IBM Netcool Network Management vs. Nagios Core

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Netcool Network Management
Score 9.0 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
Nagios Core
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Nagios provides monitoring of all mission-critical infrastructure components. Multiple APIs and community-build add-ons enable integration and monitoring with in-house and third-party applications for optimized scaling.N/A
Pricing
IBM Netcool Network ManagementNagios Core
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Single License
Free
Single License
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Netcool Network ManagementNagios Core
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Netcool Network ManagementNagios Core
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM Netcool Network ManagementNagios Core
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
4.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.7
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Netcool Network ManagementNagios Core
Likelihood to Recommend
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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Nagios is simply a very configurable and rock solid monitoring engine. For these reasons I would recommend it to any IT professional in any medium to large organization where creating custom checks and programming ones custom needs into the configuration is practical. I would be more hesitant to recommend it as a first monitoring solution for a small business which is usually accompanied by a less experienced and/or more time constrained admin.
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Pros
  • 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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  • Network and server status alerts if a device is in a down state.
  • Gives you the top view down of your entire network infrastructure.
  • It can be customized to your exact needs.
  • You have two options of agentless and agent monitoring.
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Cons
  • 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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  • It's built by engineers for engineers so setting it up and configuring it is relatively complicated. It could really use a simplified configuration approach, or a GUI to set it up instead of editing config files.
  • I'd like to see the option to have service notification settings inherited from the host setting notifications. They have to be set up separately but they are often the same, so it would be nice to have less redundancy.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
We're currently looking to combine a bunch of our network montioring solutions into a single platform. Running multiple unique solutions for monitoring, data collection, compliance reporting etc has become a lot to manage.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
The Nagios UI is in need of a complete overhaul. Nice graphics and trendy fonts are easy on the eyes, but the menu system is dated, the lack of built in graphing support is confusing, and the learning curve for a new user is too steep.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
I haven't had to use support very often, but when I have, it has been effective in helping to accomplish our goals. Since Nagios has been very popular for a long time, there is also a very large user base from which to learn from and help you get your questions answered.
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Alternatives Considered
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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We have tested several other monitoring products which were able to monitor the basic matrix (Memory, DiskUsage, CPU%, UpTime, Running Service Status, Port 80 Up/Down). Although some offered far better UIs, they lacked the ability to monitor ANYTHING. Zabbix, being the only contender worthy of competing, is a good alternative to Nagios. We also tried Zenoss Core & OpenNMS which were good enough for non-Linux engineers to get started with. OP5 was another service-oriented monitoring solution we evaluated. Apart from Nagios, Consul is heavily used to monitor & register the micro-service systems & end-point URLs. Due to the time invested (9+years) in Nagios, we were able to get more components installed/configured easily than alternatives.
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Return on Investment
  • 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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  • With it being a free tool, there is no cost associated with it, so it's very valuable to an organization to get something that is so great and widely used for free.
  • You can set up as many alerts as you want without incurring any fees.
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ScreenShots