We performed a comparison between AirMagnet Survey, DX Spectrum, and LinkRunner based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about NetAlly, Wireshark, Auvik and others in Network Troubleshooting."The predictive survey is the most valuable feature. I use it quite often."
"Clear and easy to use maps."
"The most valuable features are the survey, spectrum analysis, and reporting."
"It is reliable and easy to use (user-friendly). The heat mapping, passive network surveying, and doing the heat mapping of a building's wireless network allows me to see what level of coverage an area has."
"The most valuable feature is the predictive survey. The antennas' RF patterns are reflected correctly on the drawing when preparing predictive heat maps."
"Customer service is great."
"The heat maps are quite good, and some features are easy to use."
"We use the solution for Wi-Fi and networks."
"It is easy to understand and determine when and/or where the network is failing."
"It covers a lot of different types of hardware. It can do a lot and saves us time."
"It is very stable. We have not had any major issues in over 10 years."
"Spectrum is very useful for us, because the product lets us monitor and control all the various components of our infrastructure that support our business from an IT perspective."
"The tool is very mature, and its valuable features are monitoring and configuration management."
"All networks (or network equipment) are monitored through CA Spectrum."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery, which is nice because you don't have to do anything to add a new component."
"The containerization of different objects was very helpful in building an org structure. Being able to separately manage your MSP clients with separate visibility was also helpful."
"The most valuable feature is the end-to-end testing with the "dart," as they call it, where you can test for faults in the cable or if they've been terminated properly."
"Having the results sent directly, via email, from the LinkRunner itself makes it really great for logging different things that you're trying to document within your organization. You can have a paper trail of what your organization has as far as infrastructure goes."
"The AutoTest feature makes it easy for you on both ends. It's an excellent feature, especially if you're by yourself. You plug one end in and you hit AutoTest. It sits and waits for you to plug in the other end and it starts testing."
"In terms of network validation, and copper and fiber Ethernet configuration, I can't imagine life without LinkRunner devices. The minute I got the 10G, everybody was fighting over it. They had never used such a device before and it was just breathtaking for them to very quickly see the validation you can gain from these devices."
"AutoTest is very helpful. It's very streamlined and it's very easy to set up and very easy to identify what we want to achieve. It's probably the feature we use the most. It provides us with LLTD, which is very useful."
"The LLDP decoding is better than on some of the other devices that we've used. Specifically, it goes beyond the minimum of the LLDP data to decode, and it shows the LLDP port descriptions. That makes it vastly simpler to identify which port you're connecting to on a switch that's patched back to some other building, rather than having to figure out an SNMP index or something else."
"I like that LinkRunner is an all-in-one device with a touchscreen interface. You don't have to pair it with a phone or anything else to get the full functionality. The built-in tests are one of the most significant advantages. It will pull an IP, ping the gateway, ping out to the intra, and report everything on the screen. It will tell you when a test completes or fails and why."
"It provides a way to test 10Gig connectivity. Previously, we had to hook up a switch. That was our only way. Now, with LinkRunner, we can test on the fly if an SFP is bad or if the switch has the right configuration on it."
"The user interface needs a lot of improvement. The auto-placement of access points is not accurate."
"The throughput should be more advanced in the future. They need to add more versions of WiFi than just one."
"Printouts are JPEG printouts. The AirMagnet software is proprietary. I can't send my customers a file, because it is AirMagnet file, even for building projects. I can only send JPEGs or screenshots of heat maps."
"AirMagnet Survey doesn't cover certain devices in the system."
"It'd be nice if it was cheaper, however, you get value for your money."
"The surveying features are in need of improvement, along with general usability."
"Less time consumed doing the real surveys."
"I would say some of our newer techs that are going out to job sites can be a little bit intimidated by the interface."
"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."
"The solution could improve by allowing the ability to monitor the network shortly after installing the software and adding an auto-discovery function."
"DX Spectrum is stable. However, now and then there are some issues, but overall it is good."
"Event correlation only works on one server, rather than on all of the servers in the same cluster environment."
"It doesn't really allow for multi-tenancy. If you're an ISP or an MSP and you want to use this tool to provide these types of fault management services to your customers, you would need a separate SpectroSERVER for each customer..."
"It was somewhat complex to implement."
"Make it easier to certify devices."
"It's not a great performance management tool. Its reporting capabilities are not very good at all."
"It's a little bit tough getting used to at first, but once you get the hang of it, and once you start using it more, like anything, it gets easier. The difficult part, at first, is knowing where to find each test and how to use the tests."
"If it weren't for the battery, it would probably get an eight out of 10. But because of the battery, it's infuriating and it's not reliable."
"It doesn't turn off automatically, but the toning function goes to sleep. It seems to stop toning after five or six minutes if you don't find the cable. It could be up to ten minutes, but if you don't find the cable that you're trying to tone quick enough, you'll have to go back and restart the tone. So, it doesn't turn itself off, but while toning, it turns itself off."
"It is very stable. That being said, there is one feature that is not quite as stable as the rest of the product. You can leave it plugged into a location where you're doing some work and connect to it remotely by a program called VNC... sometimes that function breaks down, if you've been running for a couple of days... if you're remotely controlling it, you're probably not right next to it. That can be modestly annoying."
"Being really nitpicky about the LinkRunner G2, I wish the form factor was a little bit smaller. However, I'm sure that the size of the unit is compromised by the fact that the battery is large. If that were to mean having less battery life, I would not change it."
"They should allow firmware updates even if you don't have an AllyCare contract. I'm in a situation right now where they've released firmware for bug fixes, but we cannot access those, which makes the device almost useless. You almost want to just throw it out the window because they're not supporting their product unless you have an AllyCare contract."
"It runs tests quickly, but it takes a while to boot up. It's somewhat disappointing that LinkRunner takes some time to turn on. When I arrive in the space, I usually spend the first two minutes waiting."
"Unlike using an application like Wireshark, this device gives us no way to see network packets specifically to look at what's going on. It doesn't have the capability."
