IBM Tivoli NetCool is an advanced event management and network monitoring tool that efficiently processes alarms, offers extensive integration, and provides reliable customization capabilities. It is a comprehensive solution for network operations, catering to complex environments with vast data needs.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| IBM Tivoli NetCool | 3.7% |
| Cisco DNA Center | 8.7% |
| OpenText Network Node Manager | 5.4% |
| Other | 82.2% |
| Type | Title | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Network Management Applications | Jun 23, 2026 | Download |
| Product | Reviews, tips, and advice from real users | Jun 23, 2026 | Download |
| Comparison | IBM Tivoli NetCool vs Cisco DNA Center | Jun 23, 2026 | Download |
| Comparison | IBM Tivoli NetCool vs Cisco Catalyst Center | Jun 23, 2026 | Download |
| Comparison | IBM Tivoli NetCool vs Fortinet FortiManager | Jun 23, 2026 | Download |
| Title | Rating | Mindshare | Recommending | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN | 4.0 | 2.4% | 92% | 100 interviewsAdd to research |
| NetScaler | 4.2 | 2.9% | 91% | 107 interviewsAdd to research |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 6 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 3 |
| Large Enterprise | 2 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 42 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 33 |
| Large Enterprise | 55 |
IBM Tivoli NetCool features a robust architecture that prioritizes critical alerts through effective event correlation and analysis. It offers seamless integration with numerous systems and provides custom dashboards for enhanced control. Users benefit from its scalability and predictive analysis, while its comprehensive documentation supports implementation. Despite its strengths, challenges like its complex licensing model, high costs, and requirement for expertise in integration are notable. Additionally, modernizing its interface and enhancing AI capabilities could improve user experience.
What are the most important features of IBM Tivoli NetCool?IBM Tivoli NetCool is frequently deployed in industries like telecommunications, finance, and healthcare, where it performs essential roles in event management and network monitoring. As a manager of managers, it consolidates device oversight, providing an integrated view crucial for mobile operators, financial firms, and hospitals.
IBM Tivoli NetCool was previously known as Tivoli NetCool.
| Author info | Rating | Review Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Senior Enterprise Monitoring Engineer at Commerzbank | 3.5 | I use IBM Tivoli NetCool mainly for on-prem systems monitoring, like OS and databases. It's reliable, but with recent strict security requirements, it's challenging to support. It was the top choice 15 years ago, but we're considering alternatives now. |
| Technical Lead at Mycom Osi | 4.0 | I used IBM Tivoli NetCool for event management and found its event correlation and analysis features valuable. The customization options were flexible, but it lacks AI capabilities. Despite being an older tool, its strong community and vast documentation are beneficial. |
| Senior Transmission NOC Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees | 4.0 | I use NetCool for our fiber optics network. It's fast, stable, and scalable, handling millions of daily alarms. While valuable, I find its user interface very outdated and believe it needs a significant refresh. |
| Founding Partner at Guild Systems | 4.0 | I use Tivoli NetCool for network security and workload management. It's stable, offers good ROI, and aids predictive analytics, but scalability is medium, setup is complex, and customer service is slow. I rate it 8/10. |
| Principal Specialist Architecture And Governance at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees | 4.0 | In my experience with IBM Tivoli NetCool, it acts as our primary network manager, simplifying cross-domain correlation and analysis, reduces reliance on scripts, and accelerates root cause analysis despite its complex licensing model. We have not considered other solutions. |
| Application Security Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees | 4.0 | IBM Tivoli NetCool is a key tool as it aggregates alarms from various systems into one interface, simplifying management with predictive analysis. However, its Linux base poses challenges for non-Linux users, and its high cost prompts us to consider alternatives like SolarWinds. |
| Sales Account Manager at Future Systems | ITSM Solutions | 4.5 | I find IBM Tivoli Netcool easy to use, stable, and scalable for large enterprises. While I recommend it, installation could be simpler, and technical support should be faster. I rate it 9/10. |
| Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees | 4.5 | I find IBM Tivoli NetCool very stable with excellent support, extensive documentation, and easy setup. I appreciate its strong monitoring, but desire more AIOps and integrated ticketing/notification features, despite its reasonable pricing. |
| Chief Executive Officer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees | 3.0 | I use this solution for monitoring, appreciating its good integration. However, it's too expensive, complex to manage and set up, and suffers from poor IBM investment and support. I wouldn't recommend it, rating it six out of ten. |
| Senior Baseband & RF Engineer at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees | 4.0 | I find this a robust, scalable IT monitoring solution, very capable with integrations. However, as an occasional user, I find it complex and not user-friendly; setup is challenging. Despite this, I rate it 8/10. |
It is enterprise monitoring for many things, mainly for on-prem systems monitoring. OS monitoring for Unix, for Windows, it's a classic monitoring tool. So it's monitoring.
It can monitor databases. It can monitor domain controllers, VMware, and many other things. There are more than 70 agents, different agents provided by IBM, which can be used for all kinds of application monitoring, OS monitoring, and many other things.
It's very reliable. It works solidly. This is the good thing about it.
There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict.
And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly.
Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.
It has been in my company for around 15 years.
It is a very stable product.
It's very easy. If you want to expand, you just build a new Tivoli manager, you can expand infinitely.
It is very straightforward to expand; its expandability is quite easy. We have thousand of servers for this solution. Five admins handle the maintenance.
IBM's support is very good. Otherwise, this tool wouldn't be viable. Usually, I don't provide proper support for old tools without support. It's impossible to handle it.
Positive
15 years ago, when the company started choosing products, it was number 1. Now, we have decided to move away and choose something else.
The initial setup is not easy.
We use direct support from IBM about installations and the initial setup of the systems because we take one PTO installation package, and then we can set up and configure it with a lot of add-ons, and we start to patch the main release. It takes maybe three to four hours to install on a server.
The pricing is so and so compared to others products on the market. Not the cheapest, not the most expensive. So, the pricing is average.
But at this point, I wouldn't recommend it. You can get something better for the same price.
I would recommend switching to something newer. Learning and supporting Tivoli is a waste of time. IBM barely develops it anymore. They have newer tools like Instana.
Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. This product is excellent, but the tool itself is no longer actively developed.
It can't be perfect; it's discontinued. We're just waiting for its retirement.
We used the solution for event management. It is an operating support system for network management.
Event correlation and analysis features were very good. The customization options helped us meet business-specific needs. We had flexibility because we could configure rules. We could create dashboards. We received alerts and notifications.
The tool supported our network operations center’s day-to-day activities very well. The core capabilities were useful to handle the alarms. The product had a vast set of integrations and plug-ins. NetCool had a plug-in for almost every tool in the market. It was just like plug-and-play. We integrated the tools and started getting alarms on our system.
The vendor support was excellent. The tool had many built-in automation capabilities. We could initiate and automate routine tasks. It was a good feature. NetCool’s strength lies in the ability to correlate and analyze events. It helped us identify and prioritize critical issues. We could prioritize issues based on certain criteria using the severity or keywords. It helped us improve our day-to-day operations and activities. The tool has a flood control mechanism that helps us when we face alarm floods.
The solution does not have any AI capabilities. The solution must provide advanced AI capabilities in future releases.
I have used the solution for ten years.
The tool is very stable. It is more stable than Moogsoft. Everything is very well documented in NetCool. The vendor support is good. The tool has a vast document library. If we refer to the library, there are very few chances of missing out on details while creating the instance. There are fewer chances of error. Our system will not break down in the middle of the operations.
Scalability was never an issue.
The implementation was very tough. We had to be experts. We had to create a database, then a server, and install probes and a gateway. There were many components. We had to run four to five processes for every component.
The deployment can be done in two to three days if all the prerequisites are fulfilled. We need one or two engineers. The solution is easy to maintain because it provides excellent vendor support. Integrating NetCool with other IT management tools was quite smooth and easy. The product provides different plug-ins for different enterprise tools.
NetCool is a very old tool. The documentation library is very vast. We will find answers for all our errors. New tools like Moogsoft have documentation libraries that are evolving. They may have errors that have never been documented. NetCool’s community is very strong.
We can choose NetCool if we do not rely on AI capabilities much. It is a good option. Many NetCool engineers are available. It is very easy to maintain the team. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Our company is based in Egypt and is involved in the transformation of fiber optics networks. Our team collaborates with the IBM operators to create algorithms. Our use case is a telecom transformation core network, a fiber optics network. We are IBM partners.
The solution is very fast, there's no lag or delay between the IBM solution and the other solutions like Huawei and Nokia. It has a huge database to collect and process about one million alarms a day. A great feature is the filter which can be dedicated for updates regarding alarms in real-time. NetCool also has good menu customization.
I think the UI should be updated and made more presentable and eye-catching. Compared to NCE in Huawei, NSN in Nokia, the UiPath and Ubiquiti, it feels very old legacy.
I've been using this solution for two years.
Netcool is very stable, we haven't had any downtime.
We have a huge network and the solution is scalable, managing the entire national transformation network.
There's no setup, as such. We use a web link and it's very easy. We had a very long brainstorming collaborative workshop with IBM to make an algorithm for correlation of transformation network. It involved very specific customization and we're now working on enhancements. It can integrate with many different tools.
I rate this solution eight out of 10.
I mainly use Tivoli NetCool for network security and workload management.
Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation.
Tivoli NetCool's most valuable feature is instrumentation.
In the next release, Tivoli NetCool should include new specification standards for network operations.
I've been working with Tivoli NetCool for about five years.
Tivoli NetCool is pretty stable.
Tivoli NetCool's has medium scalability - there are some problems with its replications not being mature.
IBM's technical support takes a long time to do root cause analysis, and we have to go through several levels of help before getting a solution.
Neutral
The initial setup is complex, and deployment takes about three months. I would rate the ease of the setup process as two out of five.
The initial implementation requires a third-party team.
Tivoli NetCool definitely gives an ROI.
The licensing for Tivoli NetCool is on a subscription basis based on servers and installs. It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors. Support and maintenance are part of the licensing package.
I'd advise those looking into implementing Tivoli NetCool to check out other offerings from the same company as they have legacy offerings along with their latest offerings. I would give Tivoli NetCool a rating of eight out of ten.
NetCool is the manager of managers in the stack. It basically combines the devices of the whole network. We are the mobile network operator, so we use it to assist us in cross-domain correlations and request analysis across all domains.
NetCool combines some limitations from the past. We have built our enhancements into the tool. There is more functionality, and if you can use the machine learning portion effectively, it is a great value.
The tool is much easier to manage than running scripts and figuring out how many endpoints have been exceeded.
The main challenge is its licensing model, which is very complicated.
I have been using IBM Tivoli NetCool for six to seven years.
Our country has a unique situation with rolling blackouts, which cause an influx of events. We had some challenges in the past, but they've largely been overcome, so stability has improved.
I rate the solution’s stability a seven to eight out of ten.
Around 300 users are using this solution. Out of which, 30-50 users are concurrent.
I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.
Support is satisfactory.
Positive
The initial setup is straightforward. But in our case, we have multi-tenancy in several domains, so the solution was a bit complex because of our requirements.
The deployment of the interim portion took a week or two, but the software alone was quick. Different portions exist for installing the product, migrating the rules, and copying the history. It depends on how you refer to the old end-to-end delivery of such an initiative or just an installation and configuration.
Time goes into reconfiguring the same configuration as the old environment and topping the rulesets.
There has been a quicker route to root cause analysis in terms of detection and reaction.
NetCool is more expensive than other proprietary software but offers similar features. While open-source solutions can replicate some of NetCool's capabilities, they may not leverage all the features and might not be ideal for large enterprise organizations. Its cost is comparable to that of other proprietary solutions like Microsoft.
I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
With the introduction of AI capability, NetCool has improved. Previously, customization was often required. Now, it offers much greater flexibility in event handling and enables automation in end-to-end closed-loop scenarios.
The APIs are now a bit more accessible than handling other types of integrations. There has been improvement. Historically, we faced significant challenges, but integrating APIs with downstream systems or applications is not as difficult as it was.
We do the maintenance. In terms of security, it is evident that high-scale security vulnerabilities must be addressed within a very short time frame. Upgrades are typically performed on a quarterly basis or occasionally, depending on the scope of the update. A team of five to six members, including administration and engineers, maintains the solution.
On the cloud side, it offers multifunctional integration. It's not too difficult to integrate with other tools. Its capabilities are generally suited for on-site management, with not too many changes over the last couple of years. The big change was the introduction of AI Ops through Watson Ops. However, the cost is a negative aspect, especially considering the strong competition from a large contingent of open-source tools offering similar capabilities. NetCool's core capabilities might still be able to sustain your operations.
Overall, I rate the solution a seven or eight out of ten.
IBM Tivoli NetCool has a nickname, it is called the Manager of Managers. The solution manages alarms from all the different MMSes, or management systems. All the systems are integrated with NetCool. This allows you to be able to view all the alarms on one screen. NetCool is the alarm management for alarm management.
The feature I have found most valuable with NetCool is how it collaborates all the alarms, and then it does a predictive analysis, providing a consolidated alarm view and management. This makes it much easier than having to run multiple different systems.
Currently, Tivoli NetCool is based on a Linux platform, it would be beneficial if they moved it to Windows because not everyone is acquainted with Linux.
The price of the product is too expensive.
Future releases should include more artificial intelligence and automation.
I have been using IBM Tivoli NetCool since 2006.
NetCool is a very stable solution. When I logged on this morning, I noticed that NetCool had been running for over 350 days. You do not need to restart it, and there is no maintenance that you need to do.
The solution is scalable. We have approximately 50 users in our network department, including operators, specialists, and technicians, that use NetCool.
We do not communicate directly with IBM for service and support, we go through the integrators. If we have any issues, the integrators are responsive.
I would rate support provided directly from IBM a three out of five.
Neutral
For an experienced person, the initial setup is easy. Without experience is it complex.
The recent upgrade that was deployed was complex. Deployment takes approximately two weeks, depending on the environment.
Tivoli NetCool was implemented by both our in-house team and the vendor team. IBM only allows certified or accredited integrators to do the setup. Our team trains while on the job.
Licensing of IBM Tivoli NetCool is very expensive, costing us in the millions of dollars.
The solution was already implemented in the organization when I joined 15 years ago. We are currently evaluating other options because the cost of Tivoli NetCool is so high. I am looking at SolarWinds as a possible alternative.
If price is not an issue, I would recommend IBM Tivoli NetCool to anyone considering implementing it into their organization.
Overall, I would rate IBM Tivoli NetCool an eight out of ten.
IBM Tivoli Netcool is used in financial payment companies and hospitals.
The Netcool solution is great.
It's very easy to use.
The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster.
I have been selling IBM Tivoli Netcool for three years.
IBM Tivoli Netcool is a stable solution.
It's a scalable product. It is used in mega enterprises with 2,000 employees.
I have sold this solution two times, but I don't know exactly how many customers use it.
Technical support could be faster.
We were selling ServiceNow, but this is the old management, and the company has changed to a new management team. As a result, we are expanding our partnership to include IBM sales distributions. I don't sell any ServiceNow solutions.
We are also selling App Dynamics from Cisco. It's application performance management. I sold it more than three times to three different customers. It's simply a very professional application performance management solution. I have been selling it for two years.
The installation is not difficult but could be easier.
Maintenance is done monthly.
Customers are required to pay a licensing fee. Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis.
I recommend this solution all of the time, based on the customer's needs. It has to match with their requirements.
I would rate IBM Tivoli Netcool a nine out of ten.
Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue.
In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release. IBM develops new features for Power BI or Cognos Analytics, which is good. As of now, we use Cognos Analytics, we are not using Power BI. They have the Insight concept but we don't like that.
I have been using IBM Tivoli NetCool for around seven years.
It's stable. I've been working with the Tivoli Suite for seven years and it's very, very stable. IBM gives us good features compared to the market. They have good upgrades and good support.
There are around five to six different users in my company who use this solution.
The initial setup was very easy. All of the documents and everything is there. There is a lot of documentation available. The technical team is able to do the installation based on the documentation that is available. It's easy to learn. The commands are also easy to learn.
The pricing is reasonable. It's reasonable because the support is very good. If there is ever an issue, we can ask them to resolve them so we don't struggle at all to use this solution.
There is a concern about artificial intelligence concepts for Insights because it's a monitoring tool. It monitors all of the network-related or device-related alerts. Those alerts play a major, vital role in this finance or banking sector. If we were to have this artificial intelligence operation concept, it would be very good. Some new projects that we have require AIOps.
With respect to monitoring, other solutions can't compete with IBM.
I would rate this solution a nine and a half out of ten.
We now use Everbridge as a notification tool and we use ServiceNow for ticketing. If the Tivoli Suite had these features then we wouldn't have the need to pay for other solutions.
We primarily use the solution for monitoring. We're using a Tivoli stack.
The solution has very good integration capabilities.
The solution is too expensive.
The product isn't the easiest to use. There's a lot of complexity and it isn't easy to manage.
The initial setup is not straightforward.
The product needs to provide better documentation to the users.
I've been using the solution for a while at this point. It's been about five years or so.
There are always a few bugs here and there. However, the main thing is that IBM is no longer investing in the solution anymore. Therefore, no bug fixes will be coming for those that still exist.
We have about 50 users on the solution currently.
As IBM is no longer investing in the solution, we won't be expanding usage.
IBM could improve its technical support in general. Their response times are pretty slow. I would say that we aren't fully satisfied with the level of service provided to us as users.
We didn't find the initial setup to be straightforward. It was rather complex, in fact. The documentation was just not that good and it made the process challenging.
The deployment process took a year. It wasn't too fast.
We have two engineers that assist in the maintenance of the solution currently.
The product is pretty costly. It's definitely not the least expensive option. We find the price to be too high.
We're just a customer. We don't have a business relationship with IBM.
I wouldn't necessarily suggest this product to others. There are other products right now that may be lighter in deployment and a lot less expensive.
Overall, I would rate the solution six out of ten. I'd rate it higher if they offered more integration potential, or, alternatively, if they create done cohesive product and offered more monitoring software without some many other parts.
Our primary use cases for the solution are confidential. However, generally, we use it to monitor all the IT elements in our network, plus some other ancillary services.
The solution is a complete package. It has various useful elements including inventory management and incident management packaged inside it.
Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system.
The solution offers a lot of useful integration capabilities.
The solution is not user-friendly.
The solution is a bit complex and it would help if it were simplified so that occasional users, such as myself, could manage it better.
As a person who's not well versed in Tivoli, I find handling integrations quite difficult.
I've been using the solution for five or six years. However, I only really manage it if someone from that department is going on vacation. I don't have much experience, but still, I can do some basic troubleshooting.
I've found the solution to have a stability similar to SolarWinds. It may even be a bit more stable than that. It's quite good.
The scalability of the solution is impressive. It's far better than the competition.
We have less than ten admins that are on the solution currently.
I've never been in direct contact with technical support and therefore can't speak to how good they are.
I've used SolarWinds before. I found it easy to use and simple to troubleshoot. The front-end software was very straightforward.
The initial setup is a little complex. I wouldn't consider it straightforward.
I'm not sure how long deployment takes.
We have some Tivoli specialists that manage the Tivoli solution. My experience is on the Cisco networking side, and since I don't normally work with the solution, I'm not sure if I can provide too much detail on implementation.
I'd advise companies that it's difficult to get a person that specializes in a bunch of different solutions and can really understand them fully. It's much better to be an expert on one solution than to try to be an expert on many. If a person wants to specialize in Tivoli then they should focus on just that one solution and know everything there is to know about it.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
