Microsoft System Center vs NetApp Cloud Insights comparison

Microsoft System Center vs. NetApp Cloud Insights

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft System Center

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

24th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (13th)

NetApp Cloud Insights

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

17th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (9th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (19th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Microsoft System Center is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Insights is 0.2%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Ajinkya Mohod

System Security Engineer at Punch Powertrain nv

Makes user management and application management easy for users

Speaking about the impact of the automation feature that impacted our company's operational efficiency, I can say that the complete tool works on automation. You just have to configure it, and it works, especially in areas like auto-patching updates. I suggest that others can definitely go ahead with Microsoft System Center, especially beginners who choose it, can get hands-on experience with it, and acquire a good understanding of how things work. In terms of the value and benefits derived from the use of the solution, I can say that my company's operations have been made simpler because of the product, especially in areas like user management and application management where we have been benefited a lot. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

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Scott Lauters

Associate IT Director at Wolters Kluwer

It provides a single pane of glass, giving us visibility into the environment

All our production clusters are in Cloud Insight. It provides a single pane of glass, giving us visibility into the environment, which allows us to understand if any issues are going on across any of our clusters. The main issue we were looking to address was the lack of visibility across all the clusters in one single view. We're using Cloud Insight's Unified Manager. It has improved our ability to support and see the immediate status of the entire environment. If we have a critical incident, we can quickly see these issues and loop in monitoring teams and other teams. For example, if our app team thinks there are issues in the environment, we can quickly see if anything related to storage is part of the problem. It improved our organization by unifying all the various support teams. We all have the same view of what's happening in the environment. The dev team knows what storage is used or not, and we can quickly move on to other activities. Cloud Insights provides a single tool for containers and other cloud-based architectures, but we're not using some of those things, such as Kubernetes. We're primarily leveraging the monitoring and reporting. The solution does a great job of inventorying our resources. It allows us to put the tags on the devices. The process is fast. It also gives you the dependencies. I can dig down into all the related components. Cloud Insight's advanced analytics feature does a good job of highlighting the areas where there might be issues in the future.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The availability performance matrix and the reporting capabilities are the solution's most valuable features."

"The deployment and asset management features are the most valuable. These are the product's main features."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft System Center is its GUI (graphical user interface)."

"The detail in the alarms is great."

"System Center helps to create the basis for ITIL alignment."

"Managment Packs for Microsoft-specific products, help us implement the best practices for each product."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."

"It can generate KPIs and management reports with monthly presentations on activities and updating the environment (success and failure)."

More Microsoft System Center pros

"The visibility and assistance with security vulnerabilities are valuable."

"One feature we appreciate the most is its ability to take snapshots, which adds an extra layer of security and allows us to protect our data effectively."

"All our production clusters are in Cloud Insight. It provides a single pane of glass, giving us visibility into the environment, which allows us to understand if any issues are going on across any of our clusters."

"Its ability to quickly inventory our resources, figure out interdependencies across them, and assemble a topology of your environment is brilliant. There is a price associated with it. Whenever you target a NetApp environment, it is included in the price but whenever you want to add different vendors, like VMware and Cisco, the price greatly spikes. Inventorization helps us a lot to visualize the environment."

"The solution is 98 percent stable."

"The solution is easy to deploy."

"Cloud Insights' best features are visibility and the connector to move the workloads."

"NetApp Cloud Insights helps with login monitoring and troubleshooting. Previously, if we had performance concerns or needed to interface with other groups and their products, a task that should require only one or two people turned into a six-person job."

More NetApp Cloud Insights pros

Cons

"The solution's dashboard needs improvement."

"The multi-tenancy support needs to be improved. We need to have the ability to manage several different environments from one central point of administration."

"Most of the documentation is online, however, there are some gaps there. The product documentation still refers back to the 2012 Server. We're pretty much in 2022. There's a ten-year gap there."

"In Microsoft System Center, it is difficult to follow the steps to create dataflows at times."

"System Center hasn't updated to keep up with the industry. It needs improvements in the user interface, ease of use, and overall product functionality, particularly the cloud-monitoring features. It needs more capabilities to monitor AWS and Azure infrastructure."

"They should have some customized solutions or internal development, then maybe it could be easier to use different solutions or some self-developed solution."

"For me, the tool's UI seems to be too old."

"We have some bugs but it's stable. It doesn't break every day. It works. Like other applications, it has a lot of bugs but they're manageable."

More Microsoft System Center cons

"In a perfect world we would have something built, right out-of-the-box, that can identify what we call "noise," and reduce the amount of data. You're presented with so much data when you first start the data collectors. For example, it brings back a lot of change rates that happen just because of standard computing, like profile changes and that sort of thing. Being able to identify things like that and categorize them and strip it down—and it probably can do that, I just haven't gotten there yet—would be very beneficial."

"Most of the time, I initially connect with entry-level support, and then I need to request a higher-tier support level, which can result in delays."

"Their pricing model needs improvement."

"The support is not very quick."

"When I did need support because I was having problems with the solution, the first or the second line just didn't understand it. They were providing this only on a software as a service basis. So, they were asking all the wrong questions."

"The IP-based monitoring could be added in a future release."

"The first level of NetApp's technical support could be improved."

"Cloud Insights could offer more detail when we drill down into the Azure environment."

More NetApp Cloud Insights cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft System Center is quite expensive."

"We maximized our license investment."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."

"I know that sometimes there is some reduction in the prices of Microsoft System Center because of the costs of Microsoft SQL Server, which can be advantageous."

"Microsoft System Center's licensing is costly."

"It's rolled into our enterprise subscription. The entire subscription is around $25,000 a year, however, that covers all the products that we use."

"I rate the product price as five to six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is cheap and ten means it is expensive."

"The licensing model could be improved. We love that you can use it for free for looking at NetApp products. You only need licenses to look at non-NetApp products, but as soon as you do that, you start utilizing licenses that actually would have been free in the public. So, there is a bit of an anomaly in the licensing model."

"The solution's pricing is based on the device you purchase and includes support services."

"The licensing is complex. The calculation depends on what you're ingesting. A terabyte of one product is not a terabyte of another product. Virtual machines don't equate so easily. It's all about the end-use managed units and having an easy place to reference how far those units go."

"The solution is expensive."

"We are billed based on management units, so we can purchase units based on six months, twelve months, twenty-four months, or thirty-six months upfront or pay as you go depending on our requirements."

"Be aware of the capacity licensing and understand how that works, because it is based on capacity. Getting an understanding of that is the biggest thing."

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847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Manufacturing Company

33%

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft System Center?

The product's initial setup phase was easy.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft System Center?

Microsoft System Center's licensing is costly.

What needs improvement with Microsoft System Center?

Microsoft System Center should be easier to manage. However, it is complex to deploy, so people hesitate to use it. Though it has many features, such as licensing, asset tracking, and software depl...

What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Insights?

NetApp Cloud Insights helps with login monitoring and troubleshooting. Previously, if we had performance concerns or needed to interface with other groups and their products, a task that should req...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Insights?

The licensing is complex. The calculation depends on what you're ingesting. A terabyte of one product is not a terabyte of another product. Virtual machines don't equate so easily. It's all about t...

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Insights?

Ease of reporting is one thing that they're trying to tackle. If you have a specific set of data you want from Cloud Insights, you can ask NetApp to help you build the reports from the ground up. T...

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Product Reports

Microsoft System Center

Download Microsoft System Center product report

NetApp Cloud Insights

Download NetApp Cloud Insights product report

Also Known As

MS System Center

No data available

Overview

System Center helps customers realize the benefits of the Microsoft Cloud Platform by delivering unified management. Experience fast time-to-value with out-of-the-box monitoring, provisioning, configuration, automation, protection and self-service.

Microsoft

NetApp Cloud Insights is an infrastructure monitoring tool that gives you visibility into your complete infrastructure. With Cloud Insights, you can monitor, troubleshoot and optimize all your resources including your public clouds and your private data centers.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Kassen_rztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein, Magyar Telekom Nyrt., Adeka, QualCare, Aeriandi, UniCredit Bank d.d., Mostar, Allianz Australia Ltd., Grupo Familia

Information Not Available

Microsoft System Center vs. NetApp Cloud Insights