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IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager vs SCOM comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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

IBM Tivoli Business Service...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SCOM
Ranking in Event Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager is 4.7%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCOM is 9.3%, up from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SCOM9.3%
IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager4.7%
Other86.0%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer847356 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good technical support, and efficient for working with business data
We use this solution for working with data. The most valuable feature of this solution is the efficiency. This application should be made easier to use because it usually needs training and it is not easy to operate. We have been using this solution for fourteen years. The stability of this…
AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"TBSM is a rock, and our house would have crumbled without it."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the efficiency."
"It can send messages to our ticketing system."
"The most valuable features for us are the monitoring, the health explorer, and the console."
"SCOM is a great monitoring tool."
"SCOM is a required tool in my job since I am responsible in overseeing multiple virtual and physical servers and services for a bank."
"The inbuilt management pack that Microsoft provides is really helpful. I know it's a mature product, and they keep upgrading the management pack."
"SCOM is capable of providing full-featured infrastructure monitoring, alerting and reporting, especially for Windows-centric production environments."
"SCOM is a very powerful tool if deployed and eventually maintained correctly."
"My customers are using SCOM to avoid business disruptions."
 

Cons

"Yes, Event Storms and other less traumatic triggers the JVM to hang requiring recycles."
"This application should be made easier to use because it usually needs training and it is not easy to operate."
"The management of the servers could be better."
"Too small of a scope in reports, need to improve a lot."
"SCOM agents have a heavy footprint. Would like a lighter, more-efficient footprint."
"I feel that the stability of the tool has room for improvement and I would like to see that in the next version."
"The console is a point to improve, because it is very heavy and a web console should be in HTML5."
"SCOM is not a flexible product. The initial setup should be easier to complete."
"It lacks certain details that other products do better, like granular access and better application monitoring."
"Then there is also an issue with capacity and limited space. That is something that needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We have to pay for a license and the price is fine for us."
"SCOM's pricing is average."
"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"It is the cheapest product available in the market."
"I don't know the exact cost because it's managed by our sales team, but Microsoft is on the higher side."
"Two customers bought the enterprise agreement with Microsoft and paid for Software Assurance. But few customers don't buy it for Software Assurance. They just buy it and deploy it, and they think that we will be using it for the next five years."
"SCOM is very cheap because it's included in the license for the System Center suite, which is around $8,400 per CAL."
"Our Enterprise Agreement includes the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
What is your primary use case for SCOM?
My usual use case for SCOM is as an administrator role where I create reports and provide system configuration for Linux and installation of the SCOM agent. I handle deploying and upgrading the age...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Business Service Manager, BSM
System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SSGC
Dialog Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager vs. SCOM and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.