PeerSpot user
Principle System Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
The Custom Instrumentation feature is very valuable.

What is most valuable?

Custom Instrumentation is a good feature (instrumenting classes and methods).

How has it helped my organization?

The tools help us resolve issues with applications. For example, an application team had an issue with the slow average response time of their application. By using CA APM, we found an issue with backend calls, as well as with classes and methods within the code.

What needs improvement?

The web-view is a good app that needs to be improved. Also, it's a very useful tool but the architecture could be improved with better intelligence.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for one year.

Buyer's Guide
Broadcom DX Application Performance Management
May 2024
Learn what your peers think about Broadcom DX Application Performance Management. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2024.
771,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues with deployment so far.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool is very stable and impressive.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

One environment can only have a maximum of 10 collectors for supporting a maximum of 4000 agents.

How are customer service and support?

They have very good technical support.

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

No previous solution was used.

How was the initial setup?

It was a very straightforward setup.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it ourselves.

What was our ROI?

This tool has saved the organization a lot of money. I can see an improvement by a minimum of 3% in performance of any given application.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It depends on the requirements and varies accordingly.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also looked at AppDynamics.

What other advice do I have?

The architecture is very important, along with understanding your requirements.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: CA Gold partner.
PeerSpot user
Ravi Suvvari - PeerSpot reviewer
Ravi SuvvariPerformance and Fault-tolerance Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees
Top 5LeaderboardReal User

Thanx Umer for sharing useful review about APM

See all 2 comments
PeerSpot user
Consultant with 51-200 employees
Vendor
CA APM - diving into issues from the top

I have worked with CA APM for the last seven years. My first experience with the toolset was as a client. I am now a consultant. I have deployed and used CA APM across various industries.

What I like about CA APM is the capability to adjust it to the organisation you're working with and gain maximum value. May it be an organisation concentrating on end-user experience, or another concentrating on deep level code analysis.

The CEM-Introscope integration is often underestimated. The ability to quickly diagnose end-user and code level issues within CEM itself is a powerful feature. I have not come across this elsewhere. If there is an issue, from the one spot, you can tell:

  • Who is affected?
  • How badly are they affected?
  • Is it user-end or application?
  • Is it web-server or application server?
  • Where in the application is the bottle-neck?

All of the above can be found in just one area of the APM arsenal, giving it the unique ability in focused trouble-shooting.

There other unique capabilities to CA APM, such as it's vast array of customisable features, creating your own code for monitoring application.

The CA APM community is very active as well, with ideas from across the world, industries and capabilities...all shared. And always my go to for any questions my colleagues and I stumble upon.

There are a few areas in CA APM that I would like to see changed, the interface feels old and requires a complete revamp. And with the rich data that lives in the database, it would be nice if OOTB it provided business information, for example how many users have used your application. Of course, that doesn't stop us from pulling that information out using another CA APM feature and some perl script magic!

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: CA partner
PeerSpot user
Ravi Suvvari - PeerSpot reviewer
Ravi SuvvariPerformance and Fault-tolerance Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees
Top 5LeaderboardReal User

Very valuable inputs regarding APM Dan; Thank you for sharing Ravi Suvvari

See all 2 comments
Buyer's Guide
Broadcom DX Application Performance Management
May 2024
Learn what your peers think about Broadcom DX Application Performance Management. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2024.
771,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user108432 - PeerSpot reviewer
Support Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
Valuable features include Transaction Trace Session, Query Historical Errors and Investigator's Dashboards

Valuable Features

Transaction Trace Session, Query Historical Errors and Investigator's Dashboards

Improvements to My Organization

  • SLAs and User Experience improved (most of all- User Experience / Application performance)
  • You can fix complex incidents with a quick look at the dashboards (CA dashboards or your custom dashboards)
  • You can easily be proactive and can help to save departments a lot of time. If you have a great platform, (something that is actually very common in enterprise environments) you have a lot of log files.

Room for Improvement

Probe-based network appliance: Add more protocols (currently only supports TCP, HTTP and HTTPS) Software / Consoles / Dashboards

Use of Solution

Over 5 years

Scalability Issues

Only in old versions (where MOM does not exists)

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

I would give CA customer service a 8 out of 10.

Technical Support:

I would give CA Technical Support a 7 out of 10. They have a great knowledge database and great documentation.

Initial Setup

The initial setup was very easy. If anything, the more complex task was the configuration of the probe-based network appliance SW. To be honest, the only issue was because of an error we had with the ISO for version 9.1.4. Our storage guys "undeploy" a NFS file system from the virtual machine and the ISO (RHEL 5.2 + TIM Sw) fails in the boot. Now you can install a supported OS on your own and then install TIM SW (you can get the TIM SW installer on your own.)

Implementation Team

Our initial implementation was done by a CA spanish consultant and the posterior tuning with a CA partner. Working with them went well.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

The initial setup was a couple of days of work. Our setup cost also included a license and initial contract. There is no day-to-day cost for my company.

Other Solutions Considered

I also evaluated Compuware, Lucierna and Oracle.

Other Advice

If you are not an APM expert and have no hands of experience with any APM solution, I recommend having CA do the initial setup (or via an experience partner).

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 5LeaderboardReal User

Good Review Jose Antonio.

it_user647421 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer / System Operation Analyst 2 at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
Agent metrics and customization are valuable features.

What is most valuable?

Agent metrics and customization are valuable features for us because we can set the "resting" metrics to shutdown to prevent overhead.

How has it helped my organization?

The product has given us better visibility of the agent and communication of the WAS application to the MQ server.

What needs improvement?

It should be more user-friendly, especially the CEM part and the agent instrumentation. They should be easier for the customer experience. This is one of the key areas where other competitors, like AppDynamics, beat CA.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with stability, but you should understand how it works and build accordingly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give technical support a rating of 10/10.

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

We did not use any other solution previously.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing is a key element that needs to be noted in terms of the market for the solution.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other solutions. We selected this five years ago as there were no other such options.

What other advice do I have?

I have no specific advice except that it is a wise choice. Go for it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user598926 - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration And Development at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
The alert capability is helping us to identify and react to issues before they happen and affect our services.

What is most valuable?

The alert, action, and dashboards features are the most valuable to us. The alert capability of the CA APM solution is helping us to identify and react to issues before they happen and affect our services. The dashboard features allow us to see the health status of our applications visually; thus, it helps us to identify issues faster and easier.

How has it helped my organization?

Using CA APM has allowed us to know about the performance of our applications and servers and also to identify issues before they happen.

It helped us be proactive and resolve problems before they become system-wide issues.

What needs improvement?

The dashboards should be easier to build.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this product for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Sometimes, we had stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We did not encounter any scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give the technical support a 10 out of 10. CA has excellent technical support.

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

Previously, we were using a different solution. The reason we switched was because CA APM fits better to our monitoring needs.

How was the initial setup?

I think initial setup is a little complex.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing and licensing is reasonable.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate any other solution.

What other advice do I have?

It is a good product and comes with great features.

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.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
Agents can monitor Java and .NET applications out-of-the-box with limited configuration.

What is most valuable?

APM agents are able to monitor Java and .NET applications out-of-the-box, with limited configuration, and are able to provide Operations with insight on application performance.

How has it helped my organization?

Operations are able to view the performance of their applications and the real-user experience in business transactions, all through a single solution, CA Application Performance Management. Customers are able to understand when applications have issues and which component is causing performance degradation. From the end user to web servers, app servers and backend components, all components are monitored.

What needs improvement?

Reporting capabilities require improvements.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used it for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have been using CA APM for more than two years in production environments and no stability issues have arisen yet.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

CA APM is able to monitor hundreds of servers and applications.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support responds fast and solutions experts are available to join in if issues are complex.

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

I did not previously use a different solution.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup is simple and straightforward because agents are able to monitor applications out-of-the-box.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The license model is really easy to understand.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options.

What other advice do I have?

CA is looking forward to minimizing the effort required by implementers to build custom dashboards as the Team Center feature is able to provide out-of-the-box dashboards that depict performance of applications through many perspectives, covering all of the different user needs.

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. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are business partners.
PeerSpot user
it_user653628 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at Tech vendor
Consultant
Some of the valuable features are transaction traces and the team center.
Pros and Cons
    • "Dashboards need to be improved in order to make them self-explanatory."

    What is most valuable?

    • Transaction traces
    • Team Center
    • Dashboards
    • Alerts

    What needs improvement?

    Dashboards need to be improved in order to make them self-explanatory.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Technical support is very helpful and supportive.

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

    We did not use other solutions, but we have some ideas about other solutions.

    Other solutions are very much self0explanatory and easy to understand.

    Others have on-premises as well as SaaS solutions.

    How was the initial setup?

    The setup was straightforward and simple.

    What about the implementation team?

    The implementation was done in-house.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Pricing and licensing are not issues.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I was not aware of any evaluation of other products.

    What other advice do I have?

    They need to come up with a SaaS solution. The current requirements are full of SaaS solutions.


    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user572871 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Data Analyst at Frost Bank
    Video Review
    Vendor
    We're currently using CA APM to detect the kind of traffic that our customers are dealing with.

    What is most valuable?

    What we're currently using CA APM for is to detect the kind of traffic that our customers are dealing with. How do we affect our customers in the way that they access our servers?

    With some of the setups that we have on the mobile app, like, is there anything we can do to shorten the time that it takes them to hit and access their account information using the mobile app?

    How has it helped my organization?

    We've been able to detect a lot of anomalies, troubleshoot those and fix them. It helps us with where to look. We're able to find the key component that's causing the issue and drill down into it, get into the details, and then fix the issue.

    What needs improvement?

    I'd like some simpler dashboards; some easier reporting. Everything looks a little too technical. To show our executives, it needs to look a little nicer.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I think it's fantastic. Stability is really awesome.

    How is customer service and technical support?

    I haven’t used CA technical support.

    What other advice do I have?

    It takes care of our issues.

    Let's up that user interface; make it look a little bit better.

    It's better than anything else I've ever used out there.

    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.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Broadcom DX Application Performance Management Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: May 2024
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Broadcom DX Application Performance Management Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.