The most valuable features for us are the modification profiles and the initial dashboard. They're also the two main things we use the most.
NOC Manager with 501-1,000 employees
The top features for us are the modification profiles and the initial dashboard.
What is most valuable?
How has it helped my organization?
We've improved greatly. We previously used another monitoring system, and although it was good as we were able to receive statuses on several hosts, our growth has been exponential the past four years. Because we've been able to use our monitoring system, it's helped us to stabilize and make sure that every single network item that we add is properly monitored. Of course, if there's anything wrong with a device, we'll know right away. That's really the main purpose of the monitoring system. It's helped us and our customers to maintain a good little service.
What needs improvement?
We're already evaluating v5.0 and to tell the truth, there's a couple of things that we found really useful in previous versions that for some reason they have removed. For example, in the current version, it's pretty easy to go into the host detail just by having a simple click into the host, but for some reason this has been removed in the new version. It was really good that you could just click on the name of the host and it took you to a more detailed view of the host itself or the item, and now that feature is gone in v5.0.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've used it for close to six years.
Buyer's Guide
Opsview
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Opsview. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,997 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We've had no issues with deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Of course, you have to maintain the database. But to tell you the truth, we've put enough pressure on the system itself and it's been pretty reliable so far. It's low maintenance and a very, very reliable system.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Over the past three years, we've grown by about 200%, and the system has been able to manage that growth.
How are customer service and support?
Customer Service:
The customer service is good.
Technical Support:They're very knowledgeable and proactive. Whenever we have an issues, we do open up a ticket. There's a really good follow up on the ticket.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is easier now than before, and it looks like v5.0 is more straightforward. There's a definite improvement there.
What about the implementation team?
It was in-house with remote support, tickets, follow-ups, and things of that nature.
What other advice do I have?
Start about growing the system from the start. In other words, when we first started using the Opsview platform, we didn't think about being able to have a redundant environment for the system. We didn't think about that many hosts or that many items that we were going to monitor. My advice would be if you're about to start, think big right from the start. It will save you a lot of headaches, and not necessarily because Opsview is bad or not performing well when you try to escalate the system, no. It will definitely be easier for you to start balancing loads and creating backups and things of that nature. If you're going to start using it, go big.
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: I received a gift card from the vendor for writing this review.
Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
The API is not state of the art, but Opsview helped reduce the number of logs in text files.
Valuable Features:
The most valuable component of Opsview might be the very good web GUI. It provides a great overview of all hosts and services; furthermore, adding new monitoring targets and modifying existing configuration is possible. The web interface is powered by at least one database which makes it easy to backup. In addition one might take note of the API which at least allows automated configuration.
Improvements to My Organization:
My company never used Opsview for themselves, but we provided it for many customers. Before using Opsview, they complained about chaotic web interfaces and nonsense monitoring messages in their old solutions. Afterwards, they were impressed by how easy monitoring could be, and they no longer had to edit large text files in order to configure hosts and service checks. Instead, they simply started using the Opsview web GUI which is also very self-explanatory. So no long introduction was needed.
Room for Improvement:
The API provided by Opsview is, compared to other monitoring solutions, not state of the art. It would be great to see that more efforts would be put into this part of the product. Furthermore I would love to see support for more database systems which are needed for storing configuration stuff and data.
Use of Solution:
I was using it between mid 2012 and the beginning of 2014. The foundation and the architecture haven't changed much since then. I worked with Opsview before the pro version had more features than the free community edition (e.g. Opsview Core 4). It was always running with Ubuntu 12.04.
Stability Issues:
Since Opsview heavily relies on MySQL and InnoDB, backups or large installations can be slow. You will need to put a lot of time into tning your database in order to keep it performing well.
Initial Setup:
It was easy since Opsview provided a working Ubuntu package, and a good how-to.
Implementation Team:
We automated the deployment, and did it ourselves, so no consulting was Needed. When implementing Opsview, one has to make sure that the VM OR hardware beneath IT, is powerful enough, and that MySQL is configured the correct way.
Cost and Licensing Advice:
Large Opsview setups come with high licensing fees. I find them to be too expensive, but that is only my opinion. There are not many different licensing models, so if you go for an Opsview installation, make sure to talk to your Opsview partner or the vendor and make sure that you get the best prices possible. Only use the core edition for trial setups, not for production.
Other Solutions Considered:
Well, if you are ready to spend a lot of money and time in getting a large system view installation up and running (in a performance way), Opsview is THE solution which covers most requirements you can possibly have. But if you want to rely on open source software, which has no license fees or feature limits, I can recommend CheckMK, Shinken and Icinga2. I used CheckMK and Icinga 2 for monitoring projects since the end of 2014 because I prefer limit-free open source software over commercial software.
Other Advice:
It is a great product, and if you accept that you have to use MySQL as the database system you will definitely like it. If your installation will cover more than 100 hosts, you should run Opsview on bare-metal.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Opsview
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Opsview. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,997 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Clinical Applications Systems Analyst - HIM/Profile, EHR Alliance at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It reduces the need to manually enter jobs, enabling analysts to focus on tasks that are more important or those which cannot be automated.
Valuable Features:
The ease of automating and scheduling work processes to eliminate manual tasks.
You can group jobs by functional area (Lab and RAD), or by similar output, and results such as scheduling reports for departments. Visual display of successful jobs and failures is easy to see at a glance. You can also automate error reports and email them to your support team.
By grouping jobs into categories such as Lab or RAD, when an end user calls with an issue, it makes it easier to troubleshoot. You can go directly to that functional group and look for failures.
Improvements to My Organization:
It reduces the need to manually enter jobs, which enables the analyst to focus on other tasks than are more important or which do not have the ability to be automated.
Use of Solution:
I've been using it for over 10 years.
Customer Service:
Excellent customer support from Cerner.
Other Advice:
I've never installed Opsview Monitor or Scheduler. I believe these are standard applications that come with implementing Cerner Millennium. Many companies reserve these applications for system administrators as they are normally at a higher technical level of understanding and implementing. These tools are great for monitoring and adding new jobs by an applications analyst.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Internet Services Support & Maintenance Manager, Online & Data Services at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
We moved from the NetSaint and Nagios platforms because Opsview provides the same functionality but with the simplicity of a GUI front end.
What is most valuable?
The two most valuable features for us are the GUI front end and the centralization of confirmation information in a MySQL backend.
How has it helped my organization?
We moved from the NetSaint and Nagios platforms. Opsview provides all the functionality of these but with the simplicity of a GUI front end, using MySQL to centralize configuration. This has moved us away from the multi-configuration file complexity of NetSaint and Nagios.
What needs improvement?
Some aspects of the GUI functionality need improvement. We've discussed them with Opsview and they plan on making improvements per customer request.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Opsview Enterprise for approximately four months. Prior to that we were running an earlier version called Opsview Core since 2012.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We've had no issues with deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There were no issues with the stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have had no issues with scaling it for our needs.
How are customer service and technical support?
10/10
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to 2012, we were using Nagios and NetSaint. We moved to Opsview as it gave us GUI flexibility and also allowed us to migrate our Nagios and NetSaint alarms and plugins easily.
How was the initial setup?
The setup of our original CORE version required some thought. However, the use of MySQL as the backend facilitated a very easy upgrade to our current Enterprise version. There was no requirement to reconfigure hosts, services, groups, etc.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It has competitive pricing compared to similar products on the market.
What other advice do I have?
Avail yourself of the limited license core version first. Try it out to ensure that it provides all the functionality you require. It’s free to download and install and gives a good flavor of the product's capability.
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.
3rd Line Systems Engineer at a maritime company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would say stability is the most valuable feature. We use it mainly for networking post-monitoring and service monitoring.
What is most valuable?
The system is very robust and very rarely breaks. It just sits there working, doing what's expected. Very little maintenance is needed and the support is very good. I would say stability is the most valuable feature. I'm struggling to think of a time when it actually crashed or when we had a problem.
How has it helped my organization?
We use it mainly for networking post-monitoring and service monitoring. We have sites across France, Spain, and the UK with many different production devices on it. We mainly just do service checks to make sure the operation of the company advances if we use a service or house at a particular site.
What needs improvement?
I think it still has room for improvement to auto discovery. If you put the agent on a house, it has auto discovery. I also think it can be improved with VMware as well. It can be a little bit flaky with the agent on VMware.
It performs all the diversifications, but if you've got a VMware environment, there are some anomalies within the service checks. I don't know if that's because of plugins unfamiliar to VMware or if there's an actual issue with Opsview. Regardless, it's not as strong with VMware as it is with other devices.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've had it now for seven or eight years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Other than within the VMware environment, we haven't had any issues with deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has just sat working forever throughout the last seven years without any problems.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We've had issues with scalability as we ran out of house. We only had a contract for a certain number and ran out. We upscaled to 650 devices, which was a simple yet expensive process.
How are customer service and technical support?
Both the customer service and technical support are excellent. We've purchased 20 calls per year of support, and I would say we probably use about 3.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using a previous solution called NightWatch. It had nowhere near the features of Opsview.
What about the implementation team?
We used the Opsview teams to install the product.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's not something that I tend to get involved with, obviously, but I believe the proactive monitoring would be significantly cheaper. Obviously, we've got a good rapport with Opsview so we were reluctant to change.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We were toying within the idea of proactive monitoring as well, but because we've been an Opsview shop for quite a number of years, it was just easier at the time just to renew the contract.
What other advice do I have?
I think everything could have a little bit of improvement with monitoring and reporting. It needs improvements with VMware as well as in a few other avenues. On the whole, though, it's exactly what we're looking for.
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.
Service Director - Core Delivery Platform at UKCloud Ltd
Monitoring solution used to successfully observe public cloud environments and event triggers
Pros and Cons
- "We use this solution for internal monitoring our own cloud platform because we are a public cloud provider. We also use it for monitoring purposes on behalf of our clients."
- "In a future release, we would like to have Observ for AI. Any AI and intelligence it can add to the monitoring is obviously beneficial. We would also like to have automated callouts."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for internal monitoring our own cloud platform because we are a public cloud provider. We also use it for monitoring purposes on behalf of our clients.
Going forward, we will be focusing on using the solution for event triggers and to be able to self-heal the platform.
What needs improvement?
In a future release, we would like to have Observ for AI. Any AI and intelligence it can add to the monitoring is obviously beneficial. We would also like to have automated callouts.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have had some stability issues, but that is largely because we're using an unsupported database. The product itself is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex, but it's not very straightforward.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise others to use the supported database because we've tried to fit it into one that's not on their list of recommendations and it works, but it's not as stable.
I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Infrastructure Support Technician at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
We like the iOS app which lets us acknowledge issues or see warnings from our mobile phones away from the office.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature we've found is really just how easy it is to add servers and devices to the monitor. We also like the UI and applications. What we've also found that we like the iOS app which lets us acknowledge issues or see warnings from our mobile phones away from the office.
How has it helped my organization?
Our functioning has definitely improved because we previously did not have any monitoring for our servers. We didn't even know when our hard drives were filling up, and the situation has now improved dramatically. With the monitoring capabilities, I can tell when things happen and be proactive about them instead of constantly putting out fires. This is a huge improvement.
There's also a management module that we haven't fully utilized, but it's something that we're looking forward to using.
What needs improvement?
I wish they'd update the iOS app, which, I think, is the same version I used back in 2012 or so. It's always looked pretty much the same. As for the web version, things like the acknowledgements are better, but I'd rather use the iOS app because it's easier and quicker to acknowledge and schedule downtime.
Also, I took their training for the reporting module, and it's quite complicated. I'd like more functionality than just drag-and-drop to build a report, which we had to do with SQL queries. This is an area of that needs improvement because it requires that we have time for development time in order to do SQL queries.
I think, though, that pretty much everything else is great with the new version 5. We're able to add hosts and do other things so much easier than with the previous version. There's a massive improvement and I'm pretty happy with it.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using since December 2015.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We've had no issues with deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There have been no stability issues since we began running it in December. The only time it's been down was when we were patching the server that it runs on. All the services run, even with out new service watchdog. It monitors itself and I haven't gotten any notes about it going on.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Our department's quite small, but from what I can tell, it's definitely scalable both up and out. We have around 200 servers, but the monitoring service uses only one server that's not clustered, although I'm sure clustering wouldn't be difficult with Opsview.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is super knowledgable. During our trial period, I ran into some issues and they were very responsive. I never had any issues trying to get them to answer any questions. They didn't make me feel like an idiot.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used Opsview in my previous job and that's the reason why I went with them here in my current role.
How was the initial setup?
It's straightforward, perhaps because I used it before, but this version is super easy to install. I followed the instructions on the website and the installation was pretty much automated.
What other advice do I have?
Be sure to use the 30-day trial and see if it meets your needs. It fit my needs, my vision, and the price was right.
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.
IT Operations - Senior Analyst / Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It allows proactive event management for infrastructure and business services.
What is most valuable?
For me, scalability and reliability are the product's most valuable features.
How has it helped my organization?
It allows proactive event management for both infrastructure and business services.
What needs improvement?
Opsview lacks few features. All of the areas we listed for improvement were implemented in version 5.
Nonetheless, if it were to become more than a super monitoring tool, I would wish for an integrated CMDB and call-logging module to create a standalone integrated IT service management system out of it. It has the potential!
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We did not encounter any issues with stability in our implementation.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We did not encounter any issues with scalability. It easily scaled up to two datacentres when the need arose.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support was professional and knowledgeable.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Nagios Core Open Source, so we had no certifiable support.
How was the initial setup?
Setup was straightforward. Population of checked hosts was automated, thanks to the RESTful Web API. We added multiple hosts and check configurations this way.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I feel that the pricing is fair and well worth it for the value extracted from it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing this product, we evaluated Icinga.
What other advice do I have?
Plan carefully and use the wiki!
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Hi Wayne, thanks for coming back. Let's start with this:
What triggers the webservice call and have you automated the matching of the templates to the monitored configuration items?
Can you also please point me to the doc you are referring to?
Many thanks!
Philippe
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Thanks for this review!