Network-Management Software

This isn’t just about a bunch of SNMP agents gathering data from different network resources and passing it onto a central control unit. The market has evolved to a point where there are different network management software for different needs and sizes. As networks increase in complexity and specialization, management software is also keeping pace to meet these needs.

With network management becoming more and more accepted, we have introduced it as a new category in the PCQuest Users’ Choice Awards starting this year. 

The five players who made it to the Users Choice Club in the inaugural year are HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, CA Unicentre, Avaya and

OpenNMS. 

All enterprise class products are highly modular in nature. You could start with a small implementation and add more modules as and when you need to manage more aspects of your IT infrastructure. You can also scale them up as the enterprise grows.

The top honors this year go to HP OpenView, which leads by a comfortable margin over runner-up IBM Tivoli, with CA Unicentre in the third position. OpenNMS, an OpenSource product just about makes it to the list at number five and is something of a surprise entry. The three brands at the top enjoy equal amount of brand loyalty from their users.

Those who chose OpenView and Tivoli said that they are going for well-known brands. Users who opted for CA Unicentre went for the quality of the product. OpenView enjoyed maximum support from companies with an IT spend between Rs 50 lakh to a crore, while IBM Tivoli enjoyed equal support from companies of all sizes that were surveyed. CA received maximum support from companies with an IT budget spend of Rs one crore and above. 

HP received the maximum votes from the BFSI sector, while IBM was strong in the manufacturing segment. Avaya gets almost half its support from the services sector.

The brand loyalty matrix throws up an interesting observation. 13% of Tivoli users want to shift over to OpenView, while only 5% want to do the reverse. IBM’s big opportunity is in going after those who run other (not OpenView or UniCentre) network management products. 18% of them already want to move to Tivoli.