BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB) vs. CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager vs. IBM Netcool Network Management

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BMC Helix CMDB
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
The BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB, formerly known as Atrium CMDB) is a configuration management database.N/A
CA Service Management
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
CA Service Management, including CA Desk Manager, is a fully-featured ITSM platform, now from Broadcom. It competes with BMC Remedy, ServiceNow, FrontRange ITSM, Cherwell Service Management etc. It is based on technology acquired by CA in 2010 with Nimsoft, and is now supported by Broadcom since the 2018 acquisition.N/A
IBM Netcool Network Management
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
Netcool Network Management integrates the IBM Tivoli Network Manager IP Edition, Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus and Netcool Configuration Manager products into a unified solution that consolidates the management of networks.N/A
Pricing
BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB)CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIBM Netcool Network Management
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BMC Helix CMDBCA Service ManagementIBM Netcool Network Management
Free Trial
NoNoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB)CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIBM Netcool Network Management
Features
BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB)CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIBM Netcool Network Management
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
-
Ratings
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager
8.6
6 Ratings
4% above category average
IBM Netcool Network Management
-
Ratings
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.76 Ratings00 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings8.75 Ratings00 Ratings
Service restoration00 Ratings8.46 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-service tools00 Ratings8.66 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings7.96 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings9.76 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards00 Ratings7.55 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
-
Ratings
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager
9.2
6 Ratings
11% above category average
IBM Netcool Network Management
-
Ratings
Configuration mangement00 Ratings9.76 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset management dashboard00 Ratings10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement00 Ratings8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
-
Ratings
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager
9.1
6 Ratings
6% above category average
IBM Netcool Network Management
-
Ratings
Change requests repository00 Ratings9.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Change calendar00 Ratings8.64 Ratings00 Ratings
Service-level management00 Ratings9.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB)CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIBM Netcool Network Management
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No answers on this topic

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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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Score 8.4 out of 10
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User Ratings
BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB)CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIBM Netcool Network Management
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(5 ratings)
9.0
(12 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
4.1
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BMC Helix Configuration Management Database (CMDB)CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIBM Netcool Network Management
Likelihood to Recommend
BMC Helix
Lets you run more effective CABs with accurate configuration and dependency data. Understand the impact of change on other assets applications and services. Detecting potential underlying issues [when multiple] changes are made. Provides very adaptable and highly reliable data quality and integrity engines configured through rules [to] ensure normalization, data source prioritization, and deduplication.
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Broadcom
It is a suitable tool for a large organization with extensive user needs. It is not for a small shop as it may be over-engineered for smaller organizations that don't have teams that can manage a solution of this size. It does have some significant hardware and configuration needs, but that should not deter customers from deploying it in-house. I've seen it deployed in the cloud as well as in-house; the downside to deploying it as a hosted solution is you're forever at the mercy of the vendor for customizations, and they cost an arm and a leg. The simplest things take a long time and cost much more money than necessary, so you can't truly get a custom solution and end up with mostly vanilla services (unless you have very deep pockets.)
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IBM
This tool was integrated with Control-M, so whenever we receive any job failure, long-running job, job not started yet, etc, we receive an alert against it. This tool is also integrated with Maximo where we receive the incidents as well for it. Alert's color was as per the criticality of the job and that makes it very easy for an associate to act on it to resolve. We have the SLAs for the jobs as per the urgency of the jobs.
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Pros
BMC Helix
  • ITIL helps to meet customer expectations.
  • Beat competitors offerings
  • Allign with legal and regulatory requirements.
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Broadcom
  • A large community where, if help is needed, is usually very helpful and quick to respond.
  • Various sites with good information on various issues. If you have a problem, there's a good chance some else already had it and documented it.
  • Fairly easy installation of the product if recommendations are followed and prep-work is done.
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IBM
  • This is one of the best monitoring tools.
  • Very simple to user.
  • Color code makes it very simple as per severity.
  • We receive the heartbeat alert every hour that shows the system is running up and fine.
  • We have black, red, yellow, and orange color alerts that show the critical, urgent, major, and minor incidents.
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Cons
BMC Helix
  • Speed and flexiability
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Broadcom
  • The right-click feature is disabled in this application and users are unable to copy and paste with mouse or touchpad.
  • The application also freezes quite a bit and a user will have to quite often close and reopen browser to get it functioning properly.
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IBM
  • Sometimes color differences of the incidents as per the criticality .
  • We don't receive the heartbeat alerts sometimes.
  • If the tool is down and we don't receive the alerts on the console we wait for the heartbeat alert and it makes some extra delay in resolving things.
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Likelihood to Renew
BMC Helix
No answers on this topic
Broadcom
While the concepts of Service Desk and EITM were solid. The user interface, tool capabilities, and integrations fell behind the rest of the industry. Too often it seemed like CA bought and rebranded products without fully integrated them with their other products. It was a coat of paint, without the parts under the hood being updated. The overhead for administration was too high and the reporting capabilities were absolutely amongst the worst I've seen.
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Usability
BMC Helix
Once you have an understanding of the many use cases that this software can meet, you will be able to tightly integrate this into a ticketing system which increases the ROI of the product tremendously.
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Broadcom
No answers on this topic
IBM
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
BMC Helix
The number of workflows, escalations, processes built in the out of the box Remedy is outstanding. Trying to mimic/customize an open source, or even Remedyforce would cost more than implementing a vanilla Remedy. We reviewed ServiceNow but we felt that in terms of an end-to-end implementation tool, Remedy is still first in class.
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Broadcom
We are too integrated with CA Service Desk Manager to disassociate anytime soon. We found the more we used the product the more we needed to customize it in order to better integrate with our business processes. There are other alternatives that have many built-in features that had we have foreseen our future requirements... would have chosen ServiceNow or Remedy as our "go-to" ticketing product.
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IBM
This is one of the essential tools for monitoring. This tool was integrated with Maximo and Control-M in my organization. So whenever any job failed in Control-M, we receive an alert against it in the IBM Netcool/OMNIbus. We receive the alerts in different colors as per the criticality. Black for critical ones(Sev1), red for urgent (Sev2), yellow for major(Sev3), and orange for minor(Sev4). So it makes an easy to operate and act on the alerts as per the severity. This tool is very user-friendly and easy to use. No additional training is required for the tool to operate, just a simple KT is enough.
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Return on Investment
BMC Helix
  • Highly adaptable.
  • Provides relevant insights for your business.
  • Offers quality and reliable data.
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Broadcom
  • Having CA Service Desk Manager within the company has increased the satisfaction of customer service from 68% to 95%. Teams are getting better customer survey scores and making better efforts to meet their SLAs.
  • CA Mobile app has provided agility and collaboration among IT Users and Customers.
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IBM
  • Color feature of the alerts as per the criticality is the amazing feature.
  • Heartbeat alert is also an unique feature.
  • No additional training is required to use this tool. just a simple KT is enough.
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ScreenShots