What is our primary use case?
We are an MSP. We use Auvik to monitor our customers and to get up/down tickets. We get alerts from the SIEM, so we use it to make sure where those clients are in the SIEM. If we get an alert that something is sending 5 gigs, we can use it to make sure it is on the network or not on the network. We use it for alerts as well. That is mainly about it. We also give network maps to the customers to use.
How has it helped my organization?
A lot of our clients want compliance. There is active monitoring of the system, and it is just easier to get a network map. It is easier to see all the clients that are on the network. If somebody needs to know who is using the x subnet, we can search for it and send it off to them. It is pretty easy in that respect for most of our customers.
Auvik Network Management makes it a little bit easier to troubleshoot network issues. If we get an alert saying that there is a high interface usage, or something is very high, I can click right on the switch and look at it. I can see which port is being utilized. I can see the total utilization on the switch. If I need to, I can terminal into it and turn it off or turn it on.
Auvik's network map along with its dashboard gives us a close to real-time picture of our network. It is not in real-time. It is close enough to real-time. If I want to see how much traffic is going from all the clients to the server over the course of a day, I can see that. However, if I want to see a broadcast storm or if we accidentally created a loop or something, it gives me the tools to find it, but it does not explicitly tell me that we created a loop. In terms of visibility, if I click around, I can get about 90% visibility for investigating things.
We have been able to more quickly identify issues in the network. We did not do documentation on clients before. It is now easier for us to get the documentation done because we can see that there is a switch here and there is a switch there, and get it done. For new clients, I can plug it in and put it in the network. I do not have to walk everywhere. These are the nice, immediate, and tangible benefits that we saw.
Auvik Network Management has helped to decrease our mean time to resolution, but it is hard to quantify the time savings. Sometimes, you have to dig in. It at least cuts 30 to 45 minutes off of getting into the server, logging into the switches, pulling all the switches up, etc. I can click from one to one to one.
What is most valuable?
I like the quick mapping. I can put a customer in, and I can put the Auvik monitor in, and then probably within about half an hour to an hour, I can see most of the map. I have to tweak things here and there with the switches to get it to read correctly for credentials, but it is very quick. I can see the network pretty quickly.
What needs improvement?
There are a few things I would like to change about the interface, but in general, compared to a lot of other products, it is a little easier to use. It is a little hard sometimes to find MAC addresses and a couple of other things without getting a couple of clicks in, but in general, usability-wise, it is better than the ones we tried.
I would like more customizable alerts. I can put all the firewalls. I can put all the switches. However, especially with our firewalls, I would like to create an SNMP alert when there has been a change on the firewall, such as a rule change or a configuration change. We want to use it as a part of change management, but we cannot because we cannot get alerts. The alerts are basically whatever Auvik has. We cannot create or at least submit a ticket to get a customized alert, so we have to rely on our SIEM instead to do that alert. It took months. We had to get them to create it for us. That would be one thing I would like to see. There should be more customizable alerts or an easier and more accessible way to get customized alerts in some fashion. We really need those alerts. Otherwise, it mostly works for us.
It would also be nice to be able to customize some parts of the interface so that we have the information that is most important to us, and we could display that in some way.
Overall, there should be more customizability. It does what it does, but trying to change anything about it is a little difficult. We would save more time if we could put certain things on the front dashboard and are able to pull it up and go, "I want the switch and the firewall monitored on these ports." If I am trying to do some testing, I should be able to just put them there on Auvik and pin them instead of having to go to each one of them individually.
For how long have I used the solution?
It has been about a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is definitely stable. We do not have too many crazy outages or anything like that. The platform is pretty stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is pretty scalable. It could get a little dicey, but it is not on the Auvik's side. It depends on the implementation. I would rate it an eight out of ten for scalability.
We have ten people who work with Auvik. Our clients are mostly medium-sized organizations. We have about a dozen or so large enterprises, and we have about 300 medium-sized organizations and another 300 small-sized ones.
How are customer service and support?
I never had to call them. My colleague did call support to talk about the alerts. They did answer pretty quickly, and we were pretty quick to tell them no. They were helpful and quick the one time we called them. We do not really call them.
The documentation that they provide is pretty good. The deployment information is pretty detailed. They have the options for Linux, Windows, and even Unix. I do appreciate that. It is pretty good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Domotz for a while, and we then switched to Auvik. We ran into similar problems, but the dashboard of Domotz was not as accessible as Auvik.
We also used Observium. It is an open-source one. Observium did everything we wanted to do, but it was way too in-depth. It is an actual open-source developer one, so it is not easily accessible to the average person. We used Observium for a brief period.
The time to value of Auvik is not very long. The platform is pretty quick. There are good instructions online. It was almost immediately.
How was the initial setup?
I am pretty sure it is all on-prem. At least I have not deployed one that was in the cloud.
The deployment is pretty straightforward. It is super easy. The instructions online are usually pretty good. I do not have any problems with it. It is pretty easy and straightforward.
For small customers, it takes a couple of hours. For large customers, with ten switches and a couple of firewalls, it can take four or five hours. Auvik itself usually takes 20 minutes. If we have access to the server, we can just boot up Windows or Linux, and it is done.
In terms of maintenance, we do get alerts when the collectors go offline. Sometimes, they just fall out, and sometimes, the network does some weird things. There is a small amount of maintenance but nothing crazy.
What was our ROI?
We have definitely seen an ROI in terms of time to resolution and time to work on things. It has definitely shown value in that sense. It has saved us about half an hour on a ticket. We get about 30 tickets a year per client. That saves us 15 hours over the course of a year, which is 3,000 to 4,000 dollars.
Auvik allows us to spend less time on the setup and maintenance of the solution and issue resolution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Relative to others, it is affordable. It is not terrible. The Performance licensing is a little expensive for what you get, but the standard licensing is fine.
Observium was free. It is open source, so you cannot beat that. It is open source, so it is free.
Domotz is probably a little more expensive. I never got into that because that was a little bit before me. I used it a little bit but did not get into the pricing structure too much. It seems pretty comparable.
Technically, there are critical devices that are monitored by Auvik at no charge. We have to pay for servers. We have to pay for network devices and firewalls. We do have some PCs that we want to make sure do not go down. This free monitoring is nice. It does not add too much value. We want to see the workstations and where they are at. It would be weird to be charged for that.
What other advice do I have?
It definitely does what it is supposed to do and what it is advertised to do. If people want to use it, it would be fine. For MSPs, it works great because the pricing structure is pretty good, but singular individual or giant enterprises would probably go with an in-house solution, such as Observium, for some of the alerting. In general, for MSPs, it is great. The pricing structure is great, and it is definitely usable.
Auvik has not empowered our entry-level technicians to solve more tickets on their own because we do not give it to our entry-level technicians. In our case, it is specifically for our network team. Our entry-level technicians do not handle any of the network. It is something we want to do with them, but as of now, our entry-level technicians do not use it.
Overall, I would rate Auvik Network Management an eight out of ten. Customizable alerts would be good. It would also be nice to be able to customize some parts of the interface. There should be more customizability.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: MSP