OpenText Real User Monitoring Reviews

The use case is about user-level monitoring and the availability of a service for a user. It's about whether the service is available, its performance, and the type of errors a user is receiving, from a user perspective.

The functions that Real User Monitor is intended for, which is to provide the availability and performance of a service, are valued. Additionally, it offers near-real-time analytics, which is helpful. It's a good product overall.

The diagnostics perspective, particularly in terms of the root cause analysis of failures, should be improved. There needs to be more development in this area, as the support and the number of people working on the tool are decreasing.

I have been working with Real User Monitor for twelve years or more, possibly up to fifteen years.

The solution is stable. It is mostly stable, and I would rate its stability at around nine out of ten.

The solution is easy to scale, and I would rate its scalability at eight out of ten.

Customer support needs to improve by bringing in more people who are knowledgeable about the tool, as there are very few left. I would rate their support at two out of ten.

Negative

The initial setup is neither simple nor complex. It might be difficult for someone who doesn't understand it initially, but it's understandable once you know it. It's comparable to a person driving a Ferrari—if the driver is good, then the experience is positive.

Compared to competitors, the pricing is very less. Competitors tend to have higher prices.

AppDynamics is a competitor. However, development on Real User Monitor has stopped, leading to less support compared to AppDynamics, which is still actively developed.

I rate the solution as nine. It is a good product. Everyone should have it as it is essential today, but choose the vendor accordingly.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

It traps and analyzes end-user traffic going to the server. The agent acts as a trap before sending it to the server, analyzing it, and collating it with the internal monitoring data. 

This is external monitoring, not front-end monitoring. It's more like back-end monitoring, analyzing results with end-to-end monitoring. It's user transaction monitoring, making it difficult to implement. 

We have to attach this to match with the software due to its different nature. It's quite complex. The product is mostly used for end-to-end traffic monitoring.

It's back-end monitoring, so it can analyze user experience. It should help the monitoring team, configuration management team, service management team, or something like that.

Real-user monitoring is swifter with an analyzer and correlates with back-end monitoring.

AI functionality can improve the correlation to be more effective. Actually, it can improve the consolidation rate.  

Real User Monitoring tools help proactively identify problems before they become critical by monitoring thresholds. There is a threshold and an SOA  threshold. 

For example, it starts to go yellow, and if it becomes red, the system will crash. When it starts to become yellow (Threshold Approaching), we have to resolve it. This is the same case where we'll know what happened before it's too late. So we can make an early decision to prevent it, maybe by kicking some users off the system before it crashes.

The product needs more R&D to make it easier and more compatible with other software.

I have been using it for ten years. 

Stability depends on compatibility. If compatibility is full, it's very stable. But if customization is needed, then the stability is a bit lower. 

I would rate the stability a six out of ten. 

We have around three customers that we helped to implement in Thailand. 

It's compatible and has a lot of capabilities. It can increase. They have many scaling models to implement, so I'm not worried about this. Just spend more on hardware. So, I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. 

It was the first one I chose, then I continued due to the acquisition of the company. But the Real User Monitoring product that I chose to implement, I haven't said that I didn't implement another one. I implemented more products in the area, but not only OpenText. Real User Monitoring is specific to OpenText.

It's quite difficult and complex. But it's for a specific purpose. The tool is a little bit advanced for monitoring, so it should be difficult to implement.

Installation and setup for one system can take around one week. However, adjustments and ensuring compatibility can take more than two weeks, especially with prerequisites and repairs.

When it's set up, it runs automatically, and we don't need administration for this module.

There is cost reduction. It will prevent the loss of reputation, system crashes, system recovery, and everything. We would know it earlier, so there should be cost reduction if the implementation is successful more than 60%.

I would rate the pricing a five out of ten. It is bundled with the big product, so comparing it to other solutions like Dynatrace is difficult.

I never recommend this tool because when customers change the software or version, this tool is quite sensitive. If they haven't improved compatibility with the new version, it will fail later. It will be useless.

So, I never recommend using it between monitoring unless they plan to monitor standard software like SAP or Oracle Forms. It can work in those cases. 

Overall, I would rate it a six out of ten. 

We use Real User Monitor to monitor services and capture problems from a user perspective, such as availability issues. The reports and metrics we collect from Real User Monitor help us to improve our services. We have around 100 users.

Real User Monitor has improved our productivity. 

Real User Monitor does its job, and that is why we have stayed with it for so many years.

Real User Monitor needs to cover more protocols to provide more in-depth information. It could also be better at monitoring voice-related traffic.  There is currently no visibility in that channel.  

I have been using Real User Monitor for 10 years. 

Real User Monitor is stable. 

Real User Monitor can scale. We've increased the servers and applications while facing no restrictions on scalability. We plan to increase our usage and are already using it extensively. We are currently monitoring around 8,000 different real-user transactions.

I rate Micro Focus support as six out of 10. There has been some turnover in their support team. They are still onboarding new engineers who need some time to build expertise in this area. 

Neutral

Setting up Real User Monitor isn't easy, but it's not too complex, either. The implementation steps are defined and clear, but you need to follow them. After deployment, we need two admins to maintain it. 

We installed Real User Monitor ourselves with support from the vendor. 

We have seen a return.

The license is a one-time cost, but you need to pay annually for support. Though I don't have the numbers for comparison, Micro Focus costs significantly less than the products by Cisco and AppDynamics.

When we adopted Real User Monitor, there weren't many competitors in that space.

I rate Micro Focus Real User Monitor eight out of 10. My advice is to start on the journey and don't stop.

The solution is used for data center monitoring, real-time monitoring, and automation.

With the solution, you can easily access any issues in your infrastructure. If an incident occurs and a ticket is moved to your particular team, you can easily resolve the incident.

The solution's technical support presents a lot of issues with too many delays. Emergency support is unavailable when we raise a P1 ticket for production downtime.

I have been using OpenText Real User Monitoring for one year.

Sometimes, we face issues with the solution’s stability because of bugs.

The solution has good scalability. Our clients for OpenText Real User Monitoring are enterprise businesses.

We also use ServiceNow, which is better than OpenText Real User Monitoring. No one can access OpenText labs.

Sometimes, the solution's initial setup is straightforward and sometimes difficult. The solution's deployment time could take days depending on the environment. Sometimes, customers can access the environment when the port is open. Other times, there is a delay.

We have seen cost-savings with the solution.

Compared to other tools, OpenText Real User Monitoring is an expensive solution.

The solution does not need extra maintenance but requires some basic maintenance when the product version is old. At least two people, including one senior and one junior, are required to install and maintain the solution. It is easy to integrate OpenText Real User Monitoring with other tools.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

My primary use case is to monitor how users are working with our applications.

Real User Monitor has made it easier to drill down and see how users connect to and use our website. It allows us to check details like network performance and availability, connections between the server, which servers are active and inactive, which lets us create the KPI and metrics.

The most valuable features are the monitoring website and the mobile application.

There have been some issues with customers implementing this solution and with login errors, which could be areas for improvement.

I've been working with this solution for twenty years.

I have found this solution to be very stable, I have not had any issues with it.

This solution is scalable.

Most of the time, I contact Micro Focus' R&D team if I need technical support, and they are very responsive.

Previously I used a solution called Business Service Management (BSM).

It was very easy to implement this application, all the instructions are provided to do it step-by-step, and it takes less than three hours to install.

This solution isn't very expensive.

Real User Monitor provides easy options. I would rate this solution nine out of ten.

The primary use case is application monitoring.

We are no longer satisfied with this product and are migrating to Dynatrace.

The technical support is good at resolving issues.

This solution needs to be more lightweight.

It requires that you purchase a Microsoft or Oracle database, which adds extra costs.

This product still uses Java, which has been removed from most of the browsers and it requires an additional install step for the client.

You need to purchase a lot of extra products from Micro Focus because the integration with them is required before you get a final, working solution.

It is an old design that has not changed in the past ten years, other than the name of it.

It takes 20 to 30 minutes to start the application.

When we want to monitor our encrypted traffic, this product doesn't work because our cipher is not supported.

Because RUM is based on port sniffing, it means that you need to configure a port on the network or switch. This works fine in an on-premises deployment, but we are moving to the cloud and user monitoring is done differently.

I have been working with the Micro Focus Real User Monitor for about ten years.

There are issues with stability because they still use Java. For example, right now, they are using Java Enterprise Services, JBoss. This is the cause of a lot of errors.

I have been in contact with support many times and from my point of view, they are okay. In most cases, however, they try to fix the issue rather than improve the product. Ultimately, they need to change the design of the product because the best support on Earth is not going to help solve all of the issues.

We are currently in the process of migrating from Micro Focus to Dynatrace.

With Dynatrace, it will automatically implement the application and you can monitor using a small JavaScript that is injected by the agent. Doing this same thing with Micro Focus would be a nightmare, if not impossible.

Dynatrace is not the only product that is better. AppDynamics, Elastic, and other vendors use the browser as your monitoring solution. For example, whether it is Chrome or Firefox, the browser can provide information about the application. That is the easiest way to do real user monitoring, as opposed to deploying hardware or configuring a switch.

Setting up the basic environment is okay. However, deploying and supporting this solution is a nightmare. A lot of products are required, which means that you have to spend a lot of time and hire a lot of people to support all of the different components. That is the main problem with it.

Our in-house team is responsible for deployment and maintenance.

The price is approximately €30,000 ($35,500 USD) for the enterprise edition.

I have to say that I am very disappointed with this solution. It's very heavy, and it is a nightmare to deploy and maintain. Compared to all of the other solutions, Micro Focus is out of date. In summary, the design is very, very old and it is not the future for us.

If you have an old-fashioned infrastructure with data center servers then this is a good solution for you. You can deploy RUM, connect it to the switch, configure the switch, and it works well. However, if you are a modern company and want to monitor cloud services, it is really hard to do. Essentially, it is not the right solution in that case. For people who don't use virtualization, it might be perfect.

I would rate this solution a two out of ten.

Micro Focus Real User Monitor is used for monitoring users on a network.

The most useful feature of this solution is tracking. When the application's traffic has been monitored it is taken from that particular application and analyzed. It is then given a live session of that particular user. For example, if you are using your bank application to do some kind of transaction, everything that you do can be tracked by that application.

Everybody is moving away from traffic and installing agents on the application to do the job, but Micro Focus is using traditional ways to collect the traffic. They should change their architecture completely.

I have been using Micro Focus Real User Monitor for approximately five years.

Once Micro Focus Real User Monitor is established, it is stable enough, but it requires a certain level of maintenance to take care of what is needed to operate. An operational maintenance resource is needed.

The solution could improve its scalability. As the traffic increases, you need multiple probes to collect the data.

The initial setup is cumbersome because you have to talk to the network team, enable some features, capture the traffic, and then analyze. It is a little cumbersome.

Other vendors are doing application-based/agent-based, but Micro Focus Real User Monitor is still doing traffic-based. AppDynamics has an agent which is installed and collects information. Dynatrace installs another agent and collects information. They don't depend on the network traffic.

My advice to those wanting to implement this solution would be their traffic has to be directed into their network, traffic control is required. As long as the traffic is available, it can be monitored.

I rate Micro Focus Real User Monitor a five out of ten.

We use this solution for monitoring. We have a business service and want to know what users are choosing and what the errors are. We also use it to calculate the business level agreements with the user experience.

We are an integration company.

The reporting feature is good for us.

This technology is considered to be older. We are using the type of data collection that is mirroring traffic from application servers to Real User Monitor servers. Many other vendors such as AppDynamics, and Dynatrace, are using code injection and the values are more true with code injection. But for the mirroring, or data mirroring, it is not as true.

On the technical side, the data mirroring is easier to configure. The code injection needs development. You have to direct the development team on what to do, for you to use the data. For the data mirroring, you can ask the network team to mirror the application server data to my server. You can get all of the data. it is very easy to configure.

Most of the dashboards require a lot of configuration. We are not happy with the dashboard.

It is simple but you need to do some extra configuration, and you need to know another reporting tool that needs to integrate with. It is very difficult to manage this process 

I have been using Micro Focus Real User Monitor for more than ten years.

We are using the latest version.

This solution is very reliable. It's stable.

Micro Focus Real User Monitor is scalable. It is easy to scale.

We have 50 to 100 users in our organization who are using it. These include administration, implementation, and product owners.

Technical support is very responsive.

The initial setup was straightforward. It is very easy to set up.

Our license agreement is a three-year term.

Pricing is reasonable. If I compare with other vendors, other vendors are more expensive.

I would recommend this solution but I would recommend code injection.

I would rate Micro Focus Real User Monitor a seven out of ten.

We are a solution provider and the Micro Focus Real User Monitor is one of the products that we implement for our customers. They use it primarily for monitoring users and application performance.

The most valuable feature is application performance monitoring.

The implementation is quite easy.

We would like to see support for non-Windows environments. Right now, we have to use it on a Windows server, but some of our customers don't like this.

I would like to see improvements made in terms of agent-based support. As it is now, we can install an agent on the application server, but it is not recommended for systems that are in production. In our experience, it is a really good option that we can implement for customers that do not want to reconfigure or change their network.

I have been working with the Micro Focus Real User Monitor for approximately 10 years.

This product is quite stable.

This is scalable in some ways but not others. If you want to run multiple RUM Engines then you have to install multiple servers, and they cannot run in a single instance. For example, one RUM server can be used but it has to be standalone, with no backup server or load balancing support.

Our customers are varied in terms of size and industry. Many of them are very large enterprises, with more than 10,000 employees.

The Micro Focus technical support is quite good. They also have a critical response team, which can provide an immediate response if needed. I have had the opportunity to work with them on some complex cases and they are very powerful, useful, and friendly with the customer. It saves a lot of time.

The initial setup is quite simple. I find it quite friendly for both installation and configuration. Our customers also find it easy to understand.

The length of time required for deployment depends on how many modules the customer wants to monitor, as well as how many the RUM server can discover.

My advice to anybody who is implementing this product is to read the manual carefully and work with support during the implementation phase. This will help to avoid issues in the future.

Overall, this is a good solution. One final complaint I have is that the roadmap from the vendor is not clear, which makes it less attractive to some customers.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The Real User Monitor, with its transaction and synthetic transaction monitoring, is the typical classic in APM cases when the customer would like to do transaction monitoring. Micro Focus scores better where the underlying infrastructure management is also covered by Micro Focus tools.

Otherwise, there are many other products that score well on a standalone basis. Micro Focus has kind of lost their place in the APM market place, which they used to enjoy with their market reacquisition product.

If we're talking about an end-to-end solution, it has to come from one vendor, which provides the underlying infrastructure as well. In that case, Micro Focus or BMC would score better than one-point solutions, like AppDynamics, New Relic, or Dynatrace, because they are pure APM solutions.

When it comes to end-to-end apps management, integrated solutions score better. Otherwise, you would need a lot of integration done along with the underlying infrastructure to get the end-to-end view. Besides the transaction side, you will also need to set up the underlying infrastructure, database, and the whole holistic view, if you would like to have that.

One area to improve is the user interface, of course. The second one is their R&D has virtually stopped building a product roadmap. They need to really do a catch-up game with many of their incoming competitors. They actually need to completely revisit their product development strategy and overall product approach, if they wish to remain relevant in the APM market.

If there are any issues they have been resolved, either by test fix, bug fix, or patches. We found this to be a stable product.

We haven't had any challenges with scalability. The fact is, scalability also leads to a linear requirement on the infrastructure needed to deploy the solution. That effectively means that if you have more applications, more transactions need to be managed, you need to use a lot of provisioning on your infrastructure that hosts an APM solution of that size. This will turn out, eventually, to be a costly affair.

I am not satisfied in their technical support, of late.

The initial setup has two components. One is building the infrastructure to monitor and the other is building the configuration for monitoring. The first part is straightforward, but we have seen many challenges building the configuration for monitoring.

The product is not working. I'm talking about issues that last a year and a half. The product does face some challenges, in terms of bugs and taking a longer time than expected to fix those bugs.

It all depends upon the size of the deployment, so it could probably take from two months to one year. More importantly, in your test product, the one-time deployment is not good enough because you need to continuously refine and improve it. That needs to be ongoing to get the product to reach a certain level of maturity, in order to get the best benefit out of it.

I would go one step back. I would like them to consider the overall holistic solution they have chosen. If they're choosing the end-to-end infrastructure management solution also from Micro Focus, then they need to identify what APM functionality they are really looking for. They should get the POC done for those functionalities in their own environment for the Micro Focus APM solution. If they are satisfied, they should go for it. Otherwise, they should not. If it is a standalone solution, however, I would not recommend Micro Focus. A standalone APM should be ideally considered.

On a scale of one to ten, Micro Focus APM is not more than five.