Altiris versus MOM 2007

Hello Sean,

Both solutions are very good at providing an overall view of the server and network environment.  If you are looking for only a Monitoring Solution and your environment is Windows only then MOM is probably what you need but if you are looking for a complete solution with native integrations for Automation, Inventory, Patching, Provisioning and your environment is a mix of everything then Server Management Suite with Monitor Solution may be the choice.  I have added a link below which is the current Monitor Pack Factor Challenge we are running and at the end of it there is a link to several Monitor Solution Video demo's which you can review to help provide an insight into Monitor solution. 

http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/monitor-pack-factor-challenge-altiris-server-management-suite-70-custom-monitor-packs-made-ea

Best Regards,

We use both monitoring solutions in our environment, and in my opinion, SCOM is far more versitale and extendable than Altiris Monitor Solution.  It provides all of the functionality of AMS (such as service monitoring, performance, WMI, IPMI, and SNMP) while providing extension with Management Packs (that provide monitor sets for a variety of software and hardware).

OK just to add some additional information here.  When monitoring any Server environment we have to think about the bigger picture than just receiving an alert or event when a problem occurs and reacting to it.  More does not always mean better, it is more important what you can do with the data you collect to make critical and potentially automated business decisions.

We have to be able to tie all of the pieces together into what changed on the server, inventory information to what the potential impact this server will have to my environment and business, is it possible to auto re-mediate and if not how quickly can i provision a new server or restore a backup of the server to a virtual or physical server, if the server is secure, is my data protected, can i make failure predictions in the future, if an important application was running on the server can i quickly deploy the application to another server.  So you see where i am going here.  Monitoring is great at alerting but it is more power-full when you tie all of the pieces together as what we have been doing with Monitor Solution within Server Management Suite.  Not only the ability to alert but proactively have the ability to manage the Server, Application and Data in the business is KEY.  Symantec brings all of these together built on the Symantec Management Platform and Monitor Solution is just one piece of a whole suite combining Monitoring, Provisioning, Inventory, Patching, Security and Data Protection into a single console and all being able to utilize each functionality to move towards a complete automation of the Server Life from birth to death and there after.

So if monitoring is all you want to be doing then there are many solutions, but if you want to a fully integrated Server Management Suite then Symantec is the way to go.

Monitor what is important to the business and not everything under the sun.  This will prevent false alarms and uneeded data being collected which inturn needs to be managed.  Monitor Solution makes monitoring easy and provides you the building blocks to monitor what is critical to your business.

Spoken like a true Product Manager :)

You might also like to compare the product costs. My most recent data makes SCOM a fair bit more expensive per node than NS (SMS) 7.