Auvik Network Management (ANM) Reviews

We're a managed services provider that caters primarily to movie theater clients. Most of our Auvik collectors are deployed at active movie theaters and point-of-sale environments.

We use Auvik to get alerts on network activity and server resource utilization. We monitor firewalls, interfaces, traffic bandwidth utilization, and VPN usage. Auvik alerts us when a VPN or other device goes down. We monitor aspects like port utilization and which switches are being used for what or how much traffic goes across ports.

We don't automate anything through Auvik. We have other tools we use for automating tasks on our systems. We're utilizing Auvik specifically for visibility into the networks and SNMP-assisted log alerts and functions like that. When those are triggered, other tools outside Auvik run the daily automation routines.

It provides a single integrated platform for monitoring, but we use some other RMM tools to log into our servers and things like that. Those have some monitoring built into them, so we get duplicate alerts along with those. If a hard drive on a server fills up, I'll get an alert from Auvik and our RMM solution. But there's no other platform offering more monitoring or alerts that Auvik's not giving us. Auvik gives us more than what all of our other platforms give us, and it's all in one spot.

Auvik helps us be proactive versus reactive. We stay ahead of the curve by getting alerts and knowing that a problem could potentially occur. The ability to resolve potential issues before they become a problem is a massive benefit for us.

The visualization is excellent, and our customers will speak to that too. We often export the map it creates and hands it off to customers, so we don't spend lots of time manually creating these things in Visio or Lucidchart. We don't have to use any of those kinds of tools anymore.

I might have had trouble with the visualization if I hadn't had all those sessions with them to walk us through all the technical points of it. There's a lot of information, so it's like trying to drink from a fire hose. They handed all that information about filtering and using the solution in those technical calls. I think they know that you'll get hooked and become a long-term customer once you get familiar with it and understand how intuitive it is.

The visibility into remote networks has been immense. It's quite a big project to swap out some network switches for a new customer. We weren't familiar with the current network. We deployed Auvik on the web and scanned the switch ports to understand what was on the other end of each switch. It helped us replace those switches and plug everything into their new destinations on the correct VLANs. It's a huge deal for us.

We have it set up so that various alerts go to different teams. If an alert comes in for hard drive corruption on a desktop, that will automatically go to the manager of the help desk team instead of the server infrastructure team. That works pretty well. 

Auvik keeps our device inventories updated, saving us time because we know what is deployed and what has been decommissioned. It's also helpful from a billing perspective. It was a manual process of exporting reports from our RMM solution to do billing per device. We can do it all through Auvik because we can see what is active and what isn't.

We're a pretty small shop, so Auvik has helped us a ton. I would spend two to three hours a day manually doing this if we had to put it down to an actual number. With Auvik, it takes no more than 30 minutes of just browsing through alerts in one spot, creating tickets, assigning them to our resources, and taking care of things that need to be done.

Auvik is easy to use. It took some time to set it up, and they were pretty good to us. They offered us around six sessions with a technician to help us set up the monitors we wanted. After we were trained properly, I had no issues using it.

It has been crucial for us to have all these monitoring capabilities in one place. That's why we've been willing to shell out the monthly expense. It's helped us tremendously.

Configuring alerts is pretty tedious. It would be nice if they had a wizard who walked you through instead of having everything turned on or off from the start. 

For example, it could have some radio buttons and ask you, "When this kind of alert happens, where would you like the alert to go?" Is it push alerts to a cell phone or an email address? Is it simply alerting? I think an initial onboarding wizard would help you to build out Auvik and get more out of it from the front end.

We first used Auvik when it came out or when ConnectWise started pushing them. That was in 2019. We used it for about a year. I don't remember why we stopped using the product, but we picked it up again eight months ago and have been using it consistently since.

We've been with Auvik for eight months, and we've had a few alerts that Auvik collectors are not communicating with the solution. We had three of those in an eight-month period, and they were fixed within an hour. I'm pretty sure some of those came in overnight while they were doing maintenance. The uptime has been reasonable. 

It's pretty easy to scale up Auvik. We cater to movie theaters, so many of our sites are cookie-cutter from our end when we set them up. It would be nice to have the ability to copy a site and apply the template to another site. 

This may be a solution that they offer, but I don't know. We've never been able to do that before. In terms of deploying the collectors, the scalability is fine. After that, you need to go in and approve all the networks you want to scan. That takes at least an hour.

I rate Auvik support nine out of 10. I needed some help setting up an alert to monitor the VPN. I needed to get an alert if a specific VPN tunnel went down. I had no issues with that. They sent me a quick knowledge base article on how to configure the alert.

Positive

Previously, we used some open-source solutions called Observium and Libre. They're both SNMP and sys log monitoring tools hosted internally. We had to maintain the servers and do the updates. A lot of time went into that, and it would break frequently. When it broke down, we'd lose a lot of data and dedicate significant resources to maintaining the solution. That's the main reason we switched back to Auvik. Once we got into Auvik, we realized we got so much more data through it.

Auvik's cloud platform was a critical reason why we switched. When you're hosting an on-prem solution, you need the resources to maintain it. You have to apply patches to the software and maintain the infrastructure it's running on. In terms of capabilities, Auvik is like a hybrid solution. The platform is on the cloud, but you have an on-prem collector agent running these scans. There aren't any gaps in the data that it can obtain, and it's much easier not to have to maintain the infrastructure.

The deployment was straightforward. You create a site on the web portal, and it gives you an installer. You download the collector onto the device you want to monitor, and it starts collecting data. After deploying the collector, the network map takes 15 to 30 minutes.

We have Auvik deployed to around 25 sites, and our networks are heavily segmented. We have to create extensive rules on our end, which isn't necessarily an Auvik thing. We want one device to see everything on every network segment and VLAN. You have to have a rule specified for that. It took an hour at each location to get Auvik fully deployed. We started with those technical calls to understand the controls needed in the firewalls. Now we have a template that we use to deploy.

Configuring the alerts took four to six hours worth of technical calls. A lot of those were global. Those alerts could trickle down through each customer site as we had them set up. Our previous solution probably took the same amount of time to onboard a new site. At the end of the day, we have no internal resources dedicated to maintaining the infrastructure whatsoever. It runs and collects the data. We just log in and review it from there. It saves us at least two to three hours per week in the long run. It doesn't require any maintenance after deployment. 

In our experience, you get what you pay for. Everything is priced based on its actual value. I think Auvik is on the pricey side, but it has been worth it for us. It depends on how much you will use this and the level of visibility you need into the networks you're monitoring. Some managed services providers don't do much monitoring, while others monitor extensively, so it depends on how much it means to you. If you go with a low-end solution, you'll miss out on quite a few capabilities. On the higher end, you need to justify that cost.

I understand the pricing model with it, but I don't know the details about how much we pay monthly. I am not usually the one that handles it within our organization.

We did not look at any other solutions this time around. Initially, we were a ConnectWise customer, so we got a free trial to test it out. After we left, we decided to come back because it was a project where we needed visibility into a customer site. I knew Auvik provided that capability, and we did it. Once the owner of our company was able to get in and poke around through that, he was like, "Oh wow." So, he decided to sign back up for it.

I rate Auvik nine out of 10. To implement Auvik, you must understand what you're trying to monitor. If you don't know where you're trying to go, it's much harder to pave the road. You must understand how to allow that monitoring within your infrastructure before trying to get it. 

We ran into a problem when we were deploying the collector and were only getting limited amounts of data because particular ports are closed on the firewall. We weren't getting alerts within Auvik saying something wasn't happening because it was blocked. It just wasn't working, so we had to figure out the hard way to create rules in our firewalls to allow the collector to get its data.

The primary use case is for monitoring networks, traffic, etc. 

The solution provides us with alerts if anything goes down. We have an RMM tool, but if an entire site goes down, then the monitor we use for RMM will also be down and unable to inform us that it can't reach other devices. With Auvik in the cloud, we still get alerted if something goes down, such as a firewall or core switch. We received alerts through Auvik that we didn't get from our RMM tool, allowing us to get ahead of issues with our clients.

The product affects our IT team's availability; it frees up their time by helping them troubleshoot quicker and making them available for other tasks. 

We have seen a reduction in the mean time to resolution (MTTR). Auvik currently plays a small role in that, but once we leverage it more, we expect it will have an even more significant impact. It's more our overall tool stack that helps lower our MTTR.   

The mapping is excellent as it allows us to see where elements connect and got us out of a few binds. I accidentally wiped the configuration of three Meraki 48-Port Switches, and we could see each of the VLANs and their configurations using the solution. We utilized Auvik to see how individual ports were configured, which allowed us to get back up with much less effort than if we hadn't had Auvik.

Auvik provides a single integrated platform, which we integrated with ConnectWise for reporting. As far as viewing from within Auvik, it's a single pane of glass, and that's pretty significant for us, especially for scaling. 

Auvik is excellent for helping us visualize network mapping, especially as we can filter by network devices. We can easily see where all switches interconnect, which isn't as important in smaller environments, but we have a few environments with upwards of 15 switches. It's essential to visualize if one switch goes down, whether it will take down the entire network or if it is safe to take it down for maintenance. We know exactly what will go offline and how important that would be to us. Auvik allows us to hover over specific ports to see if they are connected, which is especially useful if we have to go on-site for troubleshooting. The overall intuitiveness of the network visualization is good, though there could be improvements; SNMP is only on some devices, which can limit our ability to get information from those devices.  

More capabilities in terms of default OIDs, so we can leverage more of the information from SNMP would be good to see. It's been a while since I messed with the OIDs, but the last time I was trying to get additional information from printers, such as the model number. I was able to find that information, but it took a good amount of research to figure out how. I want to see more default capability regarding what information gets spit out from SNMP.

I've been using the solution for five years. 

The solution has always been stable, in my experience.

Auvik is scalable; I never had an issue scaling it. It's ideal in this respect, especially for an MSP.

I've contacted technical support on several occasions, and they are great; they responded quickly and effectively.

Positive

At a previous company I worked at, we used ConnectWise Automate, which wasn't a great solution. It was a hope and a prayer that we got the monitoring portion correct and used whatever we could find, not anything centralized.

The first deployment was relatively straightforward, and the fine-tuning took more learning and familiarity with the tool. The deployment at the company I'm currently with was much smoother as I was more familiar with the product, and it was relatively seamless.

I carried out the initial setup by myself for the most part, and the solution requires minimal maintenance. We go in occasionally to see if there are new devices SNMP has been found on, find out which devices and get them added.

I'm unfamiliar with other network monitoring applications, as I've been using Auvik for so long, but it is one of the more expensive solutions. However, we have used the product to troubleshoot different issues. For example, one of our clients had an issue where their phones were constantly going down, and nobody could figure out the problem. We put Auvik on the network and found a loop in their switches, so it simplifies our lives, increases resolution speed, and makes us look like competent technicians.  

I rate Auvik eight out of ten. 

My advice to others is if you want to know all the details and all the ins and outs of your network, Auvik is the tool for you. It makes visibility easy and shows how everything is interconnected.

Regarding the solution reducing repetitive, low-priority tasks through automation, we're getting there. We don't currently use much automation on the Auvik side, more on the RMM side.  

The solution affected our IT team's global visibility into our remote and distributed networks, and they've been able to use this for troubleshooting. This visibility is more important than our IT team currently appreciates because they need to be more familiar with all the solution's capabilities to leverage it fully. As the tool isn't used to its full potential, its visibility is not as vital as it could or should be. 

Regarding Auvik helping delegate low-level tasks to junior staff, it helps somewhat, but it's another area where we need to utilize the solution's full capability. One other technician and I deal with the alert tickets, and we sometimes send them to our service desk, but we mainly deal with tickets ourselves. We could delegate more, but at the same time, dealing with the tickets ourselves helps prevent issues from growing larger. 

The solution helps us keep device inventories up to date to an extent. We use a combination of Auvik and N-central, our RMM tool. Auvik can get some information that N-central cannot, such as important information from Meraki devices, including serial numbers. The tool can push this information to our PSA, but it also has limitations. Our RMM tool tends to be better for pulling data from desktops and laptops, but in terms of network devices and equipment, Auvik is more effective for inventory purposes. This is another area where we need to leverage the solution more, including focusing on high-value tasks and delegating low-level tasks to junior staff. 

Auvik keeping device inventories up to date helped save us time for network devices but less for workstations and servers. It has helped us out when trying to find out where a device is, as we can utilize the solution's inventory. 

We're an MSP and we deploy Auvik for every single customer that DP Solutions has. We use it for network monitoring and infrastructure provisioning alerts. We also use it for troubleshooting, and for backups and configuration.

We used UniFi or Ubiquiti for our switching and access points, but that didn't get us into firewalls, so we had to have a separate pane of glass for the firewalls. Having one piece of software to manage it all is the reason we love Auvik. 

We previously used multiple applications for managing our networks, including the Ubiquiti portal and whatever firewall portal the customer had. That included Cisco, FortiGate, SonicWall, Palo Alto, Juniper, and Barracuda. We have used a lot of firewalls, but having one piece of software that has all that combined is really nice.

Auvik has saved us hours, per issue. We've caught multiple network loops due to user error, and that problem is usually incredibly hard to troubleshoot and pinpoint exactly what the issue is. Auvik pinpoints it and tells you exactly what happened: when, and which switch port—all the kind of stuff that no other piece of software can do, at least in a single pane of glass. Without that single pane of glass for us for troubleshooting and monitoring and alerting, it would take us hours to troubleshoot, not minutes. 

It can find the network loops and configuration errors without us even having to lift a finger. The minute we sign into Auvik, we see the alerts. At times, like in a network loop situation, the reduction in MTTR could be over 100 percent. At other times, it could be 50 percent. It depends on the issue.

In addition, the fact that it automatically backs up configurations is outstanding. That way, if there's any kind of change or something has to be reset, I can just copy that configuration, put it back in, and call it a day.

When it comes to visibility into distributed networks, we have clients all over the Lower 48, especially on the East Coast. The amount of time it saves us from having to actually go out to a site to do something is phenomenal. That visibility is critical. Without that, it would be really hard to really stay afloat and make money. Every time a tech has to go out, we're talking about money, labor, and time that we could be using for something else.

At this point, we have close to a couple of hundred clients, and we dedicate a technician one day a month to each client to do documentation and keep inventories up to date. It is probably saving us 200 hours of labor every month. That amounts to tens of thousands of dollars.

Also, Auvik definitely helps keep device inventories up to date. I'm able to tell how long ago the device was offline. Being an MSP, we don't always know everything that happens at a customer's company. They might switch phone providers and not tell us, but we'll get the information because we can see they switched on date XYZ because instead of going online, now it's not. Now, we have more information and it gives us much better insights into the customer and network.

The ability to change the severity of alerts is also helpful. If it's a level-one, then we can have some junior people look at it and determine that it's not important or that it should be escalated if they know it's a bigger issue. It keeps the critical alerts to the upper-level staff, which means they're not dealing with a service advisor or a service director and looking at every single ticket to delegate it. That is saving us plenty of time.

I love the alerting. With a single pane of glass, it's able to tell me that there's a firewall error, or that something is offline, there is a switch configuration error, or a configuration change has taken place on a certain device. I don't think I can pinpoint a single favorite feature of Auvik. I use almost everything.

Using the monitoring and management functions of Auvik is really easy, but I'm a little bit biased because I am Auvik Certified. (The certification process includes super in-depth training. Before the training, I was able to use Auvik, but I wasn't using it full-strength. Once I did the training, there was not a whole lot I didn't know about the software). The ease of use is incredibly important. If it wasn't something that is easily accessible or has the tools that we need, we wouldn't be using it.

It's also fantastic for helping to visualize the network mapping topology. It saves me countless hours of time every time a customer asks for a network topology map. Normally, I would have to wing it and roughly create one. But with Auvik, I'm able to just hit "filter by network elements only" and it prints it out. I can take a screenshot for the customer and send it back to them within minutes. 

And that network visualization functionality is right there when you sign in. It's front and center, which is great. It especially helps when we have junior network engineers work on it because, when they sign into that Auvik device, it gives them a good start into the network and its complexity. It gives them a brief description of what they're getting themselves into.

The automation side needs improvement. I'm a regular in the Auvik forum, and there have been a couple of automation requests to remedy some things that a normal single pane of glass would have. 

A really important one was about a SonicWall firewall that needs to be rebooted every single month. You can do that in the SonicWall GUI, but you can't do it in Auvik. Hundreds of people have endorsed the idea of having an automated command line interface command run on any device that supports it. When the device goes in it would run the command and the device would reboot (just as an example, because that's a really simple task). 

Having a scheduled task like that would save lots of people from having to go into a different pane of glass, such as the SonicWall GUI. Or, in a worst-case scenario, if I have to schedule a reboot at midnight, I have to be up at midnight to schedule that reboot instead of just letting Auvik run the command. That kind of automation would be really beneficial.

I've been using Auvik for 10 months, since January of this year.

The software is incredibly reliable. We really have never had any issues with Auvik. We have issues with Windows more than we do with Auvik. Perhaps that is pretty standard because Windows is not really that reliable.

The scalability is very good. The addition of the multi-site feature was a great touch. We can have one customer with multiple sites, which really reduces the load and the horsepower needed for an Auvik device. It reduces the bandwidth needed to monitor multiple sites when you can split it up between multiple devices.

We manage close to 200 customers. Some customers have one site and some have 30. Each Auvik instance might have multiple VLANs and multiple networks on top of that. And the number of actual users that are affected by Auvik within our clients' environments is between 20,000 and 30,000.

We had a previous network monitoring tool, which I believe was Arctic Wolf. It had some of the security features that Auvik has, but it had none of the technical troubleshooting capabilities. It was mostly a backup and security appliance.

The blessing of how simple Auvik is to deploy is that, once I'm done setting it up, all I have to do is put the device back in the box, ship it to the customer, and tell them, "Call me with this number, plug the device into this port, turn it on, and we're done." That allows me to deploy 20 in a week, as opposed to five. The setup is completely straightforward. It's one of the easiest.

The amount of time it takes after a collector is implemented until the network mapping starts to populate depends on the device. For smaller things like standalone PCs, it can take 30 minutes. But when we have devices with a little more horsepower behind them, it could be within 15 minutes.

I am the only one involved in the deployments. That's how easy it is. You can have one person assigned to it, and it's just plug-and-play. And the maintenance side is incredibly lightweight. The only thing we have to do is manage the Windows part of it, which we were already going to do.

I love the pricing. It makes a lot of sense. It allows you to use your own metal, which is great because it enables us to go higher-end for some clients and lower-end for others. Sometimes we have it just run as a service on a Windows Server. You really can't beat that kind of flexibility. Even having the flexibility to switch clients between the Performance (expert) and the Essentials (simple) version of Auvik, on the fly, is really unheard of.

If someone is comparing network monitoring solutions' pricing, Auvik makes itself worth it very quickly, as soon as you get anything happening that involves labor hours. It completely pulls Auvik out of any kind of argument.

We pretty much had our eyes on Auvik.

One of the best parts about it is that it's a cloud-based solution. A device runs on-prem and only sends out the information it needs to the cloud. That saves so much bandwidth by having it local. Clients that might not have the fastest ISP circuit can still enjoy the benefits of having something that I can remotely manage.

My advice is that you absolutely have to get Auvik Certified. That unlocks so many things that aren't necessarily intuitive, things that are a little bit more hidden behind the curtain. When you get that certification, it's like you have all the keys. You can go behind all the doors and you know how to navigate the system really well. I wish that Auvik would push their certification more. It's incredibly hard to find that training. When you set up the account for the first time, or even when you're a new user, they don't really even talk about the training and they never talk about getting certified. The fact that they have a certification training course is news to everybody.

We are an MSP. We've got about 500 clients. So, multitenancy is pretty important to us. We're only interested in monitoring and managing network devices, and we define that as switches, routers, access points, and ESX hosts. Even though some of the things that we traditionally consider to be a computer—such as a laptop, a workstation, or a server—appear in Auvik, we do not do any management of them there.

The RMM platform that we're currently using is wonderful when it comes to servers, laptops, desktops, and all that, but it is absolutely horrible for properly detecting or identifying a network device. In other words, SNMP to properly identify a device flat out did not work and does not work in our other solution. Auvik fills that gap and does a pretty good job when it comes to that. We have always used multiple applications, and it comes down to finding out what the strengths are of a particular application. Auvik does a great job when it comes to networking devices, but we couldn't do nearly as much as what we do for servers and workstations. So, we use it according to its strengths and our other tools according to theirs.

Auvik is a SaaS-only product. There is no on-prem version. There are some definite pros and cons to it. Having to rely on someone else to handle all of the security aspects of something that's SaaS, especially in today's world, can be a little bit nerve-racking. When it is on-prem, you've got full control of ingress and egress. You can lock down the firewall and do all of that good stuff, but at the same time, not having to mess with all of the infrastructure and the things that are required to make a product function is pretty valuable. So, we don't have to worry about storage space, server speed, etc.

It provides a single pane of glass, which is very important. We service around 20,000 endpoints, and they include network devices and computing devices. The fewer places our technicians have to go to get information or address an issue, the better it is.

It has definitely given us a much better inventory of the devices that are on client networks. It has also got a fairly decent API integration with other products. We also make use of Meraki products, and through the API, we're able to pull those and all of their data into Auvik.

It is very good for visualizing the network mapping/topology. The network map and visualization of what's going on are really good. For somebody who is not a network engineer but needs to troubleshoot something, it is invaluable. If they're on call and it is the middle of the night, being able to look and see whether there is a switch loop or something weird going on is invaluable.

It is very intuitive in terms of network visualization. It is almost like an org chart. You can see the ingress point at the very top, and then you can see what's connected to other things. It visually flows very nicely from top to bottom to give you a quick idea of where things are.

It has reduced the visibility of our IT team in a positive sense. We like our techs to be able to work under the hood and not disrupt clients, and it definitely provides a lot of the right remote tools that are needed to go in and address issues or provide updates, firmware, and things like that, but visibility for us is really not a key. As an MSP, we do have a number of ways to provide evidence of the value that we bring and the work we have been doing under the hood, such as the number of patches that have been successfully applied and things like that. 

It does a very good job of keeping device inventories up-to-date. It helps our teams focus on high-value tasks, which goes back to the initial configuration of determining which alerts are high priority and which ones are just standard response and maintenance. They were very easy to configure.

Auvik keeping our device inventories up-to-date has saved us time in a huge way. A part of the value that we provide is that we help our clients develop a five-year tech plan so that they can start to budget. Having an up-to-date and accurate inventory of all of those network devices feeds into those reports through our own automation on the backend. So, it is very valuable.

It is a combination. The discovery portion of it is extremely valuable. It allows us to get a good inventory of what is actually on a client's network. You can turn on TrafficInsights, which is basically a NetFlow feature, for troubleshooting. It allows you to get more detailed information on what's going on with a particular device. So, you could determine why a client is complaining that the internet is slow at 1:00 p.m. every day.

Its interface is very sluggish, and that's probably its biggest impediment. 

It is easy to set up. However, with the wizard-like setup, the choices are lacking. So, there is a lot more that we feel like we could be doing. If it is outside of their pre-configured monitors, you start getting into a level of difficulty.

I have been using this solution for close to three years.

It is very stable. There is sluggishness in the interface, but it is rock-solid.

There could be some potential problems with scalability. We took on a client not too long ago that was fairly close to enterprise-level. We were forced to break them up into different geographic sites so that the web interface would present smaller chunks at a time. That was because it simply fell to its knees if you tried to open up the full site for this particular client. It was just too much for the interface to handle, and that was definitely a negative because it would've been really advantageous for us to see the full network map as opposed to seeing only small pieces of it.

They do a solid job.

Positive

We used to use PacketTrap, and it had basically gone end of life. It had a lot of good features. It was an older product. There was a one-time payment upfront for it, and there were no recurring fees. Those were the days, and those days have gone. Because PacketTrap was the end of life, we were forced to go for something to take care of our clients.

Switching to Auvik hasn't saved us any time. It also hasn't reduced our mean time to resolution (MTTR). That's because the product we had before was solid. It had just aged and had to be replaced.

It is easy to set up. 

We have seen time-to-value with Auvik. Despite the sluggishness of the interface, it has definitely provided a significant amount of value for us.

Its pricing is definitely competitive with everything else that's out there. If somebody has not shopped for a product like Auvik for a while, there's probably going to be some sticker shock because it is not cheap, but that's true for all the products that we looked at.

Its pricing is fair based on what I've seen for everything else that's out there in the market. They're certainly not looking to gouge people. For whatever reason, network management products are just expensive. Before this, we were using a product for which we had paid a one-time payment upfront. We had paid for it and bought it for years and years. There was no additional cost for us. So, we definitely suffered from sticker shock when we started shopping around.

There were quite a few. We looked at around seven different top-level products. We did product reviews for around a year. We were looking for something that was the best fit for how we tend to do business, and Auvik came at the top.

We have a checklist that we go through when we're evaluating a product, which includes:

• Things that are important to us and are required in a product
• Its integration with our other systems

A good example is that we use ConnectWise Manage for our ticketing system. So, it has to have full integration with that. We have multiple teams that handle different verticals, and each one of those teams has its own board. A lot of the products that we evaluated claimed to have good integration with ConnectWise Manage, but when we were really getting into the nitty-gritty of the evaluation, we came to find out that they could only send tickets to one single board. That was a deal killer for us right there.

Having a good, robust API is also very important to us. Again, some products would claim that they had a good API. We would go in and research it only to find out that you could get the minimal amount of information possible, which is a no for us. There is an API, but it is not useful.

Ease of setup is extremely important to us. Some of the products were very complex to go in and set up and configure. In addition, not all products provided the ability to set certain rules that would be global at the top of our hierarchy so they would automatically be applied to all clients below. Fortunately, Auvik has that, and we were able to make really good use of that hierarchy and inheritance to our advantage.

I would advise negotiating as hard as you can on price per agent because that did help us do a fair amount of pre-planning. This would have been true for any of the solutions that we looked at. You need to know how you plan on grouping your clients, or how you plan on organizing. Knowing how that structure is going to flow makes a huge difference in your onboarding time.

It hasn't helped us reduce repetitive, low-priority tasks through automation. There is almost no automation. It is great at learning. It is great at visualization and things like that, but there is no automation in there. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. There are areas where it could do better, but all things considered, it is a good, solid product.

We initially implemented Auvik Network Management because we lacked network visibility. During the trial, the traffic analysis feature unexpectedly revealed malicious connections. This pop-out function within Auvik allowed us to break down traffic and identify TeamViewer sessions by destination, ultimately helping us pinpoint the source. This unexpected benefit, along with its core alerting functionality, convinced our executives of Auvik's value.

While the network map offers near real-time, full visibility into our network, it's limited to managed switches. This means the current drawback lies solely with outdated infrastructure, and the most effective solution is an upgrade.

The interface is intuitive and user-friendly.

After deploying Auvik Network Management within a week, I gained complete visibility into our network traffic. Alarmingly, it revealed a significant amount of unauthorized software and social media usage, with Facebook alone accounting for a quarter of our traffic within just a day. This immediate insight allowed us to take swift action and shut down the problematic activity, demonstrating the clear value of Auvik from the beginning.

In my experience with entry-level technicians at our co-op, Auvik Network Management has been a valuable tool. It simplifies network mapping and understanding for beginners and even helps me proactively manage tickets. With Auvik, I can identify potential issues before they escalate into major alerts, or use existing alerts to create tickets for faster resolution.

Auvik Network Management helps us spend less time on maintenance and setup of the solution and less time on the issue resolution.

Auvik Network Management was a time-saver, but more importantly, it provided greater network visibility which ultimately improved security. Instead of spending time sifting through logs for issues, Auvik's features freed me up to implement solutions and proactively enhance network security.

The most valuable features are the traffic analysis and the network mapping.

The network map is great overall, but it loses track of devices when their IP addresses change. This means we have to manually remove them and let them re-add, or use static IPs. Every month, a bunch of devices change IPs and end up in a random category, disrupting the map's organization. That's my only complaint - otherwise, it's user-friendly and functional.

I previously evaluated one of Auvik's products, but it felt incomplete as a standalone SaaS offering. Ideally, Auvik would bundle this product with its other solutions for a more comprehensive network management experience.

Auvik Network Management needs to improve its operational technology coverage. 

I have been using Auvik Network Management for one year.

Auvik's stability is good overall, with frequent maintenance windows that haven't caused major disruptions for me. While these windows could potentially interfere during a security event, they are thankfully short and reasonable.

Auvik Network Management handled my network well. It discovered devices across multiple VPNs and even unconfigured switches with default settings. This scalability was impressive, as it automatically connected to various sites with limited access, saving me time and effort.

I contacted technical support as soon as I noticed the issue with Auvik not being able to automatically remap devices that changed their IP. 

Positive

While I previously used Cisco Firepower for its rule-based functionality, it wasn't a true replacement for Auvik Network Management. Firepower seemed redundant for my needs since Auvik already provided the network visibility I required.

Auvik Network Management's deployment impressed with its ease of use. Installing the collectors, entering credentials, and letting it discover devices was a breeze. While building a complete network map took a couple of days due to complexities like potential network loops, it began providing valuable insights immediately.

The deployment took two hours.

I took advantage of Auvik's three-hour technical support to configure alerts and receive a high-level overview of their Network Management platform, but I handled the actual deployment myself.

Auvik Network Management's pricing was surprisingly reasonable. Even my C-suite executives, who initially anticipated a much higher cost, found it to be quite fair.

Cisco Visibility provided better coverage for the operational technology side of my network compared to Auvik Network Management. However, Cisco's high cost was a drawback, while Auvik offered a more affordable option with the added benefit of traffic analysis and alerts.

I would rate Auvik Network Management ten out of ten.

Our entire IT infrastructure, including all servers and pretty much everything else, is managed by Auvik. The only area I'd like to improve is Operational Technology monitoring. Since our CNC machines run small Windows deployments, Auvik doesn't monitor them as effectively as an OT-specific solution would.

The only maintenance I need involves manually clearing out IP addresses instead of letting Auvik automatically refine and remap them, which can be frustrating. This can cause a device's IP to change several times, leaving outdated entries in a grayed-out section. It's a minor inconvenience but would improve the overall user experience.

Due to our focus on privacy, our company wasn't sold on Auvik's standalone SaaS solution, feeling it was excessive for our needs. While it excelled at shadow IT discovery and endpoint monitoring, it lacked vulnerability scanning and remediation capabilities. Integrating these features into their existing product would be far more valuable, allowing for automatic updates and patching alongside IT asset monitoring. While Auvik's SaaS product is okay, it wasn't the right fit for us.

Don't miss out on configuring Auvik's alerts! The default settings are overly broad, notifying you about everything from critical issues to minor inconveniences like low printer toner. Take advantage of Auvik's customization options to ensure you only receive alerts for important events.

We use Auvik for network troubleshooting and monitoring.

We needed more visibility into the networks we manage. Auvik's automatic network mapping was something that helped us visualize the Management Network. The benefits were immediate. We quickly identified a few problems and resolved them quickly. For example, some links were slower than expected, and we remedied those issues fast.  Without, Auvik we would need to spend more time troubleshooting.

Auvik has helped our junior technicians solve more tickets. We've encouraged them to use Auvik, which enables them to navigate a network visually. I think they would have trouble without that visualization. 

Auvik's visual mapping and search features have been very useful. We can locate precisely where each device is on the map. The network map provides a real-time picture of the network that offers total visibility. 

The interface is good, but it can be sluggish and difficult to use on a small screen. I usually need a large screen to navigate it when monitoring more complex networks.

Also, the points on the network map will sometimes shift. They will be connected one way, but they will be connected a different way after I refresh. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, I question the reliability of our network map. 

We have used Auvik for nearly two years.

I've never seen Auvik crash, so I think it's 100 percent stable.

Auvik scales to where we need it to be, so it's perfectly scalable.

I rate Auvik's support seven out of 10. We contacted them about an issue with the mapping. The problem was complex, so it took a while to resolve.

Neutral

Before Auvik, we had another tool that was difficult to implement, so it wasn't deployed in many places. We also used UniFi's built-in network mapping, but that requires you to use only UniFi hardware. Auvik can integrate multiple vendors and do the same thing across the board.

Deploying Auvik was straightforward. It has an agent and uses SMP for the devices. We already had SMP enabled, so it was easy. We did it in-house, and it took about two months to fully deploy. About eight people were involved, including Auvik's support. It doesn't require any maintenance aside from onboarding devices. 

Auvik's pricing is decent. I forget exactly how much we pay, but we've never been dissatisfied with the value we get from this. The licensing model is palatable to us. I haven't looked at the licensing too closely, but I believe Auvik only charges for some devices, not based on the number of endpoints at each site. 

They also have an add-on product called SaaS Management. We did a demo but didn't purchase it.  While it's useful, I think there are too many drawbacks. We thought it was a little expensive and didn't feel we could get enough value from it to justify it. It was interesting but somewhat invasive and a tough sell to our customers. Considering the potential invasiveness and price, we decided not to deploy it. 

I rate Auvik eight out of 10. Auvik has a very short learning curve, so you can jump in and start using it.

As a network engineer, I rely on Auvik Network Management primarily for troubleshooting network issues. Auvik's visual representation of the network is particularly helpful, allowing me to gain a clear understanding of how everything is connected. Additionally, Auvik facilitates remote access to switches and firewalls, streamlining my troubleshooting workflow.

Our organization previously lacked any network monitoring capabilities. This made it difficult to identify and troubleshoot issues. We've implemented Auvik, which has addressed this challenge. Auvik provides us with valuable insights into our network health and allows for easy remote access to devices. This overall improves our network management efficiency.

Auvik has a well-designed and user-friendly interface. It's easy to navigate and understand.

The network map dashboard is a valuable tool because it offers a near real-time view of the network. Additionally, it allows for filtering elements. As a network engineer, my first instinct is to focus solely on network devices. I want to see switches, access points, and firewalls – a clear view of just those critical components. This filtered view usually provides me with a good understanding of the network's health. However, there have been instances where a device appeared on the map but wasn't actually being scanned. This highlights the importance of ongoing learning about the tool's capabilities. I'm confident there are features I haven't yet explored that can further enhance my network monitoring experience.

The network map dashboard provides full network visibility. I am able to see all the devices.

Auvik has been instrumental in reducing our mean time to remediation, which is a major reason I want to migrate all our customers to the platform. Without Auvik, I lack a clear view of their network, making it frustrating and difficult to troubleshoot issues effectively. Having all our customers on Auvik would provide a central vantage point to monitor and manage their networks, ultimately leading to faster resolution times.

Auvik allows us to spend less time on setup, maintenance, and issue resolution.

The most valuable feature of Auvik is the remote access functionality. It eliminates the hassle of manually remote accessing a PC and figuring out its IP address and password. With Auvik, everything is stored securely within the platform. It's as simple as a few clicks. I can easily launch a remote browser session or access the terminal directly through Auvik, saving me significant time and effort. Additionally, Auvik allows me to quickly configure SysLog settings and even view device configurations, like switch configurations, without needing to establish a remote connection. This is incredibly helpful for situations where I just need a quick glimpse of the settings. These are the functionalities I use most frequently at the moment, but I'm constantly exploring and learning more about what Auvik can offer.

The responsiveness of the UI can be sluggish at times. While I understand occasional lag when remotely accessing devices, the overall performance of the application itself could be smoother. In other words, it would benefit from improved responsiveness for a more seamless user experience.

I was working on a device in the AP that had disconnected from the network. I needed to troubleshoot the issue and wanted to find the switch it was connected to using LLDP information. Ideally, I wanted to know the specific switch port it was plugged into. Unfortunately, when the device went offline, Auvik didn't retain this information and it was lost. Having Auvik automatically save this data, even for offline devices, would be a valuable troubleshooting feature. This would allow me to quickly locate the device, even if it's currently disconnected, by looking up its historical connection details. Currently, according to the support team, this functionality is not available.

I have been using Auvik Network Management for one month.

Auvik Network Management appears to scale and handle large networks easily.

I've contacted technical support several times now. While the chat representatives are helpful, the escalation process has been slow. I opened a ticket a week and a half to two weeks ago and only just heard back. I understand they might be busy, but perhaps some additional resources could be allocated to expedite escalations.

Neutral

I would rate Auvik Network Management eight out of ten.

Auvik has been a lifesaver for me and I would recommend it to others.

I am the network administrator for our company, and we use Aruba Central but we're looking into Auvik to see what else we can do with it. We're seeing quite a bit of difference.

We have been using multiple applications for managing our networks. Switching to Auvik has been amazing. It has been impressive. Without Auvik, I go through five different applications every morning, clicking through everything. It's very irritating. I have Auvik open in front of me right now and it's simple.

It definitely reduces repetitive tasks with its automation. One of the biggest things is the mapping records widget. With our current system, I have to do the mapping. If we replace an item or we change an IP address, I have to go back through everything and change what I've done. I go through the five applications in the morning to figure out my APs, my Cisco equipment, my Aruba equipment, my Blancco Management, et cetera. Auvik saves a lot of time and a lot of repetitive work.

I can go into it and get a configuration file. With some of our other solutions, because not all of our switches are Aruba, I then have to go to the switches to pull the configuration files. With Auvik I see all of them here. It doesn't matter what brand it is. It saves me a lot of time.

The automation Auvik provides has allowed us to see areas that we need to fix, which, of course, is very important. And it has reduced our MTTR because I see things more quickly and I see things through Auvik that I can't see through Aruba.

It would improve things a lot for us [if we continue beyond our trial of the solution]. It noticed a drop on my network at the instant it was happening and sent me a notification. We had a couple of devices that were questionable and Auvik said, "Hey, you have Raspberry Pis on your network." To me, that's very important. I don't like Raspberry Pis because they are easily hacked and I don't want them on my network. So far, what I've seen with Auvik in terms of notifications has been great.

Another benefit is that it keeps device inventories up to date. It notifies us about firmware updates and about what we need to change, which is nice and has saved us time. It tells us everything. I like it because if, for example, the device is a phone, it tells me the subnet that it's on and the IP address. It's great.

We are trying to get a full package together to go to our vice president and say, "Hey, this is what Auvik has done for us and we need to continue." Right now, we have five different software tools that we're trying to use and manage things, while Auvik is one. I'm fighting very hard to get Auvik.

One thing I like about it is how it maps the network. It shows all my devices and it shows everything that is possibly connected to the network. Most of our network is in the cloud and the mapping starts with basic internet, where it is. It gives me how many devices or switches are connected, and what is connected to each switch, including how many printers are on it. We have Blancco Management and our backup servers, and Auvik tells me how many of those are connected. It gives me everything. At this minute it shows me that 346 devices are connected to our network and what they are. That's beautiful, and I didn't have to do it. I have had to go and map out, by hand, every device on the network with what IP address it's set to. That's a pain.

And the visualization is very eye-catching. It's easy to use and very self-explanatory. If something is eye-catching it makes people go into it more. I really like that.

I also like how it even tells us that printers are low on paper.

To me, it's very simple to use the monitoring and management functions of Auvik. We were setting up the SNMP with Auvik yesterday and everything on it—setting up our firewalls with it—is very simple.

It also seems to be a single, integrated platform. We have 26 switches and hundreds of devices and it has detected everything. So far, we're very pleased with it. I take care of our network in Oklahoma City and in Memphis. Being able to see everything in one place is very important. With Aruba Central, I'm only able to see the switches in Oklahoma City, and I can't even see my APs because my APs are not Aruba. Aruba only lets you see Aruba. With Auvik, I'm able to see all the types of devices that I have, which is extremely important.

We have a lot of remote users. It's nice that we're able to see them and keep up with what's going on there. That visibility is extremely important. We have a very small IT team and we have to stay on top of things quickly. Ours is a larger company and, with a small IT team, things can get away from us very quickly. It's nice to have that full visibility and those upfront notifications so that things don't get away from us very quickly.

The window view could be improved. For instance, if I'm in inventory and I'm looking at my devices, I don't like the way the window splits at the bottom. I want to be able to choose the way it appears.

Similarly, when it shows me all the devices on my network, I don't like the fact that I can't adjust the display to the way I want it. I can increase it, but it's very difficult to move up and down to see that part of it.

We've been on the free trial of Auvik for 12 days.

I'm very impressed with the stability of Auvik. I have not had it go down or had a major issue. I haven't even had a small issue with it.

We spoke to some people from Auvik and their support is very friendly. They're very helpful and very knowledgeable. I was extremely pleased with them.

Positive

We currently use five other solutions.

The price that Auvik is offering us is a little bit steep. I'm hoping we can figure out something else about the pricing, but right now, it's a little bit steep.

My boss has been looking at five or six different solutions and he came across Auvik. He asked me to check it out. I brought it in and started using it and, so far, overall, I like Auvik the best.

When comparing network monitoring solutions and there is a concern about pricing, my approach is that you get what you pay for. The functionality is extremely important to me. The pricing is extremely important to my VP. You need to write out the pros and cons based on your needs and figure out how the pros and cons compare with your budget. But I would suggest you give Auvik a chance.

I like Auvik's cloud-based solution much better than having an on-prem network monitoring solution. We still have a couple of servers that are not cloud-based. I like the cloud much better.

If you are looking for any type of monitoring software, make sure that you find a product that sees every type of device on your network. Auvik even shows me the redundancy that I have on there. For a network administrator that's very important.