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it_user558063 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
The ability to receive and correlate alarms and determine impacts when outages occur is valuable.

What is most valuable?

The ability to receive and correlate alarms and determine impacts when outages occur.

How has it helped my organization?

As a user of it, it's been fantastic just because it does so many things all in one configuration section. The alarms monitoring of the correlation of events is valuable. It’s been a great experience.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see easier use in some things, such as trying to configure certain correlations I've been working on. It's been a little bit of a hassle, because I'm not super familiar with their products and the best way to go about things.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability has been great once you get it up and running. I've had issues getting new installs to work, but once it's finally going and all set up to go, it's been fantastic.

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DX Spectrum
April 2025
Learn what your peers think about DX Spectrum. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
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How was the initial setup?

I was involved in a couple of installations. It was very straightforward. It was just a matter of installing the package, doing the extraction, running it, and it seemed to work.

What other advice do I have?

In terms of choosing a network management applicationsvendor, look for stability and ease of use. I've seen that with the other applications. We have issues happening all the time, although I haven't seen it with CA. I would suggest getting your hands on a product in a lab and play around with it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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it_user496368 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Coordinator at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
The network monitoring features are the product’s most valuable features.

What is most valuable?

The network monitoring features are the product’s most valuable, due to the lack of these capabilities in any other monitoring tool. No other application monitors networks as well as Spectrum.

Free tools are available to do what its other features do, such as server monitoring (CPU/memory/disk).

What needs improvement?

We are not using the latest version of the tool yet, but as far as I know, I think an improving reporting of data would be a good idea. The report area is very poor and we cannot work properly with additional information and the custom reports. We just use the default report for information that we have inside the database for these reports.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with this tool for eight years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

To be honest, Spectrum is one of the most stable and less problematic solutions that we work with. It’s easy to scale and to deploy. The only time we’ve had problems with it was with some upgrading processes. It is not so intuitive and you have to make sure everything is correct.

How are customer service and technical support?

The CA support team is really capable and efficient when it comes to Spectrum. Most of the time they help us surprisingly fast and correctly.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I’ve worked with free tools such as Zabbix / Nagios. Right now, we only work with CA products and, as I’ve written, Spectrum is the way to go when you need networking monitoring.

How was the initial setup?

Setting up general monitoring is straightforward. However, if you need something different than the standard setup, some customizations need to be done. Thus, it becomes more complex as a whole.

What about the implementation team?

We have an ongoing vendor support team and we have an in-house one. For implementation advice, I would say to always plan your monitoring according to what you really need to monitor on your environment. Most of the problems we find today are related to operation process issues and not the tool at all. People have to know what they want before implementing the solution.

What other advice do I have?

As I’ve written, not only for Spectrum, but for any monitoring tool, you need to know what is critical in your environment and think how exactly you should monitor and treat it. If you have done that, everything will work just fine.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
DX Spectrum
April 2025
Learn what your peers think about DX Spectrum. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user354864 - PeerSpot reviewer
Tier 3 Technical Support Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
We can respond to network events and our surveillance department can get people dispatched right away. It'd be nice to have a trouble ticket feature added to the software release.

Valuable Features

The most valuable feature for us is that we can model a large variety of devices and receive SNMP traps from them.

Improvements to My Organization

It allows us to respond to network events, and we have a surveillance department that monitors all these inbound reports and we can get people dispatched right away.

Room for Improvement

A lot of things are internal development, like we'll have a network alert and we've got it configured so that it can open a trouble ticket and service management system. You know, a lot of features like that are the ones that we can develop internally without necessarily having it added to the software release, but it would be nice to have it added nevertheless.

Stability Issues

Not really on the CA site itself. We may have put under-powered servers running the application or things like that and those are some issues that we're working on internally to actually make it supported by CA. A lot of it really has to do with how much time you invest in setting it up and having the right hardware.

Customer Service and Technical Support

I haven't personally called them.

Initial Setup

I didn't do the initial setup as far as installing the application. I've done a lot of tweaking of views of what the user should see and things like that and that's not difficult.

ROI

It's really tough to say because it really does have a lot to do with how much time you put into it. If we had a crew that just completely dialed in everything and set it up, had the right hardware, it's kind of a totally different question than if, internally, you developed it on unsupported hardware, didn't spend much time setting it up.

Other Solutions Considered

We've had a few previous competitors over the years that I've worked with the company. Spectrum can do SNMP inquiries and alert you that a device is totally unreachable. With some of our previous platforms it was a one way process.

Other Advice

Go for it. Try the best you can to start out fully within specifications and that kind of thing. We're going back and fixing all that now, which we might not have had to.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Our clients can monitor their infrastructure at a deeper level, more detailed and technical specific view, and at different levels (IT management, IT ops, etc.).

What is most valuable?

  • Root cause analysis
  • Configurations management
  • Device compatibility features (buit-in, MIBs and device self-certification)

How has it helped my organization?

Not from my organization, but for our customers. They managed to monitor their infrastructure at a deeper level, more detailed and technical specific view (NOC-like and NOC-compliant features), and of course at different levels (IT management, IT operational etc.). Also, by integrating with other products like CA Unified Infrastructure Management or CA Service Desk Manager, you can achieve a greater value.

What needs improvement?

The graphical interface is still designed in an old fashioned way, and they should include some management views in a much more modern manner.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been implementing it for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Spectrum is a very stable product. It is a mature product, with a long life time in CA’s portfolio, and even before.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Spectrum is a very scalable product. You can add more than one SpectroServers for balancing and availability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

It's very good, 10/10.

Technical Support:

Very good, also for device self-certification, development. There is also a very strong community (actually multiple communities) – 10/10

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used and implemented the old product, CA Infrastructure Management, which included Spectrum, but also I am implementing CA UIM.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward, and after the initial setup you can start the device discovery. You can configure multiple discovery profiles and schedule them as you please. After discovery, you can see devices and servers in the universe and you can start to manage them.

The configuration is easy, but it depends on the device’s technology. The discovery is very easy to do and the topology view is customizable.

What about the implementation team?

Although Spectrum is an easy to install and have it ready to use product, it is a very complex solution and it can be customized in so many ways. So, for large environments or NOCs I would definitely recommend specialized implement team like from CA’s partners or CA Services.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The other option from CA is CA Unified Infrastructure Management, but it lacks for configuration management feature. It is positioned differently on the market.

What other advice do I have?

I do not know any other product better for NOCs. When you start researching for this kind of solution, you should have prepared a list with all your devices you want to manage, and features you want from this solution. Usually the number and type of the devices is important.

Don't consider this product a service desk product. It is an infrastructure management product with some light features for incident management. Spectrum is great for what it does as a management tool. You can monitor your infrastructure, manage events and alarms as you please (aggregation, alarm suppressing, thresholds, rules, etc.), manage configurations for network devices (depends on the management capabilities of the device), monitor SLAs and other great stuff like these.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We're a CA Partner.
PeerSpot user
it_user306336 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user306336Spectrum consultant at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User

Thanks for your inputs here while I completely agree with whatever you have mentioned in your review. Since you talked about UIM here as well, I would strongly say that when you integrate UIM (aka Nimsoft Monitor) with Spectrum it adds further more value towards what all it is capable of. ( Since UIM throws the information it collected to Spectrum when it's integrated)

Cheers!
Lakshmi.

it_user217680 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
It has the ability to discover your environment and devices easily, however, the ability to import new MIBs needs to be improved.

What is most valuable?

  • The ease of discovery of managed devices into the tool set
  • The ease of placement of managed devices into the tool set
  • The integration with CA Service Desk
  • Email integration

How has it helped my organization?

Since Spectrum is integrated with our Service Desk, implementation alerts generate a USD request which then fire off notifications to the responsible engineers.

What needs improvement?

The ability to import new MIBs and manage new devices.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for nine years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Only if the server that hosts the application is restarted without bringing down Spectrum. If this occurs it corrupts the database and has to be restored from the backup.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

8/10.

Technical Support:

8/10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Yes, we used TNG, which was impossible to manage.

How was the initial setup?

It was straightforward. It has the ability to discover your environment and devices easily.

What about the implementation team?

We used a combination of an in-house team and a vendor team. The expertise of the vendor team was good.

What other advice do I have?

For network management, this application is by far the best.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Ravi Suvvari - PeerSpot reviewer
Ravi SuvvariPerformance and Fault-tolerance Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees
Top 10Real User

Thanx for sharing CA Spectrum Review

PeerSpot user
Advanced Solutions - Sr. Strategy Advisor at GDT - General Datatech
Real User
Improved our network assurance levels for our business units
Pros and Cons
  • "The Spectrum tool improved our network assurance levels for our business units."
  • "The CA Technologies sales team destroyed their relationship with our business units."
  • "It needs better integration with other CA products."

What is our primary use case?

  • Global deployment for AIG NOC
  • Deployment in customer networks, as well as multi-tenant deployment at Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) 

How has it helped my organization?

The Spectrum tool improved our network assurance levels for our business units. However, the CA Technologies sales team destroyed their relationship with our business units.

What is most valuable?

  • Monitoring
  • The dashboard 

What needs improvement?

It needs better integration with other CA products.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user643890 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Systems Management (ESM) Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
In most cases, monitoring uses device models that match the actual device.

What is most valuable?

This product automates much of what is involved in monitoring. For instance, device discovery can be performed in any of a number of ways with minimal manual intervention. The model catalog in Spectrum (digital models for various physical or virtual devices) is very extensive so, in most cases, monitoring uses device models that precisely match the actual device. This provides excellent tailored monitoring ability. Spectrum can be set up as fully fault-tolerant and in that scenario, it can provide near 100% monitoring up-time; five-nines monitoring up-time is certainly attainable.

How has it helped my organization?

A good example would be our world map. This organization is international. We built a zoom-able world map in Spectrum depicting every company site in every nation and US state. The maps provide a true “at a glance” view of issues across company sites. Roll-up is user-definable. The maps are also very popular with visitors and customers since they are attractive and it is obvious at a glance what they depict. The fact that Spectrum provides the ability to build and link these maps is a real plus.

What needs improvement?

CA works continuously to upgrade this product, adding new abilities and fixing bugs. They do a very creditable job. The areas I am aware of that could use improvement are fairly minor; for example, the ability to sort lists in the Discovery Console. Things like that. CA provides a good customer feedback mechanism they have dubbed “the idea wall”. Suggestions for improvements, expansions, etc., can be posted there. These ideas are often incorporated into CA products.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this product for six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Occasionally, usually after an upgrade, we see a few issues but these are almost always cleared up quickly by opening a case with CA. The only “stability” issue would be very occasional problems with the “Archive Manager” component (manages the event DB) stopping and requiring restart. I would characterize stability issues with Spectrum as rare.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We had no scalability problems at all. Spectrum is a supremely scalable product. The recent upgrade of Spectrum to 64-bit has dramatically increased the already very good scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support for CA Spectrum is excellent and seems to me to be in a state of continuous improvement/refinement. I would rate the technical support as 95/100.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

This organization previously used the IBM Tivoli product.

How was the initial setup?

Setup is relatively straightforward and with the support of the CA technical staff, it proceeds very straightforwardly. Spectrum can be implemented entirely on virtual devices, as it is here. Training is available and purchase usually includes a certain amount of training credits.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated IBM Tivoli and BMC Patrol/TrueSight.

What other advice do I have?

This is a very good, refined product that, in the fault-tolerant configuration, approaches being bulletproof. Allow extra time for installation, setup and familiarization. This is not due to installation and setup complexities but more due to the richness and extensive capability of this product.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user492783 - PeerSpot reviewer
Monitoring Consultant at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
It helps us to be proactive by monitoring the entire network (data and voice) in real time.

What is most valuable?

We consolidated multiple enterprise monitoring tools into a single toolset (using UIM and Spectrum integrated) that provides a vision of services, topologies, network configuration backup, network configuration scripts to configure devices in groups, MPLS vision, VPN vision, global collections to give a vision of branches, and ability to group network devices by priority.

How has it helped my organization?

Besides the technical benefits described, CA UIM and CA Spectrum were the key factors in increasing the SLA from the IT environment to 99.99%, from the 99.5% achieved without CA solutions. This achievement completely changed the way how LoBs see and recognize IT as their partners, avoiding the blame game and finger-pointing. After improving the SLA metrics, the next step was to get closer to the LoBs and provide relevant dashboards, punting together business views and emphasizing how it is related to IT, and vice versa.

After several weeks, this partnership and closer communication between IT and LoBs resulted in some dependency of LoB on UIM dashboards (i.e., every hour executive and tactical dashboards are sent to the senior executives). It is impressive how important it is to be connected with LoBs using simple, visual and intuitive dashboards that remove the roadblocks between IT and the entire organization.

What needs improvement?

  • Integrations with other CA products 
  • A better way to create reports

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used it for eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I’m a CA beta tester and found all issues that need to be solved in this program. I have no stability issues in my production environment.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not previously use a different solution.

What other advice do I have?

This is a very stable product. It helps us to be proactive and prevents the company from losing money and business, by monitoring the entire network (data and voice) of the company (head office and branches) in real time, showing exactly where errors occur.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free DX Spectrum Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free DX Spectrum Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.