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F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management vs. OpenText Dimensions CM

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AF5's BIG-IQ provides centralized management of app services and security policies.N/A

    OpenText Dimensions CM

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ADimensions CM is Software Change and Configuration Management for Agile development, developed by Serena Software and now sold by OpenText.N/A
    Pricing
    F5 BIG-IQ Centralized ManagementOpenText Dimensions CM
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    F5 BIG-IQ Centralized ManagementOpenText Dimensions CM
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    F5 BIG-IQ Centralized ManagementOpenText Dimensions CM
    Considered Both Products
    F5
    No answer on this topic
    OpenText
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    33%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    40%
    Delivers good value for the price
    4 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    20%
    Happy with the feature set
    3 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    1 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    55%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    F5 BIG-IQ Centralized ManagementOpenText Dimensions CM
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    GitHub
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    Git
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Perforce P4
    Score7.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    F5 BIG-IQ Centralized ManagementOpenText Dimensions CM
    Likelihood to Recommend
    4.1
    (15 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    4.3
    (12 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    F5 BIG-IQ Centralized ManagementOpenText Dimensions CM
    Likelihood to Recommend
    F5
    F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management works perfectly in Software upgrades and simple daily changes. We are successfully using it to create and or delete objects. It doesn`t works well when we need reports. I usually have to create custom scripts to get a list of objects, for example. Performance is also something that could be improved in Big-IQ
    Incentivized
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    OpenText
    Serena CM is well suited to highly controlled, audited, and process driven environments. It will allow strict segregation of duties, and change traceability. If implemented correctly it will help you quickly build trusts with your auditors. It is also well suited to environments that require constant branching and merging. Due to the complexity of the product and learning curve for your development and operations team it may be overkill in a small shop with loose rules
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    F5
    • Common system level changes like cipher suite customization, ssh protocol settings etc can be pushed to all F5 gear through one click of a button
    • Enterprise standard templates for profiles/protocols etc., can be efficiently managed across F5 gear through a single interface
    Incentivized
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    OpenText
    • Code Promotion: Dimensions CM allows supervisors to control changes to code, in that they delegate requests to developers, and act as a gatekeeper prior to promoting to the next environment. This functionality is configurable so you can set up a workflow that best fits the structure and requirements of your own company.
    • Code Repository for changes and versioning: Code can be checked out by item or by synchronizing folders. Code revisions can be compared against other revisions or work files. Item histories show which developers made which modifications, and which supervisor and operations personnel were involved in assigning the request and promoting the code to each environment. Additionally a pedigree will show a stream diagram which graphically displays branches and merges.
    • Deployment: Serena Change Management offers help automating deployment including integrations with SVN and Jenkins. Its newer versions also have a powerful graphical deployment automation tool (Serena Deployment Automation- SDA). It comes with a certain amount of licenses built-in. If you have a many nodes to deploy to there will be separate licensing costs for that.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    F5
    • There a lack of the going forward to next
    • The second site product does not do what we need and we are forced to write our own scripts
    • Many of the alerting that was in enterprise management is no longer in F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management
    Incentivized
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    OpenText
    • The only major negative that I have encountered with Serena CM product is that the very power and flexibility of the tool means there is a risk that you will make a mess of things. In other words it gives you plenty of rope to tangle yourself with. I recommend careful, well thought out deployments implementing the built in roles and workflows that can be turned on and configured, using a consistent methodology.
    • My experience with the Serena help desk support has not been impressive. Though reasonably polite and diligent, the technicians were well trained, and often gave bad advise and terrible scripts. On several occasions I had to rewrite scripts they have me; if I had run them as provided they would have caused even more difficulties than the problem I was trying to solve. I speak of the support in the past tense because I conditioned myself not to call them, it was usually just easier to solve nay problems my self. They do have a good account management team though, and for any major issues you can go thru them.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    F5
    There is some room for improvement around RBAC. The access to certain features, options and menus is not straightforward and not that granular.
    Incentivized
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    OpenText
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    F5
    I feel pinning policies are killing you guys when it comes to being able to add multiple LTMs that have different naming conventions.
    Incentivized
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    OpenText
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    F5
    The support is a bit complex and not straightforward. It seems there aren't many engineers supporting this platform. There are many components in the solution that makes it complex for troubleshooting. Documentation needs to be more in depth, and I have opened a few cases around cluster sync issues and objects stalled. In the end I was able to find and fix the problem.
    Incentivized
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    OpenText
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    F5
    Of all the centralized Management platforms I have ever used, BIG-IQ is the worst. It constantly breaks and requires fixing in some way or another.
    Incentivized
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    OpenText
    Serena CM is superior to Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) in overall functionality, but does not have very good native integration with Microsoft. Therefore in a Microsoft centric shop with no audit needs ,TFS would be better. Otherwise I would choose Serena CM
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    F5
    • Cut costs by requiring less manual hours to manage F5 OS installations
    • Great monitoring and alerting tool for general F5 gear health
    • Provides critical information for capacity planning of the F5 resources
    Incentivized
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    OpenText
    • Serena has facilitated our annual completion of various audit and technology control certifications. These certifications make a huge difference to our company's reputation and bottom line.
    • There has been no negative impact on our company.
    Incentivized
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