CA Technologies (now Broadcom DX) offers deep enterprise APM and infrastructure monitoring, but at the cost of on-premise complexity, probe-based agents, and fragmented tooling. Atatus delivers the same full-stack visibility with a unified, cloud-native interface your entire team can use from day one.
CA Technologies, now part of Broadcom's DX portfolio, pioneered enterprise APM with tools like DX APM and DX Unified Infrastructure Management. The platform offers deep monitoring for Java, .NET, mainframe, and hybrid environments, and its newer DX Operational Observability (DX O2) unifies APM, infrastructure, end-user monitoring, and AIOps. However, many teams find the architecture heavily agent and probe based, complex to configure, and less suited for cloud-native, Kubernetes, and microservices workflows. Licensing is also layered around Observable Units, with separate entitlements for applications, infrastructure, and end-user monitoring. Atatus delivers the same full-stack observability coverage including APM, tracing, logs, infrastructure, RUM, and synthetic monitoring in a single cloud-native platform with transparent per-host pricing and a developer-friendly experience that works out of the box.
CA's DX APM traces its roots to the Java/J2EE era and requires probe-based agents and complex hub-robot architectures. Atatus was built for modern cloud-native stacks with automatic Kubernetes visibility, Helm chart deployment, and OpenTelemetry-native instrumentation.
CA requires integrating multiple products — DX APM for application monitoring, DX UIM for infrastructure, DX App Experience Analytics for end users, and DX OI for AIOps — each with its own setup and connector pipeline. Atatus unifies all signals in one interface with automatic correlation.
CA's Observable Unit licensing counts JVMs, CLR instances, pods, and API ingestion separately, making cost projection difficult. Atatus charges one flat rate per host with all capabilities included — APM, RUM, infrastructure, logs, and uptime monitoring.
Here's when Atatus delivers the most value for teams switching from CA Technologies / Broadcom DX monitoring products.
If your team is migrating from traditional data centers to AWS, GCP, or Azure and CA UIM/APM feels ill-suited for dynamic cloud environments, Atatus provides seamless cloud monitoring with native integrations and auto-discovery.
CA UIM's probe-based monitoring requires configuring individual probes per technology. Atatus auto-detects your stack on install such as frameworks, databases, cloud services and delivers insights without manual probe setup.
CA's DX O2 connects DX APM + DX UIM + DX OI through integrations and connectors. Atatus provides automatic correlation out of the box — click any metric anomaly and see the traces and logs from that exact moment.
CA DX APM has a steep learning curve - Wily Introscope, Management Modules, and CEM configuration all require specialized knowledge. Atatus provides progressive disclosure so junior engineers debug confidently from day one.
CA's OU licensing counts every JVM, CLR instance, Kubernetes pod group, and metric API separately. As you scale, costs become unpredictable. Atatus bills one flat rate per host — your observability costs scale cleanly.
Since Broadcom's acquisition of CA Technologies, customers have experienced roadmap uncertainty, product consolidations, and support changes. Atatus is an independent, observability-focused company with a consistent product direction.
Both platforms deliver enterprise-grade observability. The differences lie in architecture, deployment model, pricing transparency, and how accessible the tooling is for your full engineering team.
100% distributed tracing with full-fidelity capture and no sampling
Zero-config auto instrumentation across Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java, Go, .NET, PHP
Method-level transaction breakdown inside each trace
Automatic N+1 query detection with optimization hints
Real-time service dependency maps across microservices
Error tracking with stack traces, user context, and release tagging
Deep JVM and .NET diagnostics for complex enterprise applications
Business Transaction monitoring across multi-tier architectures
Mainframe monitoring for z/OS, DB2, IMS, MQ environments
Separate agents required per language and platform
Distributed microservice correlation is not the platform's core strength
Steep learning curve for dashboards and diagnostics tooling
“We had CA APM running for years and it was brilliant for our Java monolith. But when we started moving to microservices on Kubernetes, the hub-robot model just wasn't built for it. Our team spent more time managing the CA infrastructure than actually using it. Atatus gave us the same application visibility in an architecture that fit how we actually build software today”
These are the questions that come up on every sales call when teams migrate from CA/Broadcom DX products.
CA Technologies DX APM (formerly Wily Introscope and CA APM) is a deeply capable enterprise APM product with 20+ years of history, especially strong in Java and .NET monolithic applications, cross-tier correlation, and mainframe monitoring. Atatus is a modern, cloud-native full-stack observability platform designed for teams running microservices, containers, and Kubernetes. The key differences: Atatus is SaaS-first with a unified interface for APM, infrastructure, logs, RUM, and synthetics, no separate products to integrate. CA's DX O2 converges multiple products (DX APM + DX UIM + DX OI) but still reflects the architecture of its component parts. Pricing-wise, Atatus uses simple per-host pricing with everything included, while CA uses Observable Unit licensing that counts JVM instances, infrastructure devices, and end-user monitoring separately.
Atatus covers the core infrastructure monitoring use cases that most teams need: host metrics (CPU, memory, disk, network), Kubernetes and container monitoring, cloud platform monitoring (AWS, GCP, Azure), process-level resource tracking, and uptime checks. CA UIM's strength is its extremely broad probe-based coverage including legacy hardware, network devices, mainframes, and hundreds of technology-specific probes accumulated over decades. If your environment is primarily cloud-native and modern, Atatus will cover your infrastructure needs with significantly less operational overhead. If you rely heavily on CA UIM's specialized probes for legacy network equipment or mainframe environments, you may want to run Atatus for application and cloud monitoring while keeping CA UIM for legacy infrastructure coverage during a phased migration.
The migration process depends on your current instrumentation approach. If you're using CA APM's proprietary Java or .NET agents, you'll replace them with Atatus agents or OpenTelemetry SDK instrumentation. Most teams complete agent replacement in one or two sprints without changing application logic, since both platforms intercept at the framework level. If your team has built custom CA APM dashboards using Management Modules or Workstation-specific widgets, you'll need to recreate those in Atatus - though most teams find Atatus's pre-built dashboards cover the common cases without custom work. We provide migration support including onboarding sessions, dashboard recreation assistance, and validation guidance. Most teams run both platforms in parallel for 2-4 weeks to validate coverage before decommissioning CA APM.
CA Cross-Enterprise APM is genuinely unique in its ability to monitor z/OS, USS, TCP/IP, WebSphere MQ, CA Datacom/DB, IBM IMS, and DB2 for z/OS - deep mainframe visibility that has no direct modern equivalent. Atatus does not currently provide native mainframe monitoring. If mainframe monitoring is critical for your environment, we recommend keeping CA Cross-Enterprise APM for that specific use case while using Atatus for your distributed application and cloud infrastructure monitoring. Many teams run Atatus for their modern application stack and keep CA only for mainframe-specific telemetry, significantly reducing the cost and complexity of their overall CA footprint.
CA Technologies / Broadcom DX pricing is not publicly listed and requires direct sales engagement. The Observable Unit model counts Application Monitoring OUs (per JVM or CLR instance), Infrastructure Monitoring OUs, and End User Monitoring OUs separately, making total cost estimation complex before signing a contract. Additionally, teams running CA on-premise need to factor in server infrastructure, maintenance fees (typically 20%+ of license value annually), and the cost of dedicated CA platform administrators. Atatus uses flat per-host pricing with all capabilities included at one rate. Teams switching from CA's full DX stack typically report meaningful cost savings while gaining a simpler, more developer-accessible platform. We recommend requesting a formal CA quote alongside an Atatus trial to compare like-for-like for your specific environment and team size.
Broadcom announced the discontinuation of DX APM SaaS in late 2024, with the product marked as "Obsolete" in their documentation. Customers on DX APM SaaS are being directed to migrate to DX Operational Observability (DX O2) 24.x on-premise or engage Broadcom for alternative options. If you're a DX APM SaaS customer facing this migration, Atatus is a natural landing point, we're a true SaaS platform with no on-premise infrastructure to manage, and we can accommodate your migration within your existing timeline. We offer dedicated onboarding support for teams in exactly this situation.
Yes. Atatus is SOC 2 Type II certified and GDPR compliant. EU data residency is available on Business plans and above for teams with data sovereignty requirements. We're happy to provide our security documentation and compliance reports during your evaluation.
Every migration gets a dedicated onboarding session with our engineering team. We'll review your current CA APM or DX UIM setup, help configure Atatus agents across your services, recreate your key dashboards, and validate coverage before you decommission CA tooling. For Business plans and above, you get a named technical contact throughout the process. Migration support is included, no professional services fees or hourly rates. We also offer a side-by-side period where both platforms run simultaneously so your team can validate parity before fully cutting over.
14-day free trial. Full platform. No credit card required. Migration support included. Join with teams who switched from CA Technologies · Average setup time: under 10 minutes