Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) comparison

Cisco and IBM are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Cisco is ranked #44 with an average rating of 8.0, while IBM is ranked #47 with an average rating of 7.5. Cisco holds a 0.7% mindshare in NMS, compared to IBM’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 24 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews

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1,528 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Read 54 IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) reviews

3,214 Views
1,768 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management and Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance are key players in the network performance management category. IBM SevOne may have the upper hand due to its emphasis on real-time data and comprehensive visibility.

Features: IBM SevOne NPM excels with agentless monitoring, scalability, and real-time data collection through one-minute polling. Users value its ease of certification, comprehensive infrastructure visibility, and user-friendly alert setups, along with its impressive data retention and granular historical analysis. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance offers real-time traffic insights using TWAMP, detailed performance analytics for networks and applications, and customizable dashboards. It also provides traffic capturing and Layer 7 analytics essential for thorough performance insights.

Room for Improvement: IBM SevOne NPM could improve upgrade processes and data handling during migrations. Users call for better automation, comprehensive baselining, and an updated UI design. Enhancements in SNMP data handling and device certification are also suggested. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance could benefit from optimizing large data queries, enhancing data export capabilities, and improving Layer 7 transaction analytics. Users express a need for clearer data retention policies and more robust reporting features to meet changing needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SevOne NPM supports On-premises and Hybrid Cloud deployments, with users rating service reliability high, between 8-10. Its technical support is competent with some independence for upgrades. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance provides support for On-premises, Hybrid, and Public Cloud environments and earns praise for its responsive technical assistance, though some delays occur based on regional or issue complexities.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SevOne NPM offers a flexible pricing model based on managed objects, providing a pay-as-you-grow plan. While some see it as expensive for small businesses, it delivers significant ROI through operational efficiency and monitoring cost savings. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance, despite recent price hikes, is perceived as competitively priced in sensor deployment, offering a positive ROI with detailed event analysis and preventative monitoring.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

July 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

44th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (46th)

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

47th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (20th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (46th), Log Management (46th), Cloud Monitoring Software (30th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.7%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is 1.0%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Pifu Lin

Senior System Engineer at DYNASAFE TECHNOLOGIES PTE. LTD.

Addresses connectivity issues with real-time monitoring while offering good local support

I had prepared for COC and the client. I work as a vendor for a client using Flow Mount for network performance monitoring. I focus on resolving client-side issues related to Packy Performance and quality use. This involves addressing network device issues, specifically Cisco network devices One…

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Grzegorz Nowak

Solution Architect at Wingu

Improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic

We use SevOne to collect and report on network flows SevOne improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic. We can look at bandwidth for specific endpoints on the customer's network and analyze traffic to identify issues. For example, maybe some connectors are unavailable.…

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The feature I used to like the most was its ability to decode layer seven protocols, although this is becoming less useful now that encryption is so widespread."

"It is about finding operational problems. When sites go down, we try to determine who is at fault. While there is not much finger-pointing, the solution is just trying to analyse when there is an outage and where do we start looking to fix it. The very nature of why organization chooses to use the solution is to accelerate the meantime to resolution and find where problems lie to get them rectified as quickly as possible."

"What I like most about Accedian Skylight is that it's a UI application, so using it is easy. I also like that the support for Accedian Skylight is helpful."

"The ability to measure performance end-to-end across the cloud data center allows us to take corrective action to keep our channels online."

"Capturing traffic [is very interesting]. Currently, with our configuration, we don't capture the payload of the packets, just the header. But when we want the body, the payload of the packets, we can do a PCAP, and then analyze it within Wireshark."

"If [the problem] is something related to HTTP or VoIP, then I can have a quick look into the protocols, a process which gives me some good ideas..."

"The response times, with the performance, are really interesting too, where you can see the packet loss."

"This solution has helped to improve the interaction between our network, datacenter, and application teams. I have used other tools, but this tool can pinpoint the root cause of my application or network issue in the majority of the cases. So, it helps different divisions or groups in the IT department to troubleshoot together and get an issue resolved. This tool helps a lot in our day-to-day networking application and IT operations."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

"SevOne’s data collection functionality is very good. From a collection point of view, we pull SNMP data, which is simple. It is easy to manipulate the pull in the estate. It is really simple compared to some of the other products that we have used. However, for deferred data, i.e., things that we import or don't pull directly, we tend to have a preplanned integration. So, its Universal Collector is really useful."

"It's given us the ability to create various real-time network performance reports and distribute them to any colleague who can access these reports immediately."

"Data Insight reporting tool is the most valuable feature. They came up with it a couple of years ago. The most pleasing factor is the dark theme. You don't have a white background. It has templates that you can create for all kinds of reports that you can hit on the fly. It's much better printing of the reports. If you want to send PDFs to people, the reports are actually decent. Whereas for years, the old architecture of the PDFs was rubbish and even our customers said, "We have to manipulate your PDFs because they all have bad margin breaks. SevOne fixed that a couple of years ago with the new Data Insight. It's fantastic."

"I like the tool’s scalability and real-time reports. Earlier, we struggled to give real-time reports to clients. I also like the tool’s deployment model where we can deploy it either on-premises or in-house. We don’t have to carry the data all over the globe. Also, I am impressed with the tool's flow reporting and Wi-Fi."

"The SMP and the xStats, which is for flat file integration, are both useful for integrating the various metrics that the device provides to monitor the performance of those systems."

"It's a great solution for highlighting and discovering useful information regarding our network's elements."

"Another useful feature is that SevOne gives you real-time insights into your network performance. It polls every five minutes. That is important for our customers because there are some network teams that are always monitoring their networks."

"The monitoring of the network is very customizable. That is its unique feature."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

Cons

"It needs the possibility to export data because it is not easy to see larger data sets, e.g., for one month. It would be interesting to export data into a PDF or dashboard to keep a history of the situation."

"I would like to see some improvements in parts of their synthetic transactions, which includes all the latency, jitter, and throughput. I would like to see some Layer 7 analytics in there. I want to be able to do a DNS request, HTTP GET request, or even SIP call point-to-point or via registration."

"This solution is expensive compared to some others."

"There should be an option to update and upgrade the solution to the new version without having to re-buy it. I have clients switching to other solutions. The old solution is great, but if you change your license to a new one, you have to almost re-buy it completely."

"The UI interface of Accedian Skylight could improve."

"Some of the Skylight applications are a little newer, and they're still moving through initial revs. There are certain bugs, but nothing is insurmountable... It will just take a little bit of time for their user interface to get a little bit better."

"If you want a new version, you go to the website. The hardest part is finding the link, where is that .bin file? Sometimes it's pretty hidden in a document... it's hidden in the release notes or in another file somewhere. And it's usually not on the first page either."

"It's a bit slow. When I execute a query, something general with a short timeframe that covers one month, for instance, and I do not specify the IP source or IP destination, it can take ages because it has to query the whole database."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

"User-friendly, multi-tenancy."

"SevOne should work with the graphs legend functionality."

"NMS has several areas for improvement. It should be more user-friendly inside of NMS for some of the functionality in there. It's been getting better the last version or two, but the there have been bugs in there whenever I've gone to new versions."

"We previously have had discussions on some reporting enhancements. So, we raised a feature request, which was delivered from SevOne."

"Their virtualization solution is not compatible with our Kubernetes environment, which is one of the reasons we are ending our relationship with them."

"There are a lot of pain points. My main problem is that we don't have a high availability system. There are 20 peers. We're going to lose the end-of-life appliances that are old. If we lose a peer and it doesn't come back, we lose all that data. The reason we don't have high availability is because it's double the charge."

"You need to plan integrations. That has been the biggest bug with SevOne so far. For the things that SevOne pulls directly, those are easy to understand, modify, and put into the database. For things that need to use the Universal Collector or xStats, you need to plan that stuff well in advance."

"Telemetry is hot these days, and IBM can improve SevOne's support for telemetry correction. Reporting is another feature that could be better. It provides the bare minimum functionality, which is good enough for most engineers, but the management isn't advanced. The new portal provides a much lighter view and better visualization, but the management is not so good."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

"If you look into Riverbed, it's a licensing nightmare. You need to pay for every type of analysis... If you don't look into licensing, Riverbed and SolarWinds are pretty comparable. But if you look into licensing it would not be smart to go for either of them. On the pure, bare-metal basis, it's the same. But when you get the bare metal and a few basic licenses, then you need all those other licenses just to be sure that there's no issue... One of the great things about Skylight is you have them all, and you actually need them all."

"It provides value and the cost is not huge."

"We understand there's a significant cost difference, but have yet to investigate fully."

"The solution was previously well-regarded, but after being acquired by Accedian, the prices have significantly increased. This has made it challenging to sell the product due to its high cost. It is an expensive solution."

"It's not for free, clearly. But on the other hand, it offers very interesting functionality. We pay around €100,000."

"The pricing is cheaper than other competing products, which is better for our budgets."

"The pricing of Accedian Skylight is really good. The sensors are low cost. Their model to analytics for sensors is by license, endpoint, or session. With the probes for their analytics, if they get deployed virtually, they are free. The licensing is only based on flows. So, you can effectively deploy probes everywhere in your network. Then, if you want to look at a specific type of traffic, you can enter into it with a very low cost license. You can just use things like spam ports, mirrors, TAPs, and aggregators to optimize what sort of traffic you send to these analysis tools. Then, if you want to start looking at more, you can up your licensed as you go. You are not getting forced into expensive appliances or subscription models."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

"Choose a SevOne partner who can provide SevOne as a service and can deliver professional services and maintenance."

"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."

"Prices per license are not huge, but they exist."

"Although I don't have exact details in terms of cost, my experience has been that SevOne is willing to make a deal with the customer."

"The pricing has not evolved with the market, which is one of the reasons we are moving to a new product."

"The pricing has been fair."

"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."

"For the value that you get from SevOne, it's worth the price. There are a lot of cheaper alternatives on the market, and even free options. But they require more staff, more resources, and engineers with more advanced knowledge of monitoring. That's what makes SevOne worth the price."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

36%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Legal Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Accedian Skylight?

Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues. I require more tools to file and resolve these issues efficiently.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Accedian Skylight?

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Accedian Skylight?

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SevOne Network Data Platform?

There is room for improvement in the integration with different vendors and the reporting capabilities. It would be beneficial to have out-of-the-box integration with third-party vendors and improv...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SevOne Network Data Platform?

The primary use case of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) ( /products/ibm-sevone-network-performance-management-npm-reviews ) is network monitoring. It helps to maintain the infrastru...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering SevOne Network Data Platform?

To compete with custom-built tools, IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) should accommodate the desired features and be timely in the delivery of feature updates. I would rate the overal...

See all answers

Comparisons

ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 39% of the time

Dynatrace vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 14% of the time

Zabbix vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 9% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 9% of the time

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Instana Infrastructure Monitoring vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 8% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 8% of the time

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 6% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

August 2025

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

August 2025

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

Also Known As

Accedian Skylight, Accedian SkyLIGHT PVX, SkyLIGHT PVX, SecurActive, Performance Vision

SevOne

Overview

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is known for its user-friendly approach to network analysis and performance monitoring. It excels in real-time diagnostics, helping organizations quickly resolve network issues and optimize performance effortlessly.

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance focuses on comprehensive network troubleshooting and performance monitoring, assisting in identifying bottlenecks and analyzing applications. Real-time data collection and evaluation ensure IT infrastructure efficiency. With active monitoring of latency, jitter, and throughput, users maintain smooth operations across multiple sites and applications. While highly effective, improvements in data handling, protocol support, and dashboard aesthetics are suggested to enhance user experience.

What are the key features of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance?

Flow Matrices: Advanced analysis of network paths and traffic distribution.
SQL and DNS Analysis: In-depth insights into database and domain queries for troubleshooting.
Bandwidth Assessment: Evaluation of network capacity and utilization for performance optimization.
Real-time TWAMP Monitoring: Tracks network performance using Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol.
Application Performance Modules: Monitors the performance of various applications and services.
Customizable Dashboards: Personalized views for tracking critical network metrics and trends.
PCAP Capturing: Detailed packet analysis using tools like Wireshark for deeper insights.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Ease of Use: Intuitive design allowing users to swiftly diagnose network issues.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Enhanced visibility of network activity for better control.
Performance Efficiency: Optimization of throughput, reducing downtimes and improving service delivery.
Cost-Effectiveness: Balances features and functionality with competitive pricing for better ROI.

In industries such as telecommunications and finance, where network reliability is crucial, Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance offers critical network performance insights. It supports high-demand environments by providing data-driven decisions, ensuring infrastructures handle increased loads efficiently.

Cisco

The IBM® SevOne Network Performance Management (IBM SevOne NPM) solution helps you spot, address, and prevent network performance issues early with machine learning-powered analytics from a single source. Boost network performance and improve your user application experience by proactively monitoring your multivendor end-to-end network across enterprise, communication, and managed service provider networks.

Transform raw network performance data into intelligent and actionable insights. The IBM SevOne NPM solution goes beyond detection, combining industry-leading expertise and advanced technology to help your IT team plan and optimize your network and act on what matters: improving network performance to provide an exceptional customer experience.

For further information, please visit www.ibm.com/cloud/sevo...

IBM

Sample Customers

T-Systems, Thomson Reuters, Bordeaux Metropole, CGI, Citadelle Regional Hospital Center, Lorraine Institute of Oncology, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Groupe BPCE, Group S, Splitpoint, Horus-Net, Audatex, Indexis, Province de Liège, EASI, Spie Batignolles, Faymonville

ATOS, Devereux, Spark New Zealand, Access4, Rogers Communication, Lumen (formerly known as CenturyLink)

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

July 2025

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