Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) vs Retrace

Likelihood to Recommend

More appropriate for:

Pure Microsoft ecosystem environments (Windows Server and SQL server) and the most common Linux and UNIX platforms.
Environments where cost is less of a factor than settling on a single platform for monitoring
Environments where the administrators are familiar with the setup and installation of SCOM.

Less appropriate for:

Pure UNIX/Linux shops, especially versions not supported out of the box by SCOM.
Shops that cannot afford the engagement to setup/configure and maintain on a continuous basis.
Shops that cannot dedicate personnel to the care and feeding of SCOM, especially when supporting larger environments.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Consumer Goods Company, 10,001+ employees

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If I need to change a logo design on the invoice, the new logo is slightly larger or smaller so the type below the logo is in a different area than before. In this case, you would need to load the new version of the document into APM Plus and redo the mapping of the field areas to properly grab the information needed to process the document. Without doing this, the document could fail or go to the wrong archive based on the fields.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Industrial Automation Company, 201-500 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

Retrace

Application monitoring

Database monitoring

Threshold alerts

Predictive capabilities

Application performance management console

Collaboration tools

Out-of-the box templates to monitor applications

Application dependency mapping and thresholding

Virtualization monitoring

Server availability and performance monitoring

Server usage monitoring and capacity forecasting

IT Asset Discovery

Pros

Pick real-time health data from a large number of systems through their agent services installed on those remote systems.
Have the ability to directly create an incident in snow with its SCOM-SNOW Integration pack.
Have the capability to design activities to perform actions on apps or infrastructure components directly from SCOM Dashboard.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Banking Company, 1001-5000 employees

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It combines code profiling with application logger.
It is safe for production usage.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Cons

One of the biggest drawbacks to SCOM is the sheer scope and complexity of the system. This can be a pro and a con. The system is very customizable, what you put into it is what you'll get out of it. That said, the learning curve is fairly steep. An organization needs to be committed to putting time and resources into SCOM to get the most out of it. I've heard stories from colleagues of several different companies that invested in SCOM and then abandoned it due to the excessive time and care required.
SCOM is expensive. Not only is the enterprise licensing costly, SCOM requires it's own servers, operational and warehouse databases to be maintained.
The OOB SCOM reports are a bit clunky and feel outdated.

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Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Pharmaceuticals Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Need to improve their mobile support
Documentation improvment

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Verified User

Manager in Engineering

Computer Software Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Support Rating

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 7.7

Based on 18 answers

We are very pleased with the support provided by the Microsoft System Center Operations Manager team. At first, we were quite hesitant to contact support, but the support team showed a very proactive approach and helped with a bunch of issues which would be much harder to overcome on our own, especially when deploying the platform for the first time.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Retrace 7.3

Based on 2 answers

Submitting a ticket to Stackify Retrace support team is very easy and the response is always within a few hours. In case of some serious problems they are able to provide assistance coming directly from one of their developers what decreases significantly the amount of time needed to figure out what is causing the issue.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Alternatives Considered

We didn't consider any other alternatives, nor did we try or demo any other product prior to our purchase of SCOM. I know there are several other products out that perform many of the same functions and more such as SolarWinds, however, those products are pricey as well and we decided to stick with the Microsoft product in the end.

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Joe Spradlin

Director Of Information Technology

Fort Walton Machining, Inc.Aviation & Aerospace, 51-200 employees

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APM Plus does a better job of archiving documents than DocSend and makes it easier to find the documents when you need them. DocSend seemed to be more of a marketing tool than a business tool. APM Plus is all business and consistently does what you need on a daily basis. We selected APM Plus because of the great support on setup and after implementation. They are always ready to help.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Industrial Automation Company, 201-500 employees

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Return on Investment

We wanted to make sure that updates and patches deployed are actually successfully installed on devices and other tools cannot match SCOM for detailed feedback on deployment status.
We can now confidently provide management and security teams on successful update of security patches with high accuracy.
Deployment complexity took over a year to fully implement all necessary features with help of consultants and in house teams. Wish it was simpler.

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Verified User

Consultant in Information Technology

Chemicals Company, 10,001+ employees

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We shorten the time we fix app issues
We spend a lot less time digging through data
We can be proactive and see issues as they are trending before the completely explode
I have APM on all production servers so I can catch issues as they happen
I no longer get 2000 email on an issue but rather one full of data

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Verified User

Manager in Engineering

Computer Software Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

—

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) Editions & Modules

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Additional Pricing Details

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General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

$0 Customer number of traces and logs

Retrace Editions & Modules

Edition

Essentials	$99¹
Standard	249+²
Enterprise	Custom³

up to 3 servers, 500,000 traces, and 1,000,000 logs
2,000,000+ traces and 5,000,000+ logs
Customer number of traces and logs

Additional Pricing Details

Pricing is based on trace and log usage.

Rating Summary

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

Retrace

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

Retrace