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Amar Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Monitoring Systems Engineer at Monster Worldwide
Real User
Dec 18, 2022
Helpful in monitoring web servers, database servers and alerts
Pros and Cons
  • "The ease of deployment, especially on Windows platforms, is valuable."
  • "The solution can be improved by expanding to cloud usage."

What is our primary use case?

It is used for monitoring on-premises servers, and we deploy it on-premises.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution helped monitor web servers, database servers and alerting, which is very useful.

What is most valuable?

The ease of deployment, especially on Windows platforms, is valuable.

What needs improvement?

The solution can be improved by expanding to cloud usage. Currently, a lot of people do not use SCOM because it is limited to strictly being on-premises, and many organizations are moving to the cloud.

Buyer's Guide
SCOM
May 2026
Learn what your peers think about SCOM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for approximately 11 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. It has an excellent capacity to monitor 100 to 1,000 servers, based on how the SCOM servers are provisioned. You can easily scale up your monitoring capacity.

How are customer service and support?

I rate my experience with customer service and support a ten out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward, and only one person was required for deployment and maintenance.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. The solution is good but can be improved by adapting to a cloud environment. I advise users considering the solution to use it if they have on-premise servers and more of a Windows-based environment.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Hussein Taha - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Enterprise System Administrator at Nafeza
Real User
Dec 14, 2022
We can monitor all the VMs in our environment and access full insight reports for all the VMs, but the solution is not stable
Pros and Cons
  • "SCOM has helped us to monitor all the VMs in our environment, especially the Windows servers."
  • "The GI is difficult to work with and the reporting servers are also difficult."

What is our primary use case?

SCOM is used as a monitoring solution for managing Windows-based IT infrastructures within our organization.

How has it helped my organization?

SCOM has helped us to monitor all the VMs in our environment, especially the Windows servers. This is our scoop, we monitor all the VMs that have OS Windows servers. The best part of SCOM is that we have a major comeback with it and can apply something that could act as a counteraction. Once an action appears, there is a counteraction in order to avoid any interruption to the service. This is the best way the solution has improved our organization.

What is most valuable?

The solution provides a full insight report for all the VMs in our environment. SCOM also tells us whether the VMs are healthy or not, as well as provides brief information about the management console in each site and the agents under these management consoles.

What needs improvement?

There is no room for update or enhancement in SCOM because Microsoft has retired it as an on-prem solution and moved it to the cloud. The current version will be the last on-prem given Microsoft's push to move all their solutions to the cloud.

The GI is difficult to work with and the reporting servers are also difficult. Another dimension that makes SCOM difficult is the number of components. The reporting server, the database, and the two components of the database (operational and warehouse) are all difficult to work with. This is why SCOM is a difficult solution to implement, configure, and troubleshoot.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is not very stable. Sometimes we find alerts in the event viewer that we don't understand. we have to spend hours trying to figure out what the events mean. Sometimes we have to request support from Microsoft engineers, who may take a long time to respond, and the case may take longer than expected to resolve.

I give the stability a six out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. We currently have six members, but we should add management consultants depending on our workload. We need to go through the Microsoft documents first. We need to calculate and prepare for our Virtual Machine (VM). We need to identify the storage, memory, and CPUs for our VM. This is important because we don't want to lose our solution or have bad performance. A bad performance will affect our environment. We also need to make sure the latency is less than 12 milliseconds. This is important because the management console needs to communicate with the database. If the latency is more than 12 milliseconds, it will affect the outcome of these records and the management console will be unhealthy.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously we used SIM by SolarWinds.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is difficult to implement and troubleshoot. Sometimes we need the prerequisites for a task, but we encounter issues that we don't understand or that are not reasonable.

The first time we deployed the solution, there were three of us, but now that we have more experience, we can do it on our own without the requirement of additional people. 

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house.

What was our ROI?

We have not seen a return on investment. We have a lot of latency issues with the solution that is related to the network coverage between the sites. We have ten data centers using a management console but our database is centralized in the capital of Cairo. 

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution a six out of ten.

First-time users of SCOM need to be well prepared. There should not be too many management consoles. The SCOM gateway can be used as a way to transfer data to the management console, and the management console will have low latency so it can act as the management console for these sites. It will handle the queuing for the data through the centralized database. This is the best practice given to me by the Microsoft team because of an issue that occurred in our environment that took some time to be resolved.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
SCOM
May 2026
Learn what your peers think about SCOM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1423482 - PeerSpot reviewer
Group CIO at a import and exporter with 51-200 employees
Real User
Aug 19, 2022
Great visibility and able to expand but needs better documentation
Pros and Cons
  • "The stability has been great."
  • "The fact that I'm able to see all my devices and the status of them has been extremely useful."
  • "We didn't know the solution enough, and therefore, it took a while to set everything up correctly. There was a learning curve."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution essentially for the management of the endpoint and the management of assets.

What is most valuable?

The fact that I'm able to see all my devices and the status of them has been extremely useful. It's mainly the device visibility and device status. 

The stability has been great. 

It is very scalable. 

What needs improvement?

We haven't upgraded the SCOM version yet, however, there's a few of the versions where we would like to have improvements in terms of more visibility into some of the details of the device. 

We'd like to be able to configure and push more granular policies into the device.

Using iOS is an issue for us. It's not as deep as the Microsoft offering. We'd like more detail in the iOS version. They also need more advanced iOS support.

There is a lack of documentation.  

We didn't know the solution enough, and therefore, it took a while to set everything up correctly. There was a learning curve. We'd like more help in planning and training. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for eight years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It really is stable. The performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can scale well. It's actually more suited for larger enterprises. 

We didn't have any issues with scalability.

We have about 800 users on the product currently. That's about 1,400 devices. 

We use the product fairly regularly. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support takes work. They're knowledgeable, yet it takes a lot of time. You have to go through the reseller first - before you get to speak to Microsoft. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We're going to, eventually in the next few years with SCOM, move to the cloud management features of Microsoft.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup took a lot of time. I can't remember exactly what the timeframe was. However, it took longer than we expected. I'd rate it 2.5 out of five in terms of the ease of setup. While it's not difficult, it does take time. We had to do and redo a few things during implementation. They didn't have any documentation for us to work out of, which would have helped. 

What about the implementation team?

We handled the setup ourselves in-house. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't have an individual cost for SCOM. We buy all our licenses under the program. We get invoiced for the quantities of each of the products without having an individual cost for SCOM. If you buy certain licenses or servers, SCOM automatically comes with it. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

At the time, we didn't investigate others. We didn't investigate a lot of other technologies as we're a Microsoft shop. We use Microsoft products. We are resellers. We're distributors of Microsoft. We didn't go much further out from there. Recently, we also haven't investigated a lot. We are starting to research the management of endpoints with the Microsoft cloud platform. That looks a little bit easier right now.

What other advice do I have?

We're using a lot of Microsoft products. We are also resellers and distributors of Microsoft.

Whether this solution works for you or not depends on how you do your model. If you outsource everything, then you don't have the problem even if you're an SMB. However, if you have an IT department inside your organization, you will likely need this. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller / User
PeerSpot user
Vocational Coordinator at UMMS
Real User
Jun 7, 2022
Logical free solution to leverage for management packs
Pros and Cons
  • "Being able to make and customize management packs and send out notifications is very valuable."
  • "We leverage every component of SCOM; we have dashboards up, customized management packs, and monitors for both Windows and Linux, and we use SNMP traps to pull in information from network devices across the enterprise, so we use it for everything."
  • "Third-party tools have had to be created to make SCOM management pack creation more efficient and effective. However, this weighs down the application as it just adds a resource requirement, which is ballooning the size of the necessary storage and all that for essentially substandard components."

What is our primary use case?

We leverage every component of SCOM. The solution uses monitoring mechanisms to send alerts and notifications for down systems or problematic trouble issues. We use it for all of that. We have dashboards up, customized management packs, and monitors for both Windows and Linux. We use SNMP traps to pull in information forward network devices that are in the enterprise. We use it for everything.

What is most valuable?

Being able to make and customize management packs and send out notifications is very valuable. That's the bread and butter of the solution. That's what we use it for.

What needs improvement?

The SCOM dashboards have room for improvement. They've been improving them in iterations slowly and surely. Third-party tools have had to be created to make SCOM management pack creation more efficient and effective. However, this weighs down the application as it just adds a resource requirement, which is ballooning the size of the necessary storage and all that for essentially substandard components. I would suggest either using the dashboard and management packs to their full potential, so we don't have to go out to third-party vendors to install additional features, or allow them to be truncated during installation so that we're not wasting resources.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've worked with SCOM for about ten years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

SCOM's stability is pretty solid. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

SCOM has been scaling pretty nicely for us, which is what it's intended to do. We do have plans to increase usage. It's constantly evolving, developing utility. All new systems go onto it. It's not shrinking anytime soon.

How are customer service and support?

The tech support is good. Our company has Premier Plus in place. They're responsive.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

This is the only one I've used.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex. It requires Microsoft's support in many cases. It takes about a month or two to get SCOM up and running and fleshed out so that you have all the configurations. For example, when you're migrating from '12 to '19, you have to look at everything that's already in place and then try to migrate it. Whereas if you're starting fresh, then you have to start one at a time looking at each component and building it out. They're too different. 

What about the implementation team?

We deployed in-house, but we did leverage Microsoft.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is provided by Microsoft for free but there are operating costs. Those would be the many hours necessary to prune it. We have a contract for support. If that didn't exist, then the cost of the solution would include paying for support. Because it is a complex system, I will contact support for assistance. I also have the general resource requirements just to have the systems up. This includes several databases and front-end servers running. However, added together, all of these costs are minimal.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate any other options before landing on SCOM. The reason for this is that SCOM is a Microsoft solution and we have a significant Microsoft presence in our environment, it's actually provided gratis by Microsoft, so it was just a logical utility to leverage.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others looking into implementing this product is to make sure that you have a solid understanding of SQL commands, statements, databases, and Visual Studio. This will help you understand how to make the management packs more effective. I rate this solution a ten out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Sr. Systems Engineer at Arapahoe County Government
Real User
Nov 11, 2021
Easy to scale, offers helpful maintenance schedules, and free online training is available
Pros and Cons
  • "I like some of their newer features, such as maintenance schedules, because SCOM records SLA and SLO time."
  • "It's a lot more powerful than people realize, and I believe people become dissatisfied with it because of the complicated setup, but once it's up and running, it's pretty amazing at what it can do."
  • "I would like to see them improve their network monitoring."

What is our primary use case?

We use SCOM for all server applications, as well as service monitoring, such as Windows services, and auto-recovery of those services if they fail. Some of the processes that we monitor at the .exe level can also be restarted with SCOM. Then we use it all to monitor availability, health, and performance.

What is most valuable?

Personally, I enjoy it all. It's fairly powerful.

I like some of their newer features, such as maintenance schedules, because SCOM records SLA and SLO time.

When we patch, things are automatically put into maintenance mode so that the numbers for our systems being down, do not count against us.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see them improve their network monitoring.

We use Solar Winds, and it has a direct interface into SCOM. We can see all the Solar Winds dashboards from the SCOM interface, which is nice to have.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been involved with SCOM for seven years.

We just completed a major upgrade from 2012 R2 to 2019.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have had a lot of success with the 2019 product. When we were on 2012 R2, I had to reboot the servers, particularly the database servers, at least once every two weeks. I believe we've been up and running for about three months in 2019 and have only rebooted once a month for monthly patching.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good. It's very easy to scale.

It can support up to a thousand nodes per management server, and we are nowhere near that number. I have three management servers in place for a 400-node network. Load balancing is simple, stable, quick, and efficient.

In terms of speed and agility, I believe it is significantly better than the 2012 version.

Our systems team and then the applications team, use this solution, totaling approximately 75 people within our government. We have 2,000 employees, and our IT department has about 100 people, and about 75 of them use it.

How are customer service and support?

For 2019, I haven't used technical support yet. I've never had to call him. 

In 2012, Microsoft's support was good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were using HP Open View at the time, and their technology was quickly becoming obsolete. They weren't keeping up, particularly when the 2012 operating system was released. They just couldn't keep up, and their pricing was spiraling out of control.

How was the initial setup?

It's quite complicated. I would call it complex.

On a scale of one to five, I would give it at least four or four and a half.

There are a lot of customizations, and it's quite noisy out of the box.

You have a lot of alerts, which is normal for most of them. 

I have tried some of the other monitoring systems as well, and they all seem to work in the same way. Basically, all you have to do is tune it. That is what requires time.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Our Enterprise Agreement includes the price.

All of the Systems Center products have a backup, which we don't use, but SCCM is included in the pricing. As a result, we can afford it because we have the Enterprise agreement.

What other advice do I have?

We do use SolarWind, but I am not on that team; it is used by the network group.

I use the Operations Manager to manage my server infrastructure. 

The most important thing would be to go to Microsoft and get some training. They provide a lot of free classes in the form of webinars and other similar events. It has a multitude of different deliverables that most people never get into. 

It's a lot more powerful than people realize, and I believe people become dissatisfied with it because of the complicated setup, but once it's up and running, it's pretty amazing at what it can do.

I am pretty happy with the way it works right now, I would rate SCOM a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Managed Services - System engineer at Brennan IT Pty Ltd.
MSP
Nov 7, 2023
Provides excellent auto-remediation features and is the cheapest product in the market
Pros and Cons
  • "The product’s auto-remediation feature helps with automation."
  • "Application monitoring must be improved."

What is our primary use case?

One of our customers is an Australian delivery company. They use SCOM to manage their servers, hardware, applications, NAS devices, hand devices, hypervisor, and virtualization environment. Another customer uses SCOM to monitor their clients. They have more than 3000 Windows and Linux servers.

What is most valuable?

The product’s auto-remediation feature helps with automation. It is very good at monitoring Microsoft Stack.

What needs improvement?

Application monitoring must be improved. The product must provide support for monitoring virtualization. It is a complex tool. It is not easy to configure it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the tool’s stability a seven out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the product’s scalability five out of ten. Scalability must be improved. The solution is suitable for enterprise businesses.

How was the initial setup?

I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. From planning to POST checks, the whole process takes one week.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is the cheapest product available in the market. I rate the pricing a one out of ten.

What other advice do I have?

I work for a managed service provider. We provide services for SCOM. We provide in-house support and services to our customers. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. MSP
PeerSpot user
Robert Hedblom - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud and Solution Principal Architect at sumNERV Provider AB
Real User
Aug 29, 2023
A highly scalable solution that can be used for proactive monitoring
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of SCOM is the capability of using classes within your management pack development."
  • "The solution’s initial setup is difficult."

What is our primary use case?

We use SCOM for proactive monitoring that we code ourselves. We code it with a management pack, which is the actual logic of all monitoring experiences. We develop our own monitoring capabilities instead of using Microsoft's. We could use them as a base but always add extra deliverables with our own code.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of SCOM is the capability of using classes within your management pack development.

What needs improvement?

The solution’s initial setup is difficult. SCOM should include more in-depth trend analysis.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using SCOM for 15 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate SCOM an eight out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

More than 100 users are using SCOM in our organization. I rate SCOM ten out of ten for scalability.

What about the implementation team?

It took one day to deploy SCOM.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment with SCOM, and the solution is worth its money.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

SCOM's pricing is average.

What other advice do I have?

I am using the latest version of SCOM. Users should do a POC for the solution.

Overall, I rate SCOM a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner/customer
PeerSpot user
Trevor Watkins - PeerSpot reviewer
Server Applications Senior Administrator at Home Hardware Stores Limited
Real User
Jan 26, 2023
Helps us monitor the health of our servers and has improved our ability to restart services
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has improved our overrides and the ability to start services if they're stopped."
  • "The price could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for the solution is monitoring the health of our Windows servers. We deploy the solution on-premises.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has improved our overrides and the ability to start services if they're stopped.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for approximately one year and currently using the latest version, SCOM 2022.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. I rate it a ten out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. I rate it a ten out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

We have had a good experience with customer service and support. I rate them a ten out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward.

What was our ROI?

We have not seen a return on investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I rate the pricing an eight out of ten. The price could be improved.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. I recommend it for users considering implementing it and advise them to do some research.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
SergiusNkomadu - PeerSpot reviewer
Service manager at Signal Alliance LTD
Real User
Sep 3, 2022
Cheap solution with great reporting and business intelligence integration
Pros and Cons
  • "SCOM's most valuable features are the network path feature, reporting, and integration with business intelligence."
  • "SCOM's feature that notifies us when a server is down is not present in recent updates, which has weakened the product."

What is our primary use case?

I primarily use SCOM to monitor services, logins, devices, and workstations and get notifications when there's a problem.

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

SCOM's feature that notifies us when a server is down is not present in recent updates, which has weakened the product. In the next release, SCOM should add more and simpler integration with other software.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using SCOM for eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

SCOM is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

SCOM is scalable, but it can be difficult if you don't fully understand the product.

How are customer service and support?

Microsoft's technical support employs a lot of remote workers as support engineers. While some of them are very good, sometimes they can't handle the problems and will procrastinate until the time is up before referring you to someone else. This means that our time is wasted by people who are not technically sound and can't help with our problems.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex if you're using the cloud elements because not every part of SCOM works in the cloud, and some need to be integrated in different formats, which not everyone will know how to do. If everything is complete when you start the deployment, it will take an hour or two, but the cloud-based part will increase it to about six hours.

What about the implementation team?

I implemented SCOM by myself.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

SCOM is very cheap because it's included in the license for the System Center suite, which is around $8,400 per CAL. Support is initially free but will incur an additional fee once you exceed a certain level.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend SCOM to those using a Microsoft operating system, but those who don't would be better looking for another solution, like ServiceDesk. I would rate SCOM eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1647066 - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Aug 12, 2021
Stable with good technical support but needs a better user interface
Pros and Cons
  • "We have found the scalability capabilities to be okay."
  • "SCOM is a great monitoring tool."
  • "The solution should be more user-friendly and offer a better user interface."

What is our primary use case?

We're using SCOM to monitor the health checks for the Windows servers in our organization.

What is most valuable?

It would be hard to talk about features. In maybe four months, in January, there is downtime for service, where we're able to look for the issues and proactively check everything.

The stability has been very good so far. 

Technical support has been very responsive.

We have found the scalability capabilities to be okay.

What needs improvement?

What we need in SCOM is the ability to share a lab console with our customers so that our end-users or customers in SCOM can navigate by themselves. It could be similar to how we use DRDG in PRTG where all of our customers can set up their monitoring on their own. Right now, in SCOM, only our team can set up their monitoring. 

The initial setup could be easier. 

The solution should be more user-friendly and offer a better user interface.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been dealing with the solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good. We haven't had any issues. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability potential is good. If a company needs to expand it, it can.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support on offer has been great, generally. When we have questions for Microsoft, they respond to us quickly. It's good for our end. We are quite satisfied.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup could be more straightforward and the deployment could be simplified in SCOM.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

In terms of pricing, I'm not sure how much the company pays. As far as I know, our company gets a Microsoft package and SCOM is already included in the package. It's not separated out.

What other advice do I have?

I'm just a customer and an end-user.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

SCOM is a great monitoring tool. It's just pretty complex to set up, however, if you invest your time in learning SCOM, you can understand how it works and it will make things much easier.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free SCOM Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: May 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free SCOM Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.