CA UIM At a Glance
Overall Satisfaction with CA Unified Infrastructure Management
As a consultant, I use CA UIM in my lab to not only monitor my own infrastructure, but to build/test tests cases, standard operating procedures, and custom configurations for customers that I support. I also build service catalogs and governance kits to help customers know what they are monitoring and what will generate alerts within their implementation of the tool.
Customers I support come from a range of industries: Banking, Entertainment, Government, Healthcare, and MSPs.
Customers I support come from a range of industries: Banking, Entertainment, Government, Healthcare, and MSPs.
Pros
- Server performance can be done exceptionally well with UIM. It monitors various OS flavors: POSIX (Aix, HPUX, Linux, Solaris, zLinux), and Windows.
- With just a handful of probe s(CDM, NTevl, NTservices, NTperf, processes, logmon) your dashboards can be populated within minutes after installation of the product and discovering servers. One particular feature I like is MCS which allows you to perform template based monitoring which allows for implementing standards and including exceptions.
- The SNMP collector monitors anything that is SNMP capable. With the ability to build a template out of templates here as well, you can standardize monitoring by device, vendor, or model regardless of device type: routers, switches, storage, load balancers, etc.
- The UMP is the presentation layer. Without OOTB dashboards, you see quickly how your environment is performing. And with true multi-tenancy, you can separate data by customer.
Cons
- True HTML views without dependency on Shockwave. Shockwave tends to crash which causes the user to have to reload the screen. Doesn't happen often but can be annoying.
- Discovery via AD - I saw a competitors product with this feature and thought it was a great addition; would be a value add in my opinion.
- Nimble is gaining a lot of market share; it will be good to see probe support for the device.
Cost models: servers vs component
CA uses more of a server/device model where SolarWinds uses more of a component model.
I prefer CA's model better for large MSP types; SolarWinds is better priced for Non-MSP shops.
CA uses more of a server/device model where SolarWinds uses more of a component model.
I prefer CA's model better for large MSP types; SolarWinds is better priced for Non-MSP shops.
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