We'll be comparing DX Unified Infrastructure Management against another product, so we still don't know the outcome. Scalability and advanced features are the main reasons people choose DX Unified Infrastructure Management over other tools.

We looked SolarWinds (they have an infrastructure monitoring solution), Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, BMC, and quite a few more.

We eventually chose UIM, because it was easier, looked better, and you could write reports really quickly. The overall package was better than we thought. 

We did three or four different proofs of concept, and we ended up going with CA.

We considered an open source tool, it's called SNAG-View. We considered SCOM. There were two others we considered that are not coming to mind.

We actually vetted several other applications. We looked at Dynatrace. We looked at Login VSI. We looked at BMC's new tool. We did the gambit of running around, looking at different monitoring solutions. AppDynamics was included in that. I think on scalability, functionality, and ease of implementation, UIM won out.

IBM Tivoli Monitoring

HP SiteScope

Open Source

SolarWinds APM in conjunction with NPM (we ended up buying NPM for all network monitoring)

We did a POC with approximately 6 vendors. Microsoft SCOM was one of them. We were looking at cost, reliability, scalability, and the ability to monitor all our infrastructure and provide dashboard reporting at a high service level. All of that was very important to us. CA passed. We went out to Gartner consultants, and at that time four years ago, they selected CA UIM as the number one product for the price. To choose a vendor, make sure you know what requirements you want. CA UIM can do a lot of things. You really need to know what you want from CA UIM, or there is a potential of failing. I think one additional criteria is your statement of work needs to be very precise.

We did a lot of research but UIM had everything that we needed. 

It's been a couple of years since we bought them, and I don't remember off the top of my head. We had some other ones we looked through, and the tool just really fit the needs.

The legacy club was already on CA with something called CA 6. It was up and functional. We always used it there. Then we started to go OpenStack, open source. I did seven or eight POC's in four months.

We looked at XenOps, we looked at MagiOS, we looked at Isinga, and we looked at CA. At the time we looked at it, CA wasn't ready. The UIM piece wasn't ready to do the no-JS, it wasn't ready to look at RHEL 7. It couldn't do OpenStack. We pushed it to the side. Same thing with EMC. We had the same problem with them. They were ready to do OpenStack or RHEL 7. We put them aside. We were going to run XenOps. Then we looked at Dynatrace. The APM solution is what we kept. They said to do a whole bunch more, but it fell short to a certain extent. We were pounding a square peg into a round hole. After about six months of playing with that, trying to get it to work, we finally said drop it. CA came back, said, guess what we can do. They met our requirements and our success criteria as well. We didn't have to have a POC on top of it. It's a new version of it. We are on 18 now. Once we put it in play and saw what it can do, it was, this is it.

We did not evaluate any other products beforehand.

We looked at other solutions, but they really didn't meet our needs. Dynatrace is one of them and Micro Focus may have been also. UIM met everything we needed and more when you consider other areas and departments with whom we work closely. It actually helped them out as well. It's not just our department utilizing UIM. It's going to scale across the company.

Choosing UIM wasn't my decision. That came from above my pay grade.

I haven't considered any other vendors. I have individuals in the organization I support who were looking at other opportunities or products. But I would tell them, "Hey just give me an opportunity to allow this product to work." A lot of times, it's not the product, it's the people. It's the human. Granted, no product is perfect because humans aren't perfect, but again they are not far off from what they're touting themselves to be able to do.

An opportunity with licensing that was presented back in the late 90's which gave us pretty much site license for any of our products. Then, once embedded in our operations and development, it was hard to dislodge. That was our primary reason. There are a lot of vendors out there. Everybody has a bell or whistle that is better than the next guy. It is what is integrated and what is your support kind of deal that you can do for me?

We also looked at OpsView and SCOM.

I don't know who the vendors were. I know that I probably would have looked at SolarWinds. I don't really know a whole lot of vendors in this area.

We looked for two things: meeting monitoring requirements and meeting support requirements. We also looked at solutions from BMC and IBM, and although the tools are fairly similar, CA's support and partnership made a difference.

Splunk, AppDynamics, and CA were on our shortlist.

We looked at SCOM and HPE Operations Manager (OpenView).

I don't do the selecting processes. My boss definitely lets me know, "Hey, we want to read into this," and I go into it with a particular perspective after he gives me some goals and requirements. The most important thing is the goal of your company and what they are trying to achieve.

We have looked at other vendors but upper management is always trying to cut costs, and understandably so. We were looking at other solutions which might provide a level comparable to what we have with CA, where we have what we need, while reducing costs; but it's kind of tough. CA's pretty competitive. They're good. They're solid.

We looked at HPE, SolarWinds Orion, as well as a couple open-source projects, like OpenNMS. But, CA had the best product. We could use a single product and not have to buy four or five different ones.

I evaluated BMC Patrol and HP OVO. We chose CA as the license cost was much cheaper and almost all the functionality/requirements could be achieved via this product as well.

We're currently evaluating other options. I'm looking for an MSP friendly tool. We have to be able to differentiate between different customers. I'm looking for a tool that has a good degree of scalability, more than what we have now. A tool that, if it doesn't have capability in the box, provides a means to extend the tool for our custom purposes and also a better price point than we have now.

The customer did a PoC with two contenders: CA UIM and Microsoft SCOM.

Because of our previous experience with CA, we did not really look elsewhere.

We chose CA primarily because of the size of the company and past relationships at other companies I have worked for. Also, we looked at vendors for many different products but we chose CA because of the the flexibility of the product and the supportability of the product.

Yes. SolarWinds, Tivoli, ManageEngine, and Accelops.

Yes, IBM, BMC

When selecting a vendor I'm looking for: support, are they going to be there if I need them, the maturity (are they mature enough that it's not going to be all over the board), and consistency.

I think I evaluated fifty different products before we went with CA UIM. It was just the out of the box functionality was there. They had probes for everything in our infrastructure. Linux, Windows, it works just as well on either. We have a heterogeneous environment. Everything was there.

We looked at SMARTS, and we also looked at Spectrum (at the time it wasn’t CA). From a solution standpoint, UIM really fit the bill. We’ve been for the most part very happy customers. First and foremost we looked at the toolsets. Then the product knowledge of the vendor, and the knowledge of our space. Also, the size of the company and costs are the other factors.

You can try it, or you can try the Snap (CA UIM Snap), unlimited in time, but only for 30 devices and with fewer features, by registering on the vendor site.

We used a consultant and utilized the training after we set the systems up. In hindsight we should have taken the training, then set up the system.

• SCOM
• Spectrum
• Tivoli

Yes, we looked at other products.

We’ve looked at HP, Halcyon and OP5 in the initial phase.

I did the evaluation before we decided to go with Nimsoft.

No.

We performed an evaluation on Fortinet, SonicWall, Juniper and Microtik.

• ScienceLogic
• SolarWinds
• System Center
• Nagios

• BMC Patrol
• IBM Netcool
• HP Operations

We evaluated SolarWinds and Nagios.

Yes, we did evaluate other products, but I don't remember which ones. We liked Nimsoft's ease of use and inner design.

We evaluated BMC and ManageEngine IT360.

CopperEgg, Splunk.

We had done a comparison and narrowed it down to UIM. For the types of tech we wanted to support, it was a better fit.

I did not see the need to evaluate other solutions. To date I do not know of any product that has the intelligence and functionality when compared to Nimsoft.

We use a lot of solutions. However, we found out that UIM is the best selection for the customer, which is why we selected to use UIM, also coming from the public sector, an insurance sector, and so on. 

We did evaluate other products,

If you are looking for something on a mid range budge with effective solutions, CA Nimsoft is something that you just consider first.

Decision to use Nimsoft was taken before I joined the company.

Before choosing this product, I evaluated other options. Most of the other tools do not have this product’s most important features.

We did not.

When we switched from Spectrum, we were only debating between CA products because we are a CA partner.

We evaluated SolarWinds.