DX Spectrum Reviews

Root cause analysis, fault isolation, customizations, and CA support tech access.

It decreased our downtime.

Interop between server/agent based monitoring (UIM).

We have been using this since the early 90s.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

Technical support is the best in class.

We used many, including HPOW, NetView, and Nagios.

The initial setup was straightforward to install. Then it’s a rather big leap between basic usage and pro-usage. Spectrum is VERY tech advanced in its core, compared with other tools on the market. But that doesn’t show up until you do a more advanced type of monitoring.

Maintain a good relationship with CA.

My role does include a continuous monitoring of other products on the market, but none are near Spectrum’s root cause engine, which really is what it is all about.

Try to see through other product’s GUIs and focus on backend core features. How does the product isolate faults? Do different modules have to work together to triage root cause?

The alarm and root cause analysis features are the most valuable to me. These features help to pinpoint causes of outages and performance issues.This ultimately identifies the specific component responsible for an issue thus accelerating problem/issue resolution.

It has helped to accelerate issue resolution.

I supported a client running this solution for about four years.

There were no scalability issues. It integrated easily with the other third-party solution.

CA support was good.

The client had always used CA Spectrum from its inception.

The setup was pretty straightforward, as with most of the monitoring tools. The setup's implementation and the support were straightforward, with the documented support provided.

CA Spectrum is expensive. CA should really consider this factor, as smaller companies would prefer to go for cheaper monitoring tools instead.

The customer considered SolarWinds. They eventually opted for CA Spectrum because it proved to manage and monitor their large infrastructures more effectively.

The recent versions of the CA Spectrum, such as version 10, have new added features that give organizations a good ROI.

We migrated all monitoring, which was previously monitored by the Applications Manager for CA Spectrum/CA eHealth.

All networks (or network equipment) are monitored through CA Spectrum. However, the service monitoring part of the tool is not the best solution.

For networks:

• CA Spectrum
• CA eHealth

For applications:

• CA UIM
• Zabbix has always supported us in custom monitoring, scripting, etc.
  

OS monitoring needs to be better developed, as well as their services, e.g., cluster monitoring, URLs, etc.

• Event Correlation
• Relationship between the services delivery infrastructure
• Policy creation by events
• Root Cause
• Attribute monitoring
• Integration with other tools

It helps to detect the exact root cause of the element that is causing an incident in the infrastructure.

There is a need for the separation of monitoring models as a log, Windows service, etc.

I have used this solution for seven years.

It is a very stable tool, even in distributed environments.

The technical support is at a high level.

We have not used other tools. This solution gives more stability, capacity, quantity and quality, in regards to the monitoring configurations. Besides that, it is an excellent event manager.

The initial configuration is simple. It becomes complex, as the monitoring is more specialized.

The price is high, as compared to other solutions.

We looked at other free products, namely Nagios and Zenoss.

It is an excellent tool for monitoring, managing event correlation, and providing integration with other tools.