SolarWinds NPM Reviews

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.

Alerts, reports, overview of network, graphical picture of WAN for support team, port level visibility, and ease of use.

By finding out about problems or potential problems quickly and having a great view of my entire network.

The admin web site could be a lot faster.

8 years

No issues encountered.

Yes, but that was due to using just a recommend server size. Moved to a better server and all was well.

Yes, the more items I added the slower it became. But this was corrected once I split the servers apart. I had NPM and NCM on the same server.

10 out of 10

Any time I contacted support they were knowledgeable and fast.

No other solution used before, but looked at many.

Pretty straight forward if you know your environment.

In-house implementation.

I never put a dollar amount on it, but it sure saved me some big heartaches!

Setup cost and ongoing was just my time.

Yes, HP, Nagios, Cisco, Spiceworks, GFI, and Manage Engine.

SolarWinds makes a great product and their support is second to none! They continue to acquire/develop new software that rolls in nicely with their entire solution.

As a large school district, I can tell you that NPM is very valuable to us. Being able to see the current status of all our locations and hardware at a glance is priceless.

We use the alert feature of NPM to send emails and text messages to our organization when various network or server equipment is not reachable or performing correctly.

I would say the NPM toolset has room for improvement. I haven't seen the benefit of integrating it into NPM.

I have been working at my company since 2011 and it was here before I started.

I did not originally deploy this software, but I haven't had any issues with upgrading to newer versions or installing new features.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any issues with scalability. In fact, I find that NPM is very easy to scale to your needs.

I have had very fast response times when dealing with customer service.

I have had very fast response times when dealing with technical support.

I do not know of any other solution my school district has used.

I did not originally deploy this software, but I haven't had any issues with upgrading to newer versions or installing new features.

I did not originally deploy this software, but I haven't had any issues with upgrading to newer versions or installing new features.

As we are a not for profit organization, I can not answer this question.

I do not have this information available.

I was not at my workplace when they chose this product.

They offer trial periods. I strongly urge you to try Solarwinds NPM and other products as they are a great asset at my organization.

Bandwidth utilization and netflow reports

Our bandwidth consumption continues growing. We need to be aware of overutilization of our circuits. SolarWinds helps us have visibility to the most relevant issues in our network and makes our problem solving process much faster and easier.

IPAM. We wish it would work with Cisco CNR and help us manage all of our DHCP servers from a centralized platform.

7 years

We did have issues while upgrading, but gladly SolarWinds provided good service and assisted us to resolve those issues.

We didn't have any issues with stability.

No. The performance problems that we have experienced at times are due to hardware limitations.

Outstanding

Outstanding

No other product in the market offers as much as SolarWinds does for the price. Great value.

Initial installation is straightforward. However, upgrading can be quite complex if you have multiple polling servers, as you need to carefully follow the same steps and upgrade path on each server.

The installation was done in-house.

I cannot put this into numbers, but from an engineering perspective I believe there is no other product that provides as much value for the buck.

It was set-up before I was hired and therefore I do not have cost information.

No other options were considered.

Make sure that you have the required hardware and dedicated SQL server. Trying to save money can have a major performance problem on your SolarWinds implementation. Make sure you meet the requirements.

We use this solution to monitor workstations and to remotely perform workstation software upgrades.

This solution has improved our organization because it saves time, in that I do not need to visit every workstation in order to update it. I can do everything remotely, including running PowerShell scripts or performing standard updates. I can also help customers remotely.

The most valuable feature is remote access and the fact that there are multiple options to choose from. These include VNC (Virtual Network Computing), RPC (Remote Procedure Call), and Splashtop.

This pricing for this solution needs to be better.

I would like to see integration with antivirus or other security endpoint solutions. There are only one or two solutions that they integrate with.

Sometimes, the responsiveness is slow, but overall the stability of this solution is good. 

We only have between one hundred and one hundred and fifty nodes, so it is difficult to judge the scalability of this solution based on that.

We have two people in the company who are responsible for this solution, and it is used on a daily basis.

We do not plan to increase its usage because we do not expect to increase the number of workstations or network devices.

Technical support is a paid service for this solution.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

The initial setup for this solution is pretty straightforward.

It took about a week to set up everything. First, we started with all of the networking devices and then we moved on to the workstations and servers.

I handled the implementation myself.

The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them.

My advice to anyone who is implementing this solution is to be well prepared. You need to know your network infrastructure before you start implementing. Otherwise, it will take longer than necessary to set up.

This product does what it is meant to do, although it takes ample time to get what we want. I would say that whatever is indicated in the product description, it does well.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We use this solution for infrastructure monitoring, including servers and network devices.

This has helped us to monitor the availability of our routers, switches, servers, and virtual environments. We also use it to monitor our services. When a critical service goes down, SolarWinds will send us an email alert. It also supplies us with information that makes it easier for us to find the root cause.

The most valuable feature is the notification that we get, via email, when a device in our network goes down.

The user should be able to customize the dashboard to their own requirements. Right now, we have to design separate dashboards for visualization. For example, there is one for the environment and another for the infrastructure. I would like to design a single dashboard that contains my visualized environment, my physical environment, my services, and my processes. This would make the job of monitoring easier.

Application Performance Monitoring should be included in this solution.

The reporting is in need of improvement.

The stability is very nice. This is a good solution, compared to other monitoring solutions.

We have had no issues with respect to scalability. As we get more devices, routers, and servers, we simply add them to SolarWinds for monitoring.

There are nine people that manage this solution and receive email alerts. We have six people with read-only access in our NOC department, and there is also an admin console that the remaining three people are managing.

There are a lot of guides online, and whenever we have issues we consult them. Most of the guides are "do it yourself", and we have not encountered any problem that has necessitated contacting technical support.

Prior to this solution, we were using HP NNM, the Network Node Manager. With HP the monitoring was in silos, whereas SolarWinds gives us a unified dashboard. This is the reason that we switched.

The initial setup for this solution is very straightforward.

The time required for deployment depends on the number of devices that you want to monitor. For example, if you want to monitor a hundred devices then I think that it will take three or four days.

In our environment, we are monitoring more than four hundred servers and approximately two hundred network devices. Our deployment took about three weeks to complete.

Two or three staff are suitable for deployment.

We handled the implementation in-house.

We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap.

In addition to this solution, we evaluated SCOM. We found that SolarWinds is better.

SolarWinds is a great solution, and I think that for anybody looking for a nice infrastructure monitoring tool, this solution will do the job.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

While the forums are one of the best things about the product in general, the most valuable feature of the product itself is the customization. We can make it do whatever it is we want it to do. The basics pretty much work for us, but sometimes we have devices that are a little bit different, I guess, so we have to look at them a different way. We're not just confined to what came out of the box. We can build our own monitoring pages; our own pretty much anything.

It has improved my organization’s efficiency, as far as our awareness. We add something new in our network, and we can start to monitor it within a few seconds. We can be alerted on it any time after that. It's pretty easy to not be caught off guard.

The price is probably an area with room for improvement. It's not the least expensive option out there, but it's a decent balance. I'm pretty certain my supervisors would say that.

As odd as it might be, I'd like it to not be as advanced. I'd like a text mode, almost.

I have probably used it for a total of 10 years.

I have not encountered any stability issues; nothing that we could point our finger to SolarWinds about. There were server issues, so whatever was on the server was going to happen anyway.

We had scalability issues. We have several additional servers, too, so upgrading is kind of a pain, but that's with all the other modules, too. NPM alone is pretty quick.

Overall, since we've been using it until now, I'd say technical support is pretty good. On a scale of 1-10, I'd probably give it a seven or so. The biggest problem is probably getting a hold of someone, but once you get someone, they're pretty decent about figuring it out.

We were actually previously using SolarWinds. Then, we stopped and used another vendor for a similar purpose. Then, we stopped using them and went back to SolarWinds.

We switched back to SolarWinds because of ease of use. It was just so completely simple and easy to use. Everyone voted for it, and we got it.

I was involved in the initial setup when we re-purchased it. It was very straightforward.

Pricing and licensing is good. I'd rather pay a little bit more and have it easy, efficient and effective, than pay a little bit less and miss something.

We only considered the other vendor that we previously used.

Get on their Thwack forums. That’s the best thing about the product; all the people on there, all the users. If NPM doesn’t do something, you can probably find someone to make NPM do it.