance Management?
Spectrum's topology view sometimes does not rebuild automatically when a device is shut down and reconnected. It requires manual discovery and rebuilding of the topology, which I hope 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?
DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow. I need to use other tools for event management. It has a dashboarding mechanism and monitors devices and network switches t...
 

Also Known As

CA Performance Management
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Jack Henry & Assoc, Target, CenturyLink, Bell Canada, BrightHouse Networks, Telus, Unisys, Verizon, Southern California Edison, GEICO, Fidelity Investments, Wells Fargo, American Family Insurance Group, Deutsche Telekom AG 
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Performance Management vs. DX Spectrum and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.