IBM Tivoli NetCool vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

"It's very easy to use."

"NetCool has a huge database that can collect and process about one million alarms a day."

"The feature I have found most valuable with NetCool is how it collaborates all the alarms, and then it does a predictive analysis, providing a consolidated alarm view and management."

"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."

"The tool had many built-in automation capabilities."

"The tool is much easier to manage than running scripts and figuring out how many endpoints have been exceeded."

"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."

"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."

"The most valuable Real-time fault detection is beneficial as it enables the identification of changes made to a device's configuration through the SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. This makes it easy to pinpoint which configurations were added or removed, potentially causing network issues. Such changes are saved in logs for future reference."

"This solution has helped our organization by allowing us to store all the device configurations for the various network devices in NCM and making it easy for us to retrieve and look them over."

"The network performance monitoring of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is a vital feature"

"I use it for monitoring the entire network for the company. We oversee nodes down, we oversee devices heading up to crossing the threshold for CPU usage. We oversee power so power backups on the switches, we oversee if they're down or if they're failing. We oversee any node down or any router from any vendor."

"NCM also helps with vulnerability assessment and remediation."

"What's nice with NCM is you can set up policies that you can then check against the configs to ensure that your device configs adhere to a baseline or standard that you've set in place."

"Compared to other vendors, like NetBrain, managing the solution is easy. They made it very user-friendly."

"SolarWinds NCM provides updates on the status of your network infrastructure. If any issues arise, such as a link failure or a device going offline, you will receive notifications and alerts. Additionally, if someone unplugs a cable, SolarWinds NCM will detect it. It also features a Topology Mapper that displays the connectivity of your network devices, giving you a visual representation of the network's structure. With SolarWinds NCM, you have a clear understanding of what's happening within your network and can generate comprehensive reports."

"The solution is not user-friendly."

"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."

"Tivoli NetCool is based on a Linux platform, it would be beneficial if they moved it to Windows because not everyone is acquainted with Linux."

"Tivoli NetCool's has medium scalability - there are some problems with its replications not being mature."

"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release. IBM develops new features for Power BI or Cognos Analytics, which is good. As of now, we use Cognos Analytics, we are not using Power BI. They have the Insight concept but we don't like that."

"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."

"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."

"UI is outdated, very old legacy."

"Improvements are needed in the automatic network mapping function."

"For each device, when you open the network performance monitor, it will give you all of the information about the device, but many of the natural configuration management features are not on that page."

"Our experience has shown that most of the problems we've had with SolarWinds NCM are related to software issues."

"When we run the SolarWinds NCM jobs at the cellular line, it runs in the morning. They're just not finishing. We're getting false processing."

"We want to be able to store it in a data warehouse format and integrate it with Google single sign-on."

"The network flow is a problem for this solution."

"I would like to see more features in terms of wireless reporting and more historical information for client connectivity in SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."

"The Network Configuration Manager needs to improve the access control list compliance."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"The price of the product is too expensive."

"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."

"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."

"In Africa, the cost is a major factor in decision-making for many companies. As a result, some companies may choose cheaper solutions, even if they are open-source, over more expensive ones, such as SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. However, as an engineer, I believe that the functionalities and services offered by SolarWinds justify the cost. Nonetheless, many companies in Africa may still view the prices as unaffordable."

"I have a yearly subscription."

"You have a base license for 50 devices, and then you can add more licenses as you go."

"Pricing is reasonable and competitive."

"The pricing is good."

"With a minimal bundle, we pay about $3000 a year in licensing costs. If you have multiple devices in your network, you must buy the bundle, which is 100% identical for your infrastructure. If you have 15 devices, you need 15 licenses, for example. That's one bundle. You don't pay for anything over and above that."

"The price of the solution is high compared to other solutions."

"We have to pay additionally for its support and maintenance."