IBM Application Performance Management Reviews

We use IBM Application Performance Management for modifying .NET and Tomcat applications, as well as regular system updates and monitoring. Currently, we have around 10 people who use it, with two people in operations support who work with it on a daily basis. The rest of the team are busy with the various projects which we deliver to customers.

Because we have partnerships with other partners, I can share a bit about what I've noticed with IBM APM compared to other vendor solutions. Specifically, with IBM, the visibility into detailed process information is more tangible. On the OS level, APM displays all processes (or the top 10 processes) that are consuming CPU or resident memory. This is the most important thing that is not always available with other vendors.

With APM, we noticed that the agent can cause a lot of issues for the application, making the agent very unreliable. Many issues are happening, and we've had to discuss it with support to try and get a fix. It affects application availability, and sometimes actions fail because of the agent, degrading the performance of the application.

There are also cases where IBM support takes a considerable amount of time when it comes to resolving availability issues or enhancing agent resource consumption to reduce performance issues. This is a big concern, because the agent has a direct impact on the application and support takes maybe four or more months to resolve issues.

Another major point that needs to be addressed in the recent version of APM is that it does not provide historical data. If a customer requires historical data, we have to install an older IBM product called ITN to be able to have historical reports.

As something that would be nice to see, some other vendors like Dynatrace and AppDynamics provide a map highlighting each area with coloring that reflects the performance in each area. This feature is not available in IBM APM.

I have been using IBM Application Performance Management for two years. 

APM is generally stable, but there are frequently issues with the agent itself. On customer applications, this can cause some availability and performance issues.

It is a scalable product.

The most common issues we have faced so far have had to do with the APM agent. We have contacted support for these issues, but it can take a while before they are able to help us because they first need to know where the conflicts are happening between the agent and the customer application. Once they have troubleshooted this area, they then have to develop and apply the fix, and all this can take quite some time.

In general, if it's an issue that is known to support, then they are able to resolve it quickly, but if it is a new issue, then it will take longer. 

For a single-instance installation, it is simple. But for failover installations, a lot of scripts need to be configured on the primary and secondary servers, so failover configuration is a bit complicated.

We implemented IBM APM ourselves, but we have had several issues with the agent and we had to engage IBM professional support to troubleshoot what the issues are exactly. In the end, we got stuck because we needed to wait for an actual fix to be provided by the developers.

Regarding maintenance, most customers now have a lot of security tools, monitors, servers, and applications running, so we need to keep up to date with new security breaches in different environments and apply fixes regularly.

IBM APM is one of the cheaper products on the market, while everything necessary to get started is included in the license.

If you are going to use IBM APM, it's better to avoid applying transaction-checking and diagnostics because these are the main components that cause issues on the application level. These issues can affect both availability and performance. So if you are interested in transaction-checking and diagnostics, it's better to search for another vendor.

I would rate IBM Application Performance Management a five out of ten.

We are using it mainly for monitoring client infrastructure, IT infrastructure, middleware applications, and servers-based and cloud-based applications.

This application is implemented in the banking industry, where virtual services are used a lot by people every day. IBM APM is very valuable for the infrastructure owners in terms of getting almost real-time information about the services. If there is a downtime or service outage, they can quickly react and improve the way the clients look at them and perceive their services.

The transaction tracking feature from IBM is the most important feature for us. It is something that provides a terrific value for us and our clients.

It has a lot of data sources and agents that are collectors. It is also stable.

Its web user interface is a little bit old in comparison to other solutions, such as New Relic, and it should be improved. 

Its scalability and technical support should also be improved. Currently, it is scalable, but only in a vertical way. They provide good technical support, but the initial steps for a new case can be improved to fasten the resolution process.

I have been using this solution for two years. 

It is stable.

It is scalable, but only in a vertical way. Our clients usually have a big infrastructure. There are roughly 50 users of this solution.

I have used their support a lot. It is not the best, but it is very good. At the beginning of a new case, there are always the same questions and same procedures. IBM should make this initial process faster to quickly move the case forward.

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment took around two or three hours.

You just need one person for its deployment, administration, and operation.

Our clients evaluate New Relic, Dynatrace, and some open-source software for APM. The main differences are in terms of the price and licensing and maybe special agents or data sources.

I would recommend this solution. It has fantastic functionalities.

I would rate IBM Application Performance Management an eight out of ten.

Our day-to-day use cases are coming from our artificial intelligence system. It is picking up all the data from several tools, analyzing it, and then giving them a solution on how to resolve problems. It's proactive; it signals if something is going to happen before it is actually happening.

IBM Application Performance Management has improved the way my organization is able to function. We had customers in Belgium and Singapore that said that after we implemented, they experienced a 60% improvement and no more outages in the IP environment. And all the applications were very stable.

IBM Application Performance Management helped us increased our response time by 80% and cost 60% less. 

I found that the transaction monitors are very helpful. So is the data integration that we can make to the APIs of our own artificial intelligence. 

Another valuable feature of IBM Application Performance Management is that it is fully based on cognitive and analytics. Even I can make a connection to Watson, which can give me a very quick upsize if something is going too wrong.

The room for improvement is that it's still missing some platforms. For example, if you look to applications itself, it is missing the interface. But the great thing is they have a development kit to help us create our own monitors for it.

I have been using this solution since it came out. I was a beta tester for them, as well. Overall, it's been six years since I started working with it.

Scalability is no problem at all. You can deploy; it's very easy. Once it is running on a data center, there's 20,000 systems and is easily deployed within two days. And it is scalable also, you can put as many front ends in as you want.

The technical support is not really good, I must say.

It's not really straightforward, but it is also not too complex. To implement, you need above-average knowledge of Linux for Windows, more than a normal administrator. 

You have to start small; don't do everything at once. Instead, focus on, for example, three or four applications and their related systems. Then, you can build up slowly.

I am a consultant, and we provide products and technical services to other companies.

IBM provided us with this solution for a demo. I am using this trial version to learn and explore the functions, and the uses.

This solution is used to monitor applications.

It's easy to use.

The demo that was provided to us is not working very well. At times, there are errors.

The trial version should be in good working order.

I have been using IBM Application Performance Management for one month.

The performance of the demos that are provided could be better.

Technical support should be faster.

I have not installed this solution, it is on the cloud.

The licensing fees can be paid every six months or on a yearly basis.

I have not used the real-time solution. I have only worked on the demo.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I would rate the demo of IBM Application Performance Management a six out of ten.