Micro Focus OpenView [EOL] Reviews

• Application logs
• Oracle/SQL-based systems monitoring

Application log monitoring.

It minimizes the duration of outages and gives specific alerts to localize the problem (log monitoring). It provides proactivity to prevent mission-critical problems.

• Correlation
• Suppression methods
• Management console, especially the GUI, could be enhanced.

Nearly 13 years.

We do not experience any serious issues.

We do not experience any serious problems with stability.

We do not have any serious problems with scalability.

An eight out of 10.

No.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We used a vendor team whose expertise was about an eight out of 10.

We have been using for a long period, therefore we do not have a recent ROI calculation.

It is a bit expensive, but the benefit of this product compensates for its price.

SCOM.

The most valuable feature is that it is easy to use.

It provides us the flexibility for integration with BPV.

We would like to see support for more interfaces.

The stability of the solution is good.

We have not had any issues with scalability.

Technical support is good.

We were not previously using a similar solution.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I advise prospective users to implement it.

It enables configuration management and allows you to control your IT assets.

It supports efficiency and a speedy resolution of issues. In terms of configuration management, it allows you to identify down to the lowest/smallest component that you wish. You can identify all of the configuration items and all of the assets that make up your digital infrastructure. This allows you to identify components that need to be replaced in a timely fashion, thus helping efficiency. It provides for better management of information.

I would like to see the introduction of more APIs so that it can link to other systems. Invariably, OpenView won't do everything that you want it to do. I've learned that you can build an in-house system that needs to integrate with OpenView. If there were more APIs, then that would be easier.

The stability of the product is quite good.

The scalability is just adequate. It is probably built on old technology that has evolved over the years. It struggles to scale. It is not designed to apply it across a number of different accounts at the same time. It can be made to do that, but it's not a natural fit. Hence, it needs modifications, which defeats the purpose of having a standard tool.

I didn't have anything before this.

I was involved in the purchase of a managed service from HPE. We outsourced our IT to HPE. It was a multi-million euro contract. HPE recommended that OpenView be used.

The setup was more complex than it needed to be. It required modifications for our unique circumstances at the time. Having to make these modifications was unhelpful. It didn't do what we felt it was going to do out of the box.

ServiceNow is also on our shortlist. I haven't decided yet. I would consider ServiceNow because I've heard good things about it, but that's all now; I've just heard things.

Do your market research. Don't just accept what the sales guys say. Do your due diligence. You still might select this product, which is a pretty solid one. Just check the full capability of a tool and run use cases through it to make sure that it will meet your needs.

It's a fairly robust, infrastructure-type monitoring. It gives you a framework and lets you implement custom code, which can work well. It has some pretty good documentation, although not all aspects are as well done as I would like. It’s also extensible.

Because it generally meets our needs on the whole, I’m fairly satisfied.

We have a fairly big IT department with different teams being on different calls. We use OpenView to watch databases, apps, Windows servers, and node servers. Even though it’s not monitoring application health directly, it still sends notifications to let teams know what's happening.

It just makes it possible for the on-call tech to relax and wait for stuff to notify them of problems instead of having to, over the weekend, constantly sign in. It babysits for them, when we code it right.

In the next release, I'd like to see the scheduling of policies improved, as well as their help for the online graphical user interface. With the new Operations Manager, it’s a sexier interface but it doesn’t lend itself as much to being robust.

We’re just starting Operations Manager, so take that with a grain of salt.

It’s quite stable as it’s been around for a long time. It’s rare that we would have an application issue with the agents.

All the stuff that you need to scale it is there. Relatively speaking, we’re not a big shopper compared to others, but it definitely is scalable.

Tech support, I’m going to say, is very good. It can be painful, but I don’t think that’s different from the normal market.

Sometimes you have to go through Tier 1 where it’s a waste of time, but their responsiveness is quite good. They’ve treated us well, and I’ve had cases escalated to where they really need to be.

We’ve been using OpenView since before my time at the company, so I wasn’t privy to the original setup. I’m assuming that there was a need for the various tech teams to keep an eye on systems, as everyone needs that, so they would’ve researched the market at the time and selected OpenView. It’s possible that some synergy with HP Switches drove the decision to switch to OpenView.

I can only comment on the upgrade -- one of my co-workers upgraded three to four years ago and he hit a few snags. If I were to think about doing it, I would be a bit intimidated, not having read the install guides.

You compare that to some of the new ways of doing things (things packaged in a VM), and it’s not exactly the same.

Monitoring is fairly big now with many areas. We are currently looking for application performance monitoring: Dell Foglight, IBM, and AppDynamics.

• Usability is big. I like a snappy interface, one that lets multiple people work in the system readily at the same time without stepping on each other’s toes.
• One that has a clean look and feel, not cluttered with options.
• One that is robust, that will let you tweak what you need.
• One of our current frustrations occurs when scheduling something to run. We have to watch it every 4 hours and, depending on our customer implementation, it’s not always easy to figure out the right solution.
• Technical support is important. We don’t open a lot of calls, which is a good thing. You should want it to be accessible as ease of opening detailed tickets is important.
• For a monitoring solution, I would say look outside of HP, but don’t discount them. They’ve got a huge inventory and lots of tools, but it really depends on the buying power of the consumer.
  

The intelligent agents which allows for detailed instruction sets to be deployed to systems.

It is proactive in heading off failures that would be catastrophic to the business.

Any product can be improved, regular "enhancement requests" are a part of the way the product is improved.

I've used it since it was released by HP. I first installed it in 2003-4 to do a gap analysis between 4 products.

Some, but all are workable.

Mostly with the WMI and the SQL database (Microsoft issues).

It has a limit, like any product, on the numbers of systems that can be managed.

Average, but a lot depends on the level of support agreement and the responses of the sales representative who sold the product.

Average, as HP has many methods of disseminating technical information. Again, it all depends on the level of support agreement a customer has; Regular or Premium, and some companies offer additional support matrices.

I have used a number including shell scripts to monitor things. Most companies want something "out of the box" instead of unsupported products.

They have decent documentation on the process.

All of the above at some point in my career.

If a system or application goes down, and any lag time occurs, depending on how much income is generated or lost as a result, along with proactively monitoring various aspects of an environment the return on the cost is minimal.

Depends on how detailed you develop it and how many systems it is deployed on. I have seen A-Z. Small environments with a few systems and policies takes less, larger ones, more. The product does take considerable care and feeding especially in the later case.

Generally, I am handed a deployment as a consultant, many times it has been as a result of a company wanting more from a monitoring solution. I have seen it replace many others, but, on the other hand, I have seen it replaced. It generally boils down to a number of factors starting with cost funneling down to the technical expertise of those who deploy and maintain OMW, NNM or OMU/L. Cheaper and easier though do not equate to better in my experience.

Have someone who is skilled and who has experience implement and maintain it. It generally takes two to three years to become proficient with all the nuances of the product line, just being a good technician and taking all the prescribed classes are not qualifications for installing and maintaining the product. I have watched scores of those who did that wash out.

Network Node Manager is good and so is Operations Manager, although they are a bit archaic now.  Also valuable are the RTSM Agent, agent-less monitoring, SPI, and integrations.

Lots. Consumes too many servers for installation. Why separate products for agent/agentless, licensing simplification.

I've used it for eight years.

BSM /OMi is not stable.

Yes. BSM/OMi is not stable. It takes time for event dashboard to refresh.

It needs a lot of CPU/memory anyway.

We are MSP.

We also looked at BMC.

Too many products, so be careful what you want to implement.

A single pane of glass (one GUI to monitor health of the entire enterprise) is the holy grail of enterprise monitoring and management and HP Operations excellently provides that for applications, systems and networks.

I have seen these products implemented successfully in more than 30 companies to provide timely enterprise service requirements that minimize or prevent system down time.

I have provided architectural, development and implementation services for these HP BTO (OpenView) products for more than 18 years.

The products are not plug and play even though HP has improved implementation over the years. Deployment for a product that touches every server in the enterprise is inherently complicated.

Given the usual size and breadth of the products I have seen very little instability.

Given knowledgeable implementation assistance the products scale very well.

Once you get to the proper level of customer service, problem solution goes well, but that process is not fast.

Technical support is mature technically, but can be slow.

I have used this product since the beginning.

Initial setup is complex and needs assistance from knowledgeable consultants.

It has a flexible, enterprise-scale monitoring system.

It has improved infrastructure alerting.

• Correlation
• Outage handling

Over 10 years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Average. I feel that HP don't always look after their clients as well as they could post-sale.

Good.

It's straightforward, as it's an easy product to setup with the correct planning and support from teams.

We implemented it in-house.

Incalculable.

Use me to implement it!