Feedback on two network monitoring platforms from IT Central Station, the IT pro knowledge-sharing community
Picking the right network-monitoring platform can result in better network performance, more efficient use of IT staff and improved end-user productivity, so it’s important to pick the right one.
To help in that decision-making, here is a head-to-head comparison of two popular suites, CA Spectrum and SolarWinds NPM, created using feedback from IT Central Station, a knowledge-sharing community made up of professionals discussing their own opinions about products they use every day.
CA Spectrum
Valuable Features
“Spectrum is what I like to call a good CMDB [configuration management database] product. Once you have discovered the devices, you have a good CMDB to use to populate other tools. You can create custom attributes via the Model Type Editor and use Spectrum as your ‘single pane of glass’, which contains all the info a NOC/support team needs.” – Frank T., OSS Manager at Telefónica UK/O2
“CA Spectrum allowed our client, a Tier 1 TELCO, to manage their E2E network infrastructure. The distributed architecture and eHealth integrations enabled a powerful solution for providing Hosted Managed Services to an enterprise customer. It proactively monitored the enterprise’s: GMPLS, IPVPN, ISDN, LTE and Leased Line services against set SLAs and maintained a top quality of service.” – Snehashis P., TEM Engineer at a tech services company
Room for 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.” – Mark P., Enterprise Systems Management Engineer at an aerospace/defense firm
“From the user’s perspective, the look-and-feel of dashboards of Spectrum would be easier to use and for understanding as APM will be in 10.5 version, which we saw at CA World.
“Also, from our point of view, it’s necessary that CA people in charge of the Spectrum tool work more towards better integration between Spectrum, [CA Application Performance Management], [CA Service Operations Insight] and [CA Unified Infrastructure Management].” – Edgardo S., Head of IT Operations at ICBC Argentina
(Read more CA Spectrum reviews by IT Central Station users.)
SolarWinds NPM
Valuable Features
“I love the GUI. Almost everything is accessible through the web interface. It is very user-friendly. It is easy to drag and drop resources wherever you want them. “NPM also includes additional features that come in handy, such as a web SSH console, SYSLOG and trap collectors, and Wireless Heat Maps.” Christopher G., Lead Network Engineer at a tech services company
“They have a THWACK [SolarWinds user community] support forum that is incredibly useful. I remember the days of trying to search for Microsoft problems and running into support forum posts that range from “useless” to “actually something that would harm your environment” with an extremely high noise ratio. “With THWACK, the developers will often reply directly in the forums with helpful replies. The community is also extremely helpful and fairly loyal.” – Matthew R., Network Systems Engineer at a financial services firm
Room for Improvement
“Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers (which have no connection to the public internet). Also, if you add a new license and don’t remove the old one first, NPM will recognize only the expired one and ignore the new one, which prompts an additional call to support.” – Brian V., Systems Engineer at a communications service provider
“A worldwide deployment can be confusing for dispersed users with non-local times. Each node should have a local time (with summer offset if appropriate) and each user should view and report in their local time.
“This means that the database must record metrics in Universal Time and that each node must be assigned an offset with user viewing based on their local time. It’s a significant re-write, but is essential to attract global customers.” – Robert B., Systems Management at a media company
(Read more SolarWinds NPM reviews by IT Central Station users.)
