SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager Reviews

We use this solution to store and manage the configuration of Cisco switches and routers.

It significantly reduces the time required to make changes to routers and switches. A single script can be run on all the devices on the network at the push of a button. It also helps to enforce change management as change is implemented via the NCM interface and managers do not have the exec password but rather request for change via NCM which can be approved by those designated to.

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

For example, if you wanted to change the administrator password for all of your Cisco devices, you would simply put that config change in one window on the NCM, and with a push of a button, it sends it across to all the devices on your network.

The integration with the network performance monitor wasn't complete as at the last time I used it. 

It has a separate interface page within the web interface. I would prefer to have the NCM features on the same interface as the natural performance monitor device page.

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. You have to go to a separate page. It would be nice to have tighter integration with the NPM (Network Performance Monitor).

I would like to see NCM be more aggressive in adding new device support to the product.

I have been using this solution for seven years.

This solution is very stable. I have never had any real issues with stability.

When you deploy it with an external SQL server database that is properly managed and properly tuned, you won't experience any issues.

We know that the SQL Server is scalable, and you can take it to large sizes.

NPM allows you to add pollers to scale it, but I am not sure that NCM has the ability to utilize the additional pollers in a NPM. I have never tried to scale it to thousands of devices. I have only scaled to a few hundred, and I know that it handles a few hundred devices with no issues in one box.

Technical support is good. I have no complaints.

I have used other products and switched to SolarWinds NCM because of the ease of use. The design system is better with fewer bugs.

The initial setup was very easy. There were no issues at all.

I was an integrator and would help to deploy the solution for some of the companies.

We have a team of three to manage and maintain the solution.

Most of the companies would require an integrator to help them deploy the solution.

NCM pays for itself within the first 3 years of use as you do need less dedicated Cisco certified engineers fully on site once it is implemented

The NCM is licensed per device. 

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

It scales from 50 to a hundred and so on.

Also, they have an annual fee that covers upgrades. You have a 12-month license to download new updates.

Larger organizations would be able to have people invest the time to learn how to use the system and deploy on their own. 

Smaller organizations would need an integrator to help them through the deployment process.

We definitely plan to continue working with this solution. 

There are less popular devices that are not directly supported by NCM. You have open-source Linux devices that you really can't support with NCM. They have their own tool that you have to use. We have a couple of those, but generally, NCM is a tool we use for the majority of the well-known brand network purposes.

My advice to others who want to use this solution would be to get it if you have a network with several departmental devices to take care of. 

Do an early set up of your approval process to make sure that change management is built-in. If you have several people with the admin password who are able to go in and make changes to all your devices at one time, it makes the entire system much less stable. You need to ensure that you put in all of the controls very early on, and have levels of authorization for change.

This should be done very early when you deploy the system.

I recommend using SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are using the solution mainly for running backup jobs and comparing integrations. 

NCM is a very good tool. We can use it to compare configurations, for example, and download configurations to see whether something is running configurations. It is good for managing Cisco devices and managing their configurations. 

It is pretty straightforward to set up.

The solution is stable.

It is scalable. 

Nowadays, since last week, I've been facing one issue with the NCM jobs.

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. They're just stuck at a point and just showing me post-processing is happening. So it's not completing, and whenever I cancel it and run it again, it gives me the error. However, not all the time. It gives me the connection refused or a time-out. And when I go to the device, only the job is running. I find the connection profile is running fine and there is no blocking, and there is nothing at the network devices level. However, when I run the job, it's just giving me the connection refused by that particular device. I have raised one case with the vendor about this issue. However, they are just looking at it now, and they will respond to me when they identify something. I haven't gotten an answer on what the issue is.

I've been using the solution for three to four years.

We have been using NCM for a long time, and many of the clients are using it. It's been stable for us. If my client is happy, I'm all happy.

This is a scalable product.

I'd rate the scalability at a seven or eight out of ten.

We're using the solution across multiple projects. I'm not sure how many users are on it in total. It's likely more than 1,000.

I just recently raised an issue with support. 

Apart from that, I haven't had any issues with NCM. I had issues with other modules, just not with NCM. With relation to NCM, this new ticket is my first experience with SolarWinds vendor support and I'm expecting them to give me me some sort of valuable resolution.

I'm not sure why we chose this solution. 

It was not my decision. The stakeholders and my sales team took that decision. They just purchased it and asked me to deploy it. If it was in my hand, I would go for another tool also to explore options. I'm not sure what the other tools are, however, I would have explored a bit more before choosing. 

I've been using SolarWinds for a long time. I'm using NBM, NTA, and other models also. For me, it was not a tough task to set up the solution. That said, I only am familiar with the ORM platform and its features. 

If someone does not have any knowledge of ORM or SolarWinds and they just start with the NCM, then they may face issues and may consider it difficult to deploy. 

Therefore, while deployment is easy, whenever someone is new, they may face some issues running the jobs, and figuring out the jobs and configurations and it all works. For me, it was easy since I already have certain experience and certifications.

NCM deployment takes the usual amount of time as compared to other modules. I deployed on two to three instances and along with other modules. It doesn't take much time. I would not say it's unresponsive. It just takes time.

I'm not from the sales team. I don't handle licensing. The cost structure might be available on their website. 

We are a partner.

I have different projects. I'm not working on a single project. Some of the clients are using a cloud-based instance. Some of them have physical on-premises setups. Most of them are on the cloud.

Before using anything, I would advise new users just go look at the requirements. For example, what are the requirements that you have to monitor? If you have just some devices by which you want to monitor the status of and need only some of the statistics, then NCM is not needed. Companies should not purchase anything blindly; they should understand the infrastructure and requirements.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I use this to monitor our system. I also use it as a configuration manager where all changes of a configuration are stalled.

We are using this product for efficient automation and a short learning gap. It is part of our tool set.

• The features include an easy alert setup. 
• We push all our configurations to the servers with ease and the logs capture almost all the transactions needed for an internal audit.

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

I'm using SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager to configure and manage devices like Aruba, and it's working fine.

It's perfect for network configuration management. It's easy to use.

It would be great if they include a network service manager, network performance manager, or privileged assessment in the next release.

I have been distributing SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager for about three years. 

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is very stable for now.

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is scalable enough. 

Technical support is perfect.

The initial setup was straightforward. I use a team to deploy and maintain this solution.

I have a yearly subscription.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager an eight. 

We primarily use the solution to check the configuration for Cisco, Juniper or L3 devices in our network.

The most valuable features the solution offers are compliance, reliability, and information about reliability.

The solution could offer a better compliance report. GDPR has many security standards. If a company is working with an international client, it must be compliant with any standards. We work with a bank, financial companies, and an insurance company. They need to be compliant and the core customer compliance is our main challenge.

The interface of solar winds could be improved.

I've been using the solution for one year.

The stability of the solution is good. We haven't faced any issues.

The scalability of the solution is good. We haven't had any problems with scaling.

Technical support is okay. We've contacted them many times and they've been fine.

The initial setup is easy. If it is already done with existing network infrastructure, deployment takes only two to three hours.

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.

We use the on-premises deployment model. We're a SolarWinds distributor.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager can be used for backing up network device configuration. It helps you be more secure when you have a system failure, you can get the information back.

The solution could improve by being more secure.

I have been using SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager for approximately nine years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

We have more than 100 customers using this solution.

Technical support could be faster when responding to an issue.

The installation is straightforward.

We have one engineer that does the implementation and maintenance of the solution.

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

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager a nine out of ten.

• Additional polling engines
• Virtual manager

We can proactively monitor our infrastructure in a single pane of glass, unlike before when there were a lot of network management tools that would need to be looked at.

• Report generation
• We need to be able to monitor the NetScaler VIPs

We've used it for over seven years.

We had issues with the FailOver Engine module installation, due to the resources of each SolarWinds server.

8/10 - there's no SLA on a ticket created, albeit they have a level of severity upon the creation of a ticket. So far, I like on how they handle my tickets, especially their tier three. Also, they have 24x7x365 assistance.

One of my clients used Cisco Prime but this solution is only for Cisco, and we have different vendors so we needed a network monitoring system to monitor all of our devices with different vendors.

It was straightforward for monitoring a small environment.

One of my clients is a global company and our pre-sales engineer proposed a bunch of modules that would benefit their events team, tier two, and tier three. We also used a disaster recovery solution in order to accommodate all of their devices in different regions.

• HP IMC
• Netscout
• WhatsUpGold

It allows us to manage backups in big companies. It is also useful in managing configuration changes. 

SolarWinds is currently in the process of a strategic change. They recognized some of the issues they had and are changing the way that they are delivering their software on-premises and on the cloud. You will be able to benefit from these changes sometime in 2023/2024.

Its look and feel can be improved. They can also put in more effort into building the THWACK community and use the information about various customer issues and requests to build new releases.

I have been using this solution for about four years. 

It is stable. 

It is scalable.

This solution works in conjunction with SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor. Usually, you first buy SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor and then SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. You have to go with both.

I would recommend this solution. Typically, while recommending a solution, I look at what the management needs in terms of strategy, how a solution integrates, and how powerful is the IT department. Based on that, I recommend a solution that meets the needs and integrates with ITSM.

I would rate SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager a seven out of ten.