Auvik Network Management (ANM) Reviews

We're a video game company with high bandwidth needs, and we use Auvik to identify bottlenecks, back up configurations, and other network management tasks.

We were having bandwidth issues on parts of our network and didn't have a central point to investigate these problems before Auviv. We were inspecting logs, jotting things down, looking at error calendars, and doing everything manually. It took forever. Auvik helps us have more visibility in nearly real-time. We realized the benefits almost immediately. 

There are fewer bandwidth problems because we can identify the bottlenecks quickly and resolve them, so I think that has reduced strain on the help desk. Our resolution time is several hours faster because we don't need to manually compare error logs and stuff like that. 

I like the ability to see bandwidth utilization on all the interfaces, and the automatic configuration backups are also useful. Auvik's user interface is fairly easy to use. 

Auvik's network map could be better. It's a little confusing at times and not always accurate. I wish it showed the connections between switches on the map. You can find that by drilling down into the network device, but that isn't visible on the map as far as I know.

We have been using Auvik for six months to a year.

We've had no issues with lag or downtime while using Auvik. 

Auvik is super-easy to scale. 

We have used PRTG. Its interface is not good. Auvik is user-friendly, whereas PRTG looks like a free tool, but you have to pay for it. The user interface, ease of use, rollout, graphs, and bandwidth utilization are much better in Auvik.

With PRTG, we saw value within the first couple of weeks in terms of setting up alerts, but the network monitoring took forever to set up. It was not easy to use. All our employees hated using it.

Deploying Auvik was straightforward. One of my employees was skeptical because he had used Auvik at a previous company and said the rollout was difficult, but he did not experience that here. He's one of our dynamic engineers, and he said the rollout was super easy here. I'm unsure what happened with his last company. Maybe they were not doing it right. 

We had an onboarding meeting with Auvik, but our deployment was entirely in-house. It was a simple setup that involved inputting all the device credentials. Our team had two network engineers. One was probably enough, but we have several sites, so it made sense to divide the work. It doesn't require much maintenance. A few times, the credentials were not working, but that was something on our end. 

Auvik was way more than PRTG. It was the most expensive of the three, but we saw how much it helped us, so we felt the price was justified. Auvik doesn't charge for the connectors. I'm not sure how the licensing works, but I've heard that they only charge for certain devices. 

We did an extensive trial with PRTG and also tried Domotz. Auvik was the clear winner between those three.

I rate Auvik nine out of 10. I recommend doing a trial of Auvik. They're willing to work with you and give you time to demo the product. I think you'll see Auvik's benefits if you demo 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.

We use Auvik Network Management to monitor client sites for various network issues. Auvik provides us with a view of the entire network, including all connected devices. This allows us to visualize how these devices are interconnected and how data flows throughout the network.

A network topology map provides us with a near real-time picture of our network's activity. It constantly updates as scans run or new devices are added. Typically, within 30 seconds to a minute, the map reflects the new device, making it one of the most current representations of our network's state available.

The topology map is user-friendly. Nearly every element on the map is clickable, allowing us to zoom in on specific components with ease. This interactivity makes the map far more useful than a static image, as we can quickly drill down to the precise area we need to investigate.

Auvik's benefits were clear from the start. Previously, we lacked any tools to understand what was happening on our clients' networks. This made it difficult to work with potential customers. When visiting a site, we couldn't readily assess their needs and provide a quote for our services. Auvik's network discovery function was a game-changer. It revealed devices on customer networks they weren't even aware of, instantly justifying the investment. This level of visibility had been completely absent before. The previous tools we used were nowhere near as efficient. Additionally, Auvik's ability to monitor client sites and set up alerts provided invaluable insights, something else that was previously lacking. Overall, the value of Auvik was undeniable and immediate.

Auvik helps reduce the mean time to resolution of network issues. Auvik allows us to see exactly which device and port are experiencing issues. This significantly narrows down the problem area, especially in larger facilities. By pinpointing the exact switch and port, Auvik tells us precisely where to go to investigate and resolve the issue quickly, streamlining the process for the network team.

Auvik significantly reduces the time we spend on setting up networks, maintaining them, and resolving issues. Before using Auvik, our technicians had to perform lengthy site surveys. This involved the technician spending several hours at the customer's location, depending on the size of the site. During this time, the technician would physically examine network rooms, walk the entire building, and manually count the number of devices and their locations. This process required a significant amount of time analyzing the customer's site, including all the computers and other devices. In contrast, with Auvik, we can now map a complete network in under an hour. Auvik also automatically identifies the connected devices and the number of access points. This translates to a two-thirds reduction in the time a technician spends on-site gathering information.

The most valuable feature for us in Auvik is the network topology. This feature creates a visual map of all connected devices on the network, showing their location. This is incredibly helpful when we need to locate a specific device, as it significantly narrows down the search. Overall, the network topology is the functionality we utilize the most within Auvik.

The Auvik interface, while functional, doesn't feel as intuitive as some competing products. Compared to modern software, the design appears a bit dated. After using it for a couple of years, I've learned where things are located, but I still find myself occasionally clicking the wrong buttons because the layout isn't very logical. Overall, the interface could benefit from some improvements to make it more user-friendly.

The Ubiquiti line of network products is gaining significant popularity, but Auvik currently struggles to gather in-depth information from them. It's unclear whether this is due to a lack of communication between the two companies. It seems beneficial for both parties to explore a partnership to improve data availability. While Auvik emphasizes its close relationship with Ubiquiti, there's still an information gap compared to other vendors. It's difficult to say definitively if this is an issue with Auvik or Ubiquiti, but initiating contact between the right people at both companies could likely lead to a solution.

I have been using Auvik Network Management for two years.

Auvik Network Management is stable. We have never encountered a stability issue.

Auvik's scalability is very impressive. We haven't encountered any limitations on its capacity to handle our needs. In our experience, it seems to be adaptable for any size of network environment, from very small to extremely large.

Auvik's deployment process was straightforward. Their clear instructions, broken down into three steps, made it easy to follow. The system wouldn't allow us to proceed until the current step was completed, ensuring we didn't miss anything. There may have been some initial bumps a few years ago, but a recent deployment we did just a couple of weeks back showcased a noticeably smoother process. It seems Auvik has continuously improved its deployment experience.

While deploying the system, two people were involved. The second person's role was to ensure we were all in agreement on the desired functionalities and configuration. This was especially important for the advanced configurations, which went beyond getting the system to a basic functional state. The advanced configurations, such as defining the types of alerts and ensuring they weren't overwhelming, required a collaborative effort. It took a couple of people to sit down, think through them carefully, and analyze what truly mattered to avoid generating meaningless alerts.

The first deployment of our system did take a couple of weeks. This was because we were still refining the alerts and simply didn't know what to expect. We were unsure how background noise would affect the system's ability to detect silence. As a result, the initial deployment took longer to get everything configured exactly how we wanted it. Now, however, subsequent deployments are much faster. Typically, a new site can be up and running within a couple of hours, depending on the specific setup and credentials required. Overall, the entire process from start to finish is now generally completed within two hours.

The implementation was completed in-house.

Auvik offers two publicly available pricing tiers, but there are also additional options that require contacting a sales representative. Despite this, Auvik seems to prioritize customer needs. Their pricing models are generally clear and competitive. In fact, Auvik can sometimes be more affordable than some of the bigger players in the market. Through conversations with their sales team, we found that Auvik is willing to work with customers to ensure they can get started with the software, even if it means offering a customized license that fits their budget. This customer-centric approach was valuable to us.

In our search for a network management solution, we explored various products, but none quite fit the bill. Existing options didn't offer the comprehensive functionality we needed. Ultimately, we chose Auvik because it combined several functionalities we desired.

One competitor, RapidFire Tools, offered some network discovery features. However, their access limitations were a concern. We needed a tool with deeper network access than what they provided, which wouldn't have been readily granted on our clients' websites. Another contender, Domotz, also emerged later, but their hardware requirement on the network was a deal-breaker for us.

Auvik, on the other hand, seemed to seamlessly work with any network-connected computer. Its scanning capabilities were far superior to both competitors. Additionally, the ability to map the network topology comprehensively without requiring extra hardware solidified our decision. We tested Domotz for three months and RapidFire Tools for a year. The year-long contract was the only option available. While both ran concurrently, our initial exposure to Auvik at an industry event presentation, sparked our interest.

Upon setting up the Auvik trial, we were impressed by the salesperson's ability to grasp our client needs quickly and demonstrate the tool's functionality effectively. This helped us realize the value proposition almost immediately. Auvik's superior feature set, compared to the others, stood out. The ease of setting up and getting started further solidified our choice. In fact, our team was convinced of Auvik's value before the trial even reached its halfway point. It was that good.

I would rate Auvik Network Management eight out of ten.

Some critical devices on our network are not currently billed for because Auvik cannot monitor our Ubiquiti firewall. This lack of monitoring means we can't even tell if a device is up or down, which is crucial information. Fortunately, we've found some workarounds to gather basic information about these devices for our Auvik network monitoring system. The good news is that the support representatives have confirmed these workarounds won't incur any additional billing. They've even offered to help us implement them. While these devices won't be fully monitored through their standard system, the support team has gone the extra mile to ensure we can still gather some essential information about their status within our network.

Auvik is a self-updating system. Once we set it up, there's minimal ongoing maintenance required. The only time we typically need to revisit the software is when we add new equipment to the network. In those cases, we simply ensure Auvik recognizes and inventories the new devices. Otherwise, Auvik runs seamlessly in the background. We only interact with it again when an alert pops up, notifying us of a network issue that requires attention.

The most important advice I can offer is to be prepared for the learning curve associated with Auvik's interface. Navigating the interface and finding specific features can be the most challenging aspect initially. However, once you become familiar with the layout, Auvik's capabilities are extensive. While the interface might not be as intuitive or modern as some users expect, rest assured that Auvik can handle any network management task you need it to perform. Just be patient as you become acquainted with its functionalities.

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.

I use Auvik every day for everything. I can remote-terminal in, meaning I can be anywhere and jump in from my phone and make any changes I need to on switches.

We have some pretty large energy overhaul stuff going on right now. They're changing out all of our lights and adding big solar panels to all the parking lots at all of our school sites. It's nice being able to use Auvik to jump into those switches and change the VLANs when they need different sensors put in. Having that service is invaluable.

Auvik lets us know about problems before others find them. There have been some instances where I didn't set up an alert correctly, but as soon as I fixed it, it started giving us a heads-up before we got phone calls about the issue. That's the biggest advantage of having it. We don't get those calls nearly as often anymore.

The automation of network mapping frees up my time. I'm the sole network guy. We have some technicians that intermittently have an interest in networking. I have given them basic access to it so they can get in and see the maps, and they get the alerts too, so that they know what is happening at their assigned sites. Suppose a camera is down somewhere. They can go into Auvik because I have it set to hold devices for 10 days. They can see where it was connected and we can check the switch and see what the issue is.

Auvik also updates the maps almost instantly. Within about 30 seconds they're updated.

And in terms of reducing MTTR, we went from having nothing to having something. We would sometimes go a week or a month without knowing about an issue. I am able to track things down faster and implement solutions for things that I would otherwise have had no idea were even a problem in the first place.

The solution provides automated, out-of-the-box device configuration backups, as well. As soon as it starts scanning, it copies the running config on all the network hardware. I'm able to go in and restore them if I need to, but there's no setup for that feature. That has saved us time, absolutely. You can use that same panel to check differences. For example, when there's a configuration update, you can pull the backup and the current running, and run them together and it will highlight any differences.

The most valuable features of Auvik are the alerting and monitoring. Those functions mean it easily more than pays for itself. I have it integrated with Slack with multiple channels set up for our IT office. When just about any part goes down that I have assigned in the alerting portion, it will let the right people know within minutes.

It's also straightforward to use. That was one of the reasons I went with Auvik. It has a little link tree on the left side and you can pretty much navigate through the whole system. It's MSP software. Each of our school sites is set up as if it were a separate client. Each has its own webpage, and I can drop down the menu on the left and change to any school site to see its whole page. It's as straightforward as it gets.

The network discovery capabilities are pretty good. You do have to go in and allot permissions to scan separate subnets. If someone doesn't know what they're doing, they're not going to know how to get it to discover the networks. As long as you know what subnets you're supposed to be scanning, it's as easy as clicking a checkbox and hitting "Scan."

It would be cool if they came out with an app, but running the browser isn't bad.

I've been using Auvik for just over a year.

The stability is great. They're really consistent in sending out notifications about any maintenance windows or updates that they're rolling out. 

The only time I've had a false positive from Auvik is when our VM has gone down, the one that's running the collector. That will cause a bunch of things to pop off here and there. But I've cleaned that up on our end.

There was recently an issue with logging in, but they were on top of it within minutes and then they had a whole status web page about it. I can't complain at all about the stability.

Because it runs from a VM collector and it's fast, I could add another site if I wanted to and it would take me minutes.

In terms of increasing our usage of Auvik, we have a site that's running from a different ISP and I'm having issues remotely managing it. As soon as I'm able to get that straightened out, I'll be adding that entire site to our service.

Their technical support is awesome. They're proactive. If there's anything going on, they let me know by sending me emails. And if I ever need to hit them up, they're super quick. We have a designated rep and she's pretty responsive.

They recently added an idea portal. If I come across an idea or something that I want them to add in, I can throw it in there. Users then up-vote or down-vote ideas and Auvik chooses to implement them or not after that.

Positive

We had SolarWinds and then something happened to our database, internally, that we were using to manage it. We then went to having no monitoring at all for about two years. When I took over, we got with Auvik. So technically, we replaced all of SolarWinds' services with Auvik.

The setup was really straightforward. When we were doing the proof of concept, I went through their resources and got their certification by following their courses. And I pretty much did the entire deployment by myself, with a little help from their sales rep. But it was super straightforward. It took about 10 minutes.

The setup was super easy compared to others that I've done. With Auvik you're just putting a service on a VM. Depending on how large your network is you might need more VMs or more services running, but that's literally it.

And as a cloud-based solution it requires zero maintenance.

The time to value is great. We were up and running within an afternoon.

They charge for switches and some networking hardware, but everything else is free. In our environment there are a lot of things that we aren't billed for by Auvik. We're almost one-for-one on students. APs and cameras are shown by IP address in Auvik. It doesn't tell you exactly what that device is, but it does tell you there's something there and where it's connected in the maps. You can monitor any workstation using the service. If you can name them it makes it a lot easier to keep track of them. Intercom systems are included as well. All of those devices are not billed and we have thousands and thousands of those kinds of devices.

We had to look at other options. We checked out SolarWinds and we also evaluated NinjaRMM and PRTG. The latter teamed up with NetBrain and together they do network automation ticketing.

SolarWinds and NinjaRMM were significantly more expensive, although they did do more. But they were more server-related and covered more of that end. Auvik is more network-centric and checked more boxes, in terms of what I was looking for, than the others.

Give Auvik a shot. Do the demo. It doesn't take long to do the proof of concept. And during the proof of concept they give you access to their resources so you can go in and do that Auvik certification. The most important part of that is being able to go through all of their material and really see what they're capable of. During the demo you can dig deep.

I love it. I use it every day, multiple times a day.

Our use cases are around network monitoring. That was our biggest challenge.

The most important thing to me has been the benefits around visibility. If I don't have visibility then I can't report on things and the tool doesn't work.

And when it comes to reducing repetitive tasks through automation, it has absolutely done so, for example, through the backup features and functionality. Also, from an auditing point of view, it has greatly helped us because we now don't find ourselves in a situation where we have to figure out who did what and when. It sends out reports on a user basis, meaning we know when a user was logged in. Those are all very cool features and functionality.

With the reduction in repetitive tasks for my team, at different levels, time has been freed up. Another factor in saving time is definitely due to the improved fault finding we can do now. Because we have a network map, when something goes wrong, such as what couldn't communicate with which device, it saves us good chunks of time.

The network monitoring and backups of specific devices are really impressive. We've seen very good responses from our staff regarding the backup functionality. You can add a product, such as a switch and, once the product is added, it backs it up for you.

The ease of use of the monitoring and management functions depends on what level of engineer you are and how you perceive it, but to me, it's quite simple to use and user-friendly. The overall intuitiveness of the network visualization is about eight out of 10. That aspect is actually quite good in the product. There are small tweaks and improvements that can be made, but overall, it is really good.

It also does change-tracking, which is a big aspect for us. If someone makes a change on a device, Auvik will report on it for us.

In addition, it helps keep the devices up-to-date. At a minimum, it gives us a monitoring feature on the versions of the devices. If it can't auto-update, the key here is visibility. As long as we have that visibility, there's a lot we can do with that info. The visibility saves us time.

And while it's not a single, integrated platform for everything, because I still use some of my other network tools to complete some other tasks, Auvik is a comprehensive platform.

I would like to see some improvements in some of the reporting functionality, meaning I'd like to be able to deep dive more into the reporting.

The reporting is still being scaled and built out and I would love to see some additional products being added to the stack. For example, Auvik covers certain types of firewalls, but I would like to see more enterprise stuff added to the stack. These aren't exact examples, but it may cover Sophos and FortiGate but not Palo Alto.

I have been using Auvik for about six months.

So far, I have found it to be quite stable. I haven't found the cloud provider to be offline and I haven't found that I was unable to log in to the cloud portal yet.

This is a quite easily scalable solution because it's a cloud platform. It's an easy rollout and the solution should be able to scale very simply. It shouldn't be difficult to scale out if we want more agents or more installs. It would be quite quick.

We have it deployed in a few different locations.

I haven't needed to contact their technical support yet.

We use different vendors' products and they have been troublesome or quite challenging. We did not have something that can do proper network monitoring around the devices themselves. We needed something that can scan the network, find the switches and devices, assign licensing, and then monitor them from there on out.

We're in the middle of transitioning, so we are still using the previous solution. It's a mix of SolarWinds and Darktrace. Those are two of the two bigger ones. This is a process, which means we won't jump to Auvik only and not use anything else, but we're finding it to be a great tool when integrated into our stack with the rest of the tools. We're definitely finding value in it.

Auvik is priced in the middle tier. We have customers using bottom-tier products and those who use what I wouldn't say are necessarily higher-tier products in terms of functionality, but more extensive products. For the way that it's deployed, where the pricing only affects certain devices—meaning there are some free devices, so that you don't pay for everything—it's quite nicely priced in the middle. It's not an overpriced product, but it's also not a very cheap product. It is in a good range of pricing.

If someone is concerned about pricing, in most cases the functionality makes a strong use case and it mostly trumps the pricing. Generally, functionality wins. If you give me a product that works really well and it's a little bit more expensive, I'll take it. It doesn't make sense to sacrifice functionality for pricing.

We didn't really evaluate other options. In our specific case, Auvik came recommended by one of my friends, so we started a trial and then used it from there. I wasn't necessarily looking for just this type of network tech. It was just a happy coincidence.

As for our team's visibility into remote and distributed networks globally, it has helped us somewhat. My team has started really integrating the product, but they've deployed it on a smaller scale at this point. It's not deployed on such a large scale yet.

Auvik, as a cloud-based solution, versus on-prem network monitoring solutions, is quite simple and intuitive to use. The cloud-based aspect is actually a very nice touch since some vendors require you to have an appliance onsite that they communicate with. It's very useful that it's a cloud-based application from an ease-of-deployment point of view. With no onsite appliance, there are fewer dependencies.

My advice would be to review and focus on the features and the functionality of the product. Don't necessarily, off the bat, just look at the pricing and say this is very expensive. With some customers, the first question is always, "What's the price?" without our having even said a word about the product. Take it for a test drive first, before you look at the pricing, so at least you know what you would be getting for that price.

We are a managed service provider, but we look after a couple of thousand customers all over Australia. We look after their total IT solutions, and we use Auvik as a network monitoring platform and alerting engine. 

We use Auvik to manage our customers and collect configurations, diagnose issues, trace cables, and access devices remotely. We also use it internally for our own support purposes.

We're an outsourced IT company, so we provide IT to other companies that don't have their own departments or don't have the skills. We might go into a company with an IT department and do projects for them that they don't have the skills or resources to do.

We will be able to better meet our SLAs with this solution. We have quicker resolution times, and we waste less time on troubleshooting. As an MSP, we charge per user, per month. We charge a fixed fee to our customers, so saved time results in direct profits for us.

The solution's automation has supplemented our IT team's ability. It has saved us in a few niche cases. We're able to access equipment that was otherwise inaccessible.

Auvik helps keep device inventories up to date. We use it with ScalePad, which is a warranty tracking system that generates reports. We use that report and go to our customers and say, "You have five switches that are at end of life and need to be replaced." It helps us a lot.

The ability to trace cables is the most valuable feature. The solution provides link detection and port detection features with the switches. It's invaluable to have the ability to see where one device is connected and identify the exact port without having to trace any cables.

It's easy to use the monitoring and management functions. We trained most of our staff on how to administer and monitor the solution without any issues. We have a range of techs from entry-level, all the way to experienced engineers. We haven't found it to be difficult, even with the new people.

Auvik is one of many tools that we use, but it integrates with our other platforms to share data and fit in with our ecosystem.

We have seen time-to-value with Auvik. It has saved us a lot of time. A good example is the automatic configuration backup. One of our customers recently had a switch fail, and it was quite complicated. Reverse engineering what was in place and recreating the configuration would have taken 10 to 20 hours, and the customer would have been down for days. We were able to pull the previous configuration that was automatically generated from Auvik, restore it to a new switch, and have the customer back up within two hours.

I like the auto-mapping feature, but I would like to see more layouts and predefined views. At the moment, we're restricted to default views without much customization. The devices and reporting provide a nice map, but it's not at the point where we could generate a 100% accurate topology map because of some of the equipment at some of our customer sites.

The solution doesn't reduce repetitive low-priority tasks through automation as much as we had hoped. The repetitive issues that we see could be solved if Auvik's reporting engine was more configurable. The default reporting is basically limited to what is available out of the box. We can't customize any of the notifications for specific issues. We had to turn off the automatic case generation because it wasn't able to do what we needed it to do.

The reporting engine could definitely be improved, but I've been told that an overhaul is happening.

The stability is great. Every time there's been an outage or an interruption, we've been notified. The uptime is within what we'd expect. No platform is 100% perfect, but it's on par with the market leaders.

We don't have any problems with the scalability.

I would rate technical support a nine out of ten.

Technical support is excellent. I've never had an issue with them. They've always been responsive and more than willing to help.

Positive

We evaluated SolarWinds and some other vendors several years ago. We chose Auvik because of the integration with vendors. All of the vendors we use are supported. The instructions on integrations are great. The device communication is easy, and the platform is very intuitive and well-polished. Our only complaint is that it's lacking a few key features, but it has ticked most of the boxes and has required the least amount of overhead.

The setup was straightforward. The knowledge base is quite comprehensive. Everything we wanted was documented. If we had any questions, the support team was excellent.

We implemented Auvik out of the box. For accurate results, it took 24 hours after implementation before our network mapping started to populate.

It took 1/10th of the time to set up Auvik compared to other solutions.

Four people were needed for implementation. Their responsibilities were to configure sites. We're an MSP, so we initially deployed Auvik at 50 sites. The tasks were delegated. We have an internal process for everything we do, which includes snippets from the Auvik documentation, but we created our own customized documentation. 

I was responsible for project management, documentation creation, and task delegation. I delegated setting up the sites and configuring the sites to our senior engineers, and they deployed Auvik at 50 customer sites.

We're an integrator, so we did the setup ourselves.

The solution has saved us time by 80%.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten. 

There are a few things that are missing that we've been promised in the future and that would make the product excellent for our needs. In terms of what we need, it definitely adds value. 

To someone comparing network monitoring solutions but concerned about pricing, my advice is to make sure that the solution fits your needs. Check out the feature set and the reporting, and be realistic about what you expect it to do.

The solution is scalable. You pay for what you use. It's a comprehensive solution to monitor everything. The pricing is fair, and you only pay for what you use and for the devices that are managed by Auvik. It's quite affordable compared to other solutions, and it's scalable.

We rely on Auvik Network Management for a comprehensive network solution, utilizing it to monitor the health of all our devices and maintain up-to-date backups of their configurations.

We implemented Auvik Network Management to streamline onboarding new network devices across our global network. It also provides proactive alerts for outages, allowing us to address them before they impact users. Additionally, Auvik facilitates swift restoration from backups if an issue proves unsolvable.

Auvik and SaaS Management complement each other well. The Auvik portal's single pane of glass interface provides a seamless user experience, allowing us to easily switch to the SaaS product. While their data may not be directly integrated, these two separate products offer valuable functionalities. SaaS Management helps identify shadow IT by tracking user sign-ins to company accounts, and Auvik excels in network backup and monitoring.

Organizations using Auvik with a concern about shadow IT across various groups can leverage SaaS Management for efficient discovery. This tool provides insights into user account sign-ins and application usage, giving you a more comprehensive view beyond just the network monitoring capabilities offered by Auvik.

Auvik boasts a user-friendly interface that organizes information by office location, allowing for quick access to individual sites. Additionally, a global alert portal provides a centralized view of issues across our entire network.

The network map and dashboard provide a near real-time view of how our network is connected, with about 90 percent accuracy. It's a big improvement, especially since it's automated and now supports switch stacks, allowing us to see not only if there's a stack but also how many members it has within the map itself.

Auvik's user-friendly network map automatically lays out our entire network, allowing us to quickly click on any device and delve into its specific details for in-depth analysis.

We saw the benefits of Auvik almost immediately after deploying it. Once we set up SNMP, a requirement for the software, and entered the discovery credentials, we were able to roll it out to multiple offices. Within days, we had all the locations monitored and backed up.

Auvik has significantly improved our ability to resolve network issues quickly. By allowing us to examine alert logs for potential precursors to outages, and to determine if the problem is widespread or confined to a single location or device, Auvik significantly reduces our mean time to resolution.

Auvik allows us to spend less time on setup, maintenance, and resolution. We are able to use that saved time to work on other projects that we are trying to roll out. 

Auvik's most valuable features are the combined monitoring and backup functionalities. With strategically placed collectors worldwide, we can proactively address potential issues through real-time monitoring and email alerts. Furthermore, Auvik's backups ensure data recovery even in the case of unforeseen circumstances.

I would like Auvik to offer an alternative method for backing up devices that don't support or have SNMP disabled, since currently, SNMP seems to be a prerequisite for any functionality in Auvik. This would be helpful for legacy devices that might not be compatible with SNMP.

I have been using Auvik Network Management for two years.

Auvik Network Management is stable because it is a SaaS service.

It is easy to scale Auvik Network Management in under 30 minutes.

Auvik's technical support has been generally helpful, although we haven't been able to find a solution for managing our older devices that lack SNMP compatibility.

Positive

We transitioned from BackBox, an on-premise backup solution, to Auvik, a cloud-based SaaS platform. This switch not only simplified data management with cloud storage but also provided network monitoring capabilities that BackBox lacked.

The initial deployment of Auvik was easy. We set up a couple of sites for POC and for a lot of the locations, we used the same SNMP credentials so it was able to discover it all and start monitoring within a few hours.

The deployment took a few months to complete because we had multiple locations globally to roll out and it was not the only project we were working on.

During the initial POC and testing phase, we received assistance from an Auvik onboarding technician. Following this, we were able to independently deploy the solution to our other locations.

Auvik Network Management is moderately priced.

I would rate Auvik Network Management nine out of ten.

Auvik does not require maintenance from our end.

Ensure you have SNMP credentials and a dedicated service account for TACX prepared on all your devices. Most companies likely already have a service account available. However, for Auvik to monitor and back up your devices, create a separate service account with read-only access specifically for Auvik.