BigPanda vs. IBM Z IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS

If the organization has a proper CMDB asset record then BigPanda features can be utilized to their true potential as it has alert correlation capability. The alert can be redirected to the proper support team using the auto-share feature. This wouldn't be the case where asset records are not updated and the Operations have to manually assign the alerts to support groups.

Incentivized

IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS is perfect for just about any after-the-fact analysis that I have tried to use it for. Sometimes it doesn't provide support for the latest SMF fields, but that is the nature of SMF data analysis - it is impossible to keep up with the rate at which new SMF fields are added. Combine that with the fact that the description of new fields is often poor, and it is amazing that IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS is as up-to-date as it is. I think that less experienced users might benefit from material that more clearly differentiates products like IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS, which feed off SMF data, and products like Omegamon, which report in real-time contents of various system control blocks.

• Alert correlation feature helps in grouping similar alerts together
• Alert Enrichment to enhance the data after it arrives on the tool
• Integration with multiple tools
• The console is very user friendly and provides ease of administration

Incentivized

• IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS is easy to use for beginners and experts.
• Search and drill down helps to find overview and deep dive.
• IntelliMagic has implemented expert knowledge into Vision and the rating of the report is really helpful.
• Predefined reports can be modified very easily and individually adapted reports (replacement of old SAS programs) are also possible without any problems

• Tool should have a feature to query the data
• The dashboard feature needs improvement
• It should have a dark mode

Incentivized

• The voluminous data is a challenge for all tools. As always, improved response time is always appreciated.
• I really appreciate reading the descriptions and field descriptions that are provided with the screens. All additional elaborations will be appreciated.
• Monthly trending and cyclical pattern detection

In comparison to other products (even on IBM Z), IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS is really RAS (reliability, availability, and serviceability). The GUI is really stable; analyze/reduce jobs with detailed diagnostics; restart functions with Automator

with more than 12 years of experience in Mainframe performance tuning and analysis, it was much easier to translate and understand the tool. New college grads without Mainframe exposure struggled a bit to connect the dots, it might be good to have a recording from IM to go through mainframe basics before the staff start to use the tool covering mainframe concepts than tool itself.

Incentivized

Really highly skilled IntelliMagic team:

• Head of IntelliMagic (Gilbert Houtekamer, Els Das and Jean-Marc van der Kolk)
• Account manager DACH/Europe local support team ...

TrueSight didn't provide many customization options. The features provided were primitive as compared to BigPanda. TrueSight was being used just for alert visibility and assignment to a proper support group from a single console. Although Moogsoft had similar features as compared to BigPanda, the user administration and ease of use were a bit complicated. BigPanda provides a much simpler user interface.

Incentivized

These are the legacy products that have been used for capacity/performance/billing and report generation over many years. Some are better suited for solutions using programmatic interfaces ( internal billing ), and processing IMS transactional data in particular. For most tasks, however, Vision can generate charts, provide levels of drill-down, allow a focus on analysis rather than report generation, much faster with greater reliability and less required training than the above products

Incentivized

• BIgPanda is very easy to implement and use
• Better than the previous tool, provides more functionality
• BIgPanda's alert enrichment feature very helpful

Incentivized

• Based on data from Vision, we have not had to expand the hardware this year.
• Any expansion of hardware in the coming years can be well supported by figures from Vision.