Broadcom DX Unified Infrastructure Manager, formerly from CA Technologies, is a unified tool for systems monitoring and analytics. It offers multiple deployment options for IT teams and MSPs .
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DX Spectrum
Score 6.5 out of 10
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DX Spectrum (formerly CA Spectrum) is network fault management software, from Broadcom company CA Technologies.
Broadcom Unified Infrastructure Management gives you an extremely easy implementation facility whether it is the core application, reporting hubs, or agents. Apart from that, it has extremely good customer support. The documentation with respect to each component is really …
Cost models: servers vs component CA uses more of a server/device model where SolarWinds uses more of a component model. I prefer CA's model better for large MSP types; SolarWinds is better priced for Non-MSP shops.
Basically, these other tools were easy to setup, I think sometimes even more that Nimsoft in some scenarios. But after you need to expand the size of the environment, or in big environments, for me, Nimsoft is the tool that allows you to grow with them. All of the other tools …
All tools have their own gaps , some seem to do more than others, some just work better. With UIM we have found a sweet spot with features, price point, pros, cons, etc.
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.
Other tools I have used are more server/application-centric. CA Spectrum seems to work effectively and efficiently for network devices. Notification delays can be set to grant grace periods in case of network blips or false positives, which occur ALL the time. Other monitoring …
I've been really happy with the amount of performance data and reporting options that I've been able to get out of UIM. Performance hardware statistics take no more than a few mouse clicks. Also, as mentioned in the pros section, deployment and configuration is very intuitive and easy.
To detect network anomalies, outages, packet loss, blocks, floods, disconnections, link statuses, power supply failures, UPS failures/low batteries, etc.
Basically anything that can and will go wrong with the network, Spectrum will give you the drop before user community is aware.
Server performance can be done exceptionally well with UIM. It monitors various OS flavors: POSIX (Aix, HPUX, Linux, Solaris, zLinux), and Windows.
With just a handful of probe s(CDM, NTevl, NTservices, NTperf, processes, logmon) your dashboards can be populated within minutes after installation of the product and discovering servers. One particular feature I like is MCS which allows you to perform template based monitoring which allows for implementing standards and including exceptions.
The SNMP collector monitors anything that is SNMP capable. With the ability to build a template out of templates here as well, you can standardize monitoring by device, vendor, or model regardless of device type: routers, switches, storage, load balancers, etc.
The UMP is the presentation layer. Without OOTB dashboards, you see quickly how your environment is performing. And with true multi-tenancy, you can separate data by customer.
Basically, these other tools were easy to setup, I think sometimes even more that Nimsoft in some scenarios. But after you need to expand the size of the environment, or in big environments, for me, Nimsoft is the tool that allows you to grow with them. All of the other tools start to present problems in the database. When you need to think in bigger machines or start to "code inside the tool" to solve some performance problems, and other problems that appear. Nimsoft comes with a big set of documentation, and the support really works, as fast as you need, even as higher as you pay.
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.