IBM Tivoli NetCool vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

"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."

"It improves customer satisfaction, deploy-ability, adaptability, flexibility, scalability, and reduces cost of operation."

"The scalability of monitoring, the breadth of supported network components, the scale of the number of monitoring events, and the flexibility in customization make this a well-rounded product."

"The Netcool solution is great, and it's very easy to use."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"It's a helpful tool and I really like it."

"The feature that I really enjoy is the ability to script changes across all of your devices."

"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."

"Configuration pushing, upgrade capabilities, job backup, configuration backup, and real-time configuration change monitoring are highly beneficial features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."

"We push all our configurations to the servers with ease and the logs capture almost all the transactions needed for an internal audit."

"NCM has provided for the following benefits - Mainly to to with audit readiness on 3 fronts - regular configuration backups, configuration hardening and Vulnerability management."

"It's perfect for network configuration management, and it's easy to use."

"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."

"The solution is not user-friendly."

"I think the UI should be updated and made more presentable and eye-catching. Compared to NCE in Huawei, NSN in Nokia, the UiPath and Ubiquiti, it feels very old legacy."

"UI is outdated, very old legacy."

"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."

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

"Customization and integration that you need to do to make the product fit your needs is very complex. It is not a product that somebody could easily pick up without any prior training or experience."

"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release."

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

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

"I will email them and I won't see the response for another two or three hours. I have to give them a call and it's a pain, it's a nightmare."

"Further improvements in automation are needed. Currently, there are limitations in performing tasks without logging into routers directly, and we expect more comprehensive device control."

"On NCM, reporting could be a bit better. It's completely become just one report. When I try to create a custom report, the solution just commits old server data."

"The interface of solar winds could be improved."

"The solution could improve by being more secure."

"When it comes to the way of managing the network devices, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager should provide the simplest way that devices can relate to the server. For example, when we want to get the devices on board, we go by SSH to make the SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager create the connectivity with the device. After that, we pull the configuration. It would be helpful if they could combine both so that everything will be done in one step."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."

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

"The price of the product is too expensive."

"I have a yearly subscription."

"The pricing is good."

"Additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee are inevitable."

"Pricing is reasonable and competitive."

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

"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."

"There is a license for the use of this solution and it is priced well, there is a lot of value for the money."

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