IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs SCOM comparison

IBM and Microsoft are both solutions in the Event Monitoring category. IBM is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.0, while Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. IBM holds a 4.2% mindshare in EM, compared to Microsoft’s 9.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

Read 5 IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact reviews

895 Views
779 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SCOM

Read 83 SCOM reviews

9,597 Views
1,631 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

SCOM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

SCOM and IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact are competing in the IT infrastructure monitoring and management space. SCOM has a competitive edge in pricing and support, while IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact excels in features.

Features: SCOM offers seamless integration with Microsoft environments, strong monitoring for Windows servers, and robust alerting and reporting. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact excels in handling large-scale environments, advanced event correlation, and comprehensive data analysis from heterogeneous systems.

Room for Improvement: SCOM could enhance integration with non-Microsoft platforms, improve scalability, and increase automation capabilities. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact can benefit from a simplified deployment process, improved user interface, and streamlined configuration procedures.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SCOM offers an intuitive deployment model, particularly within Microsoft-centric IT infrastructures, with accessible support channels. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact requires specialized expertise for deployment but is complemented by strong technical support.

Pricing and ROI: SCOM's lower setup cost is beneficial for smaller enterprises or those in a Microsoft-focused environment, offering quicker ROI. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact requires a higher initial investment, yet its extensive features and high scalability justify the cost for large enterprises, promising significant long-term ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. SCOM Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. SCOM

June 2026

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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

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

Ranking in Event Monitoring

10th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SCOM

Ranking in Event Monitoring

2nd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (14th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is 4.2%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCOM is 9.9%, up from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SCOM	9.9%
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact	4.2%
Other	85.9%

Event Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Hennie Du Toit

Principal Specialist Architecture And Governance at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Event management strengthens with automation but needs better event flooding handling

Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal with that. Better root cause correlation and faster processing for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be helpful. If there can be more end-to-end functionality, such as observability tools built in natively, that would be great. With correlation, IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact has many functions, but we've built them custom-built. Functions such as automated logging, automated dispatching, and automated notification of engineers could be native in the tool.

Read full review

Akshita Kukreja

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature that comes with Netcool/Impact is the ISPF APA support. It is inherent to Netcool/Impact, so I can use the ISPF of any other product, which I can invoke and consume through Impact, and do integrations, which is great. I run the Netcool desktop application so I can integrate with other applications in the ticketing system. It's a great ability being able to invoke ISPF and integrate."

"It is easy to integrate with other models such as Oracle, other systems, external systems, and to reach events."

"The stability has been very good for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact, rated around eight or nine."

"The operational views and third party connections to fetch the data and to help engage on more activities are the most valuable aspects of the solution."

"This product allows us to make use of open-source products, including running Java code."

"I can recommend Netcool/Impact because it's the perfect solution when it comes to invoking ISPF APA and using ISPF integration throughout the rest of your other products."

"The solution is great at being able to fetch almost any kind of file."

"SCOM should be a good choice for fresh IT environments based on Windows servers or switching from open-source monitoring tools."

"The System Center 2012 R2 is really powerful, all products work great together, is not so expensive anymore, easy to license, and can cover from end to end (Networking, Hardware layer, OS, App and services, ports, etc.)."

"We have found the scalability capabilities to be okay."

"SCOM's most valuable features are the network path feature, reporting, and integration with business intelligence."

"This product allows me to measure the level of availability of services and detect errors in them."

"Setting up SCOM is straightforward and takes about an hour as long as you have all your firewalls and DNS settings in place."

"Mature product, strong brand, many customers, Gartner awards Excellent Microsoft server/application monitoring capabilities Fast and consistent UX for system admins Extensive dashboarding capabilities REST API available Excellent technical support, rich user community Designed for on-premise installations"

"SCOM has helped us to monitor all the VMs in our environment, especially the Windows servers."

More SCOM pros

Cons

"For improvement, I'd say the dashboard and the overall GUI could use some work. Although, I don't think that there's much improvement that Netcool really needs to achieve in this area, because when we're talking GUI, Impact is able to integrate with any third-party system and it comes with ISPF APA. It's more beneficial than Netcool/OMNIbus in this respect, and it's quite easy to handle."

"The stability of this solution is somewhat less than other similar products that I have used."

"For improvement, I'd say the dashboard and the overall GUI could use some work."

"IBM is not investing in the development of the on-premise version of this solution."

"Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal with that."

"The solution is somewhat complicated. It's not exactly straightforward."

"Stability-wise, this product needs to be improved."

"I would like to see better support for monitoring Unix-based systems."

"The solution’s initial setup is difficult."

"This product is not easy to use."

"It'll help if they can provide real-time or closer to real-time monitoring."

"If they're looking for real-time, within-the-minute monitoring of servers from a console, then I would say that it falls short there."

"The suite is a monster. Without a clear strategy and fine tuning can produce a lot of noise (unnecessary noise) or miss critical aspects of your environment."

"My advice to people who are looking for a solution like SCOM would actually be to advise them to move from licensed software to open-source."

"If it could have SysLog capabilities and if the Microsoft Management Packs were out of the box instead of a separate download."

More SCOM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is yearly, and although I'm happy with the pricing I do think it could be better."

"Licensing of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact depends on the number of nodes on the element that you are monitoring."

"We have an EA with Microsoft, and it comes as part of the EA."

"The platform is cost-effective due to our existing Microsoft support."

"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."

"The pricing and licensing are fair."

"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."

"SCOM is very cheap because it's included in the license for the System Center suite, which is around $8,400 per CAL."

"It is more expensive than the competition."

"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."

More SCOM pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Retailer

Energy/Utilities Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	22
Large Enterprise	54

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is our event management tool, specifically the umbrella fault management tool set. All of our events across the network correlate the data for us, and we have certain use ...

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What advice do you have for others considering IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?

We remain a partner with IBM Tivoli and continue using their products. We use IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact's AIOps functionality. We experienced some skills issues, but currently receive assistance fr...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Compared 18% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server vs IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs SCOM

Compared 5% of the time

LogicMonitor vs SCOM

Compared 5% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs SCOM

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact

June 2026

Download IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact product report

Buyer's Guide

SCOM

May 2026

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Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool Impact

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012

Overview

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact offers AI-driven network management and integration capabilities, handling complex tasks with open-source tools. It's widely used for event correlation and data consolidation, supporting seamless connections for effective network operations.

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is extensively leveraged within network management, focusing on event correlation and ticketing. It aggregates data from multiple sources, facilitating streamlined event handling. Essential to Netcool teams, it is employed to manage events inside Omnibus and integrate with ticketing systems like Remedy. Its functionalities cover event management, data enrichment from external databases, and alarm handling through connectivity with tools like Excel. While it is appreciated for its automation, correlation modeling, and custom function creation, enhancements are needed for event flooding management, root cause correlation, and stability. Challenges exist in modern technology integration and better configuration processes.

What are IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact's Key Features?

AI-Driven Network Management: Intelligent network operations through AI capabilities.
ISPF APA Support: Integration with ISPF APA enhances performance.
Integration Capabilities: Connects seamlessly with third-party systems.
Data Handling: Manages extensive volumes and types of data efficiently.
Automation Capabilities: Streamlines processes through robust automation features.
Custom Function Creation: Enables creation of tailored functions for specific needs.

What Benefits Should Users Look for in Reviews?

Operational Efficiency: Look for improved handling of network events.
Data Consolidation: Facilitates merging data from different sources.
Streamlined Events Management: Efficiently manages and streamlines event workflows.
Enhanced Connectivity: Supports connections with databases and applications.

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is implemented across multiple industries for efficient network management, especially where event correlation and data integration are critical. Enterprise environments rely on its capability to handle diverse data formats and volumes. Its integration with enterprise applications and databases makes it suitable for sectors demanding reliable network operations and data management strategies.

IBM

SCOM monitors Microsoft environments with a focus on Windows servers and applications such as SQL, Exchange, and SharePoint. It offers integration with Active Directory and Azure, along with customizable dashboards, management packs, and robust alert mechanisms, aiding efficient management and control.

SCOM provides a comprehensive monitoring solution for Microsoft technologies, helping organizations track performance and availability of applications, services, and infrastructure. It integrates with Active Directory and Azure, offering capabilities for monitoring Windows and Linux environments. Extensive management packs, customizable dashboards, and automated alerts offer a refined monitoring experience. Users benefit from detailed performance data, network monitoring, and auto-discovery features, enhancing operational insights and server management efficiency.

What are key features of SCOM?

Microsoft Environment Monitoring: Specialized for Windows servers and applications such as SQL, Exchange, and SharePoint.
Integration Capabilities: Seamless integration with Active Directory and Azure for streamlined operations.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailor visual data displays to enhance monitoring and decision-making.
Extensive Management Packs: Broad range of management packs for enhanced resource and application control.
Robust Alert Mechanisms: Comprehensive alerting to maintain service stability and address potential issues promptly.

What benefits should users seek in reviews?

Operational Efficiency: Enhanced management of server applications and infrastructure.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Detailed insights into performance and service availability.
Proactive Issue Notification: Timely alerts for quick issue resolution.
Improved Control: More efficient server management through automation and visibility.

In technology sectors, SCOM is widely implemented for its ability to monitor server applications and infrastructure components. Healthcare and finance utilize its monitoring and alert systems for compliance and uptime. Enterprises integrate SCOM for managing complex systems like Exchange, SharePoint, and Active Directory, enabling comprehensive analytics and reporting.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)

Dialog Telekom

Buyer's Guide

IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. SCOM

June 2026

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