SolarWinds NPM Reviews

The most valuable features are:

• The new F5 Load Balancer dashboard and NetPath.
• The flexibility of the product to meet any organization’s needs, instead of forcing the organization to bend to the limitations of the product.

The most common feedback I receive as a consultant is how the product ultimately finds issues and bottlenecks in the enterprise that the engineers were previously unaware existed. Also, issue resolution speed is always improving!

Two or three of the core functions are still nested in Win32 apps on the server; but it seems that the foundation was laid in the current website for porting those functions over in the near future.

I have used this solution for about eight years.

We have only very rarely experienced any stability issues; and hotfixes are generally made available in a timely fashion.

I have worked with some of the largest SolarWinds deployments in the world. It seems that we are always able to push the product far enough to cover the needs of any organization.

Technical support is superb. Not only is the actual technical support very knowledgeable, but the user community at www.Thwack.com is the best online community that I have ever been a part of.

I have used several competing solutions over the years and always come back to SolarWinds’ superiority in function, flexibility, support, and price.

You can quite literally download the installer, run through it, discover your network to add devices, and be “live monitoring” within one hour. Obviously, there are other factors in a complex environment to consider, such as scalability; but the installation of all SolarWinds core modules is extremely straightforward.

I always advise anyone who is new to the suite to run a free 30-day demo in their environment; and set it up as they would for production. At that point, you will have a solid idea about your license size requirements. When you make the purchase, you can apply the license to your demo with no downtime or loss in man-hours from the initial setup.

I evaluated SolarWinds Network Performance Manager and compared it to WhatsUp Gold, PRTG, OpenNMS, InterMapper, ManageEngine, LanSweeper, Cacti, and FogLight.

• Download a demo.
• Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries and customize the product according to your needs.
• Use the Thwack community!

The features I find most valuable are--

• Reliability
• Security
• High-tech development
• Collateral
• Essentially they deliver what they promise for the end-user

We use it to create guides for end-users. We install SolarWinds on cloned virtual machines and offer free access to partners of my company.

I've used it for four years.

I had a customer who had a problem adding to a database for DAP-end integration with Orion. Simple details were needed to resolve with correct passwords and the release of ports on a firewall. Also, a deployment problem was failing in some versions of Windows and Meso. After all updates were performed, the Orion installation package did not work. We restarted it and worked.

I have no problems with the support of SolarWinds. When my client has a problem, our support always uses the documentation immediately. As we also have a lot of training and always test a lot of tools in our environment, when the client asks for something we know exactly where to go. Our SLA is five minutes for the first call, and to solve problems one-and-a-half hours.

We did, and we switched because the interface is more user friendly and easier to configure.

It's very simple. Anyone can install and configure SolarWinds with a step-by-step guide, even if that person is a layman when it comes to IT.

We used a vendor team.

It's the best of platform for IT management. It shows statistical data in a very detailed manner, where the user can customize the entire platform and input any information from the database through a fully-customized report.

It gives us an insight on what we need to monitor on our network. We get granulated data on where issues are occurring in regards to traffic latency and bandwidth utilization. Also we can monitor the health and functionality of our nodes on the MPLS.

Both the NPM and the NTA modules. We are able to track down information in regards what kind of traffic is being generated on our network and also help us determine what applications we can allow and what not to allow.

We were able to determine if end users were using the network to do work related stuff or otherwise and reduce bandwidth hogging for non-business related activities on the network.

So far I am satisfied with the result but I am still learning how it works.

One year

No it was very straight forward. You have understand the concept of networking to apply the tool. If you do then implementing it is easy. There were some version releases that had stability issues but the support team was very good at letting us know what we needed to do to fix the issues.

There were some version releases that had stability issues but the support team was very good at letting us know what we needed to do to fix the issues.

Scalability was not a problem. We only monitor nodes that matter most on the environment. This makes managing the environment easier. Less is more`

They have always been helpful when we needed support I have no complaint at all.

I would rate it at an 8 out of 10

We used network instruments. For what we were trying to accomplish it was not just doing it to the level we needed and it was not very straight forward to use either.

The initial set up was very straight forward. I think complication comes with differences in environment.

It was an in house implementation and I did it myself.

ROI on this has been fantastic. It was supposed to be a very expensive investment. We got a good deal and the product did not disappoint it has definitely help us dodge several bullets on several occasions.

Product including support was about $6000 but I would say for what its able to help us do its more than that.

Yes I was able to go through a whole bunch of options such as managed engine but I was not very impressed with the licensing scheme. Also most products were SAAS and we wanted independence and ownership over the product.

I would say understand your environment and what you want to see. Also know what you deem important to your business and policies that guide your network usage. Not everyone one would find this particular product to their liking but for those who want to get to the granular level of assessment this is definitely a product to look at.

Also they have now added a feature where the traditional style of setting up monitoring reports is no longer necessary. Initially you had to create complex alerting to know what happened at a particular time. Now you just have to filter by date and time and you can choose what network protocols to filter by to see what happened at a particular point and time in real time stats.

We use this solution for checking databases and new devices that are added to the network. We test the L state of routers and firewalls.

The benefit of this solution is the reporting. We're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form. We are able to detect when a device is added to a network.

Being able to detect devices that are trying to connect wirelessly would make using this solution much easier.

I have been using this solution for two years.

This is a stable solution. 

We have not experienced any challenges with scalability. 

The support for this solution is satisfactory.

Neutral

The initial setup is not that straightforward and could be made easier. We have approximately 500 devices using this solution. We require only two team members for maintenance. 

I would recommend this solution to other users. I would rate it an eight out of ten.

Our clients are using Solar Winds NPM to monitor their network product. Solar Winds NPM is straightforward and you can monitor it very easily.

I think Solar Winds NPM needs to create a profile with documentation responsibility.

I have been using Solar Winds NPM for about three years.

The product is very stable and we have been using the product for around ten years.

Technical support is very helpful with our upgrades. I would rate them about an eight or a nine.

Positive

The setup is straightforward and takes about a week.

I would rate this Solar Winds NPM an eight out of ten.

Its GUI is very user-friendly. No special training is required to use this product. It is very simple to use and has rich GUI performance reports.

They should increase its accuracy rate as SolarWinds's monitoring accuracy is not good if you compare it with other tools, like NNM/ScienceLogic/Zenoss.

I have used the following versions of SolarWinds: NPM, SAM, NTA, and IPAM for two years.

SolarWinds tools are very stable.

No issues in the tools. 

It is fully depends on the costing, customer, and architect.

It is straightforward.

It fully depends on what the customer wants.

Before choosing a product, I would want to evaluate it and check all requirements. Then before implementation, clear all the customer requirements accordingly. 

The ability to pick and chose modules per need, but at the same time close and seamless integration once deployed: While everything is pretty complicated and fast moving, we do not want the monitoring and management software to be complicated. That is the reason the ease-of-deployment and ease-of-use is extremely valuable.

Proactive alerting helps prevent outages to meet our SLA, as well as in forecasting.

Some features are missing (which will be in any product out there) but there is a community that either provides workarounds or the ability to request the improvement.

I have been using SolarWinds for nine years.

For the most part, it is just like any product and is as stable as it could be. At the same time, it is just as vulnerable as the infrastructure it uses (server/VM, storage, network and database).

SolarWinds has come a long way to provide scalability. What initially used to be for small enterprises is now much more expandable and can accommodate larger enterprises. The implementation is easier by deploying additional polling engines (of course, with limits like in any other product).

Other than some occasional delays getting hold of someone in the telephone queue, technical support is good for the most part.

We were using Big Brother, HostMonitor, OpManager and HPE OpenView. We migrated as a part of the initiative to consolidate the monitoring system into one platform.

Installation is very straightforward; however, upgrades are a bit tedious (though not complex). It is complex only when you have a large platform of monitoring systems. For a small implementation, it is extremely simple.

The key is not to look at the current situation but consider future needs. It should be aligned with the infrastructure growth. Unless it is a really small environment, I always recommend to go with the unlimited license because the elements get used up quickly.

I was using other products so I did not evaluate, per se. But I knew the difference between other products and SolarWinds.

It requires absolute thorough and all-round details on the infrastructure and its future needs. Once the scale is identified, get the right licenses and underlying platform (physical vs virtual and quick storage).

One of the main features is ease of deployment. Adding new devices only takes a few minutes. This allows me to do my other duties.

We are now able to respond to problems before the customer is even aware of them. As an example, our VPN router had a memory leak which was going to start causing performance problems. We were able to get ahead of the complaints by restarting the device. We didn’t need to wait for a complaint from a remote worker.

NPM comes with a tool called Network Atlas. Currently, it can only link switches to switches and only if all the corresponding ports are monitored. I would like it to figure out next-hop devices, which other tools like NetBrain can do.

I would also like to see better mapping of devices and how they connect to one another.

We have used this solution for four years.

We haven’t had any issues with stability.

I haven’t had any issues with scalability. There is plenty of documentation available to help with it.

SolarWinds has a community called Thwack. That is where I get most of my help. I would give it the highest rating.

Before this solution, we used Spiceworks. SolarWinds had the nicest single-pane-of-glass monitoring solution, so we decided to go that route.

I was involved in the installation. After discovery, you select what you want to monitor.

Licenses go quickly. Each interface is a license.

Have a goal in mind. Prioritize your monitoring goals in terms of alerting, reporting, and dashboards. Then you can focus on completing those areas in order of importance.

The product is always being expanded and additional features are constantly being added.