NetBrain vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."

"This product has good network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities."

"Enables maps to be drawn out."

"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."

"NetBrain is a very simple tool."

"It's very user-friendly in the sense that the querying is just regular language like you and I speak or write. You don't need to know any SQL-query type of language to be able to get what you want out of it."

"It especially helps with deploying NSX, that you're not having to manually chase down and figure out what you need to do to microsegment VMs. This gives a nice option where you can say, "Hey, this VM, show me what flows are there." I can export it out and then import it as an NSX rule and job done."

"It has enabled us to set up and do application discovery, as far as network traffic is concerned, and set up the appropriate rules that we need to make sure we're compliant with our security frameworks."

"It allows us to see how the network devices function as well as to see network glitches or fluctuations or dropping of packets."

"The automation collects all the relationships between servers, allowing us to visualize these relationships and organize the migration into waves."

"We can see everything going on in NSX and get a good picture of our environment."

"The most valuable feature is being able to easily see the path that the VM traffic is taking, what ports are in use."

"It helps a lot because, until now, we didn't have the tools to figure out the micro level, VM-to-VM kind of traffic; that was not in the current environment. We could not figure out VM-to-VM communication from the other tools. This is the tool which gives us end-to-end transparency."

"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."

"The solution could integrate more automation."

"Each device needs to be configured to allow NetBrain to poll for the information it needs, which can be very time-consuming for a large network."

"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."

"It would be nice if the setup was a little simpler. Also, if the solution could provide more training materials for new people coming into our company so they can quickly learn how to use the functionalities."

"If it had some kind of plugins with vSphere, more effective plugins with Horizon View or other VMWare products, if it had interconnectivity, I think it would be more effective than it is today."

"The compatibility with each and every component of the infrastructure is the main thing that I am looking for. I would like them to make sure that it's compatible with different kinds of storage systems, etc. I have seen the compatibility list. I feel it can be more compatible than it is right now."

"When we talk about those micro-segmentation rules, there's an Export function. It is very macro-segmentation oriented instead. So if you choose an application, it will find the tiers within that application and say that it's communicating on, say, port 80 to a separate VLAN. There might be 200 machines in that other VLAN. You don't want to open port 80 at all of them. So we need a lot more granularity in those suggested firewall rules."

"I would like to see more interoperability on the firewall and low balancer sides."

"It just needs to be more reliable and more accurate. At some point, there are some things where it does not match properly."

"vRNI needs more remediation where it hooks into NSX."

"If it were more application-aware, more descriptive; if it were able to determine the application that is actually doing the communication, that would be easier. More application information: which user or account it's accessing, is it accessing this application, doing these calls, if it is accessing a script, what script is it accessing. Things like that would provide deeper analytics so I can track what's going on. It would not just be, "These people shouldn't be talking," but who is actually doing these calls."

"Support could be much better."

"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."

"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."

"It's an expensive product because we have a lot of nodes."

"They should include the product in NSX because it's important to have it for deployment."

"It reduces costs. It takes something that may be challenging and makes it more usable and visual by being able to bring in tools, seeing what their impact is, such as microsegmentation and application rationalization, and seeing it quickly."

"The solution has helped us to reduce time, increase performance, reduce costs, and even easily manage networks. We are probably seeing 10 to 20 percent labor savings because we are able to be very specific and focused on what we want to do. It ends up saving the customer money and makes us be more efficient on our cost deliveries."

"Cost always has room for improvement, you could always make it cheaper. But I think it's a good value for what you pay for it."

"The solution has reduced the time that we spend on other products. For example, with NSX, we were able to quickly find things that we would normally spend days trying to figure out."

"I rate vRealize Network Insight's pricing a seven point five out of ten."

"It's a little expensive, but for what you're getting out of the product, you often see the trade-off. It depends on the type of licensing you have. It might be a little too pricey for some."