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DX Spectrum vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

DX Spectrum
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (6th), Network Monitoring Software (22nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (23rd), Network Troubleshooting (7th), DX NetOps (2nd)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. DX Spectrum is designed for DX NetOps and holds a mindshare of 31.3%, down 46.2% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, on the other hand, focuses on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), holds 7.7% mindshare, down 10.1% since last year.
DX NetOps
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

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…
Edmar Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
Very basic and doesn't have many features but enhances network monitoring
We use SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer primarily for monitoring our network traffic. We are exporting the flows from our network devices to SolarWinds, which then creates graphs showing the amount of traffic and the types of protocols in use, such as HTTP, TCP, and UDP SolarWinds NetFlow…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Spectrum does such a great job of discovering our network that we have a high confidence in what our inventory is."
"The Global Collections are what I found to be most valuable. With the Global Collections, you're able to organize and categorize devices into "folders," or functional groups and categories, so that it doesn't matter which SpectroSERVER those devices are on."
"As the kind of enterprise that straddles the line between telco size and enterprise size, it scales for us, because we're not all the way at telco yet."
"The most valuable feature is the event correlation mechanism."
"The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability."
"The most valuable feature is automatic discovery."
"We can monitor MPLS network VPN, network configuration, and backups. It's highly scalable for network configuration management."
"It does correlation so instead of producing 20 alarms if a site goes down, it only creates one."
"The monitoring is perfect, showing you the details for the utilization of resources and network bandwidth."
"In terms of the implementation, we've actually used SAM, the server and application monitoring tools. The network configuration tools are very useful in terms of bulk upgrading switches and infrastructure. Also, the Network Traffic Analyzer was extremely useful to track down errant users soaking up bandwidth."
"The integration with other SolarWinds products is good."
"The performance analysis is a valuable feature. With the performance analyzer, we can see the realtime monitoring, the realtime performance, and historical performance on specific components like virtualization storage, CPU, servers and network equipment."
"This solution gives us important information about the utilization of protocols, particularly in terms of how often they are used."
"SolarWinds has improved our organization because whenever a device is down, we get an alert."
"What my organization likes best about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its easy deployment. It's also well-integrated in terms of monitoring because my organization also uses a SolarWinds solution for monitoring. You can connect SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer directly to that monitoring tool to get information. My organization also finds the default graphs that appear before the configuration in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer very useful."
"What people found most valuable in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its report customization feature."
 

Cons

"​I would like to see them eliminate the Java console. The user interface for this is a Java applet that runs on your desktop, and it is very problematic for us."
"We have had one support issue that's been open for a couple of months, and it is currently open."
"The product should provide performance management features."
"If nobody else has said the documentation needs improvement, let's go there. I understand, you can either write about it or you can do it. And most of us would rather they do it, but now that they've done it, those of us that didn't do it, we need to go and find: "Where did they write about this to tell us how to do it?" That's always lacking."
"DX Spectrum needs to incorporate faster support."
"We have had some issues with the spec server and the high availability replication of data. It fails over well, but it does not come back very well. We get duplicated events."
"Technical support for this product is not so good. It needs improvement."
"OS monitoring needs to be better developed, as well as their services, e.g., cluster monitoring, URLs, etc."
"The price of the solution is a bit high for our clients. They should consider adjusting their price model."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the traffic generated by the analyzer and the analysis of that traffic."
"There is a lack of documentation ......as well as a lack of dashboards."
"It is very slow to pick the dynamics of the network."
"This solution does not do a very good job when I am trying to look deeper into my internal network, in particular with respect to individual ports."
"The analysis can utilize algorithms like K-means clustering or associative neural networks for predictions rather than relying on generative AI, which is more suited for text."
"I would like to see better customization capabilities."
"NTA's documentation for the implementation phase needs some enhancement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"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."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"We have licenses for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. In terms of pricing, its license is not that expensive versus other tools such as HP."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"We pay yearly, and we are happy with its price."
"The solution's licensing is high-priced."
"The pricing is really good."
"The licensing for this solution is based on the number of nodes."
"I don't have information on the licensing cost for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because it's bundled with another SolarWinds solution. My organization has seven different models and pays for the license yearly. My organization also had to deploy additional pollers, but the cost wasn't very expensive, though I can't give the exact numbers."
"For our environment, we pay approximately $25,000 USD yearly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
71%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Government
2%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing as one out of ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could improve its flexibility and integration with AI to provide analytics beyond just showing up/down statuses and traffic volumes.
 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
Netflow Traffic Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and other solutions. Updated: February 2023.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.