SolarWinds NPM Reviews

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.

If there's a connectivity issue, the packets have dropped, or the traffic is going through any of the routers, you can see where that is just stuck.

The individual’s bandwidth we do not know. For monitoring purposes, we can find the exact amounts through this NPM, Network Performance Monitor, and Network Traffic Analyzer. We can see who is using how much bandwidth and where the traffic is stuck. It provides visibility to show what the issue is in our network.

The solution is very good. Previously, in the solution, there was no more option for customizing the reports and the alerts. However, they’ve improved. Now, in the last two years, since 2021, they have had a new release, a new version, and there are a lot of options for customization of the dashboard, alerts, and reports. 

Over the last couple of years, they have introduced features like NetPath and PerfStack. That is very helpful for any of the admins to troubleshoot issues to know precisely what is going on in nodes.

If we go for the NT license, then we have to purchase the NPM, Network Performance Monitor. That is a dependency. In all of the SolarWinds products now, there are only these products. For example, Net Traffic Analyzer is a product. If we go for the licensing, then we have to purchase a Network Performance Monitor. There's dependency there. If they could combine everything into one product, that would be very helpful.

The NT is the enhanced version of the NPM. They have not put a license on the different monitors of the NT. However, they have to include in the same manner in the NPM itself.

For NetPath services, right now, we have to manually install the events in the nodes. If there was something from the console side, we could post the event to the nodes. If there was automation, that would be helpful. Already there's automation for other types of things or in other features, like for communication of the nodes. However, for the NetPath feature, if we could automatically move the event from the console side to the application side, that would be a great feature.

I’ve been using the solution for the last five years.

It’s stable.

In 2020, as most people know, there was an attack on SolarWinds. At that time, there was a problem. However, in 2021, everything was good. If it wasn’t, we would have been looking for another solution. Everything has been stabilized.

We are using one in five total devices connected to that SolarWinds. We are using an AP, Additional Polling engine that will scale the solution. Scalability is there.

Only the licensing part is different. We have to purchase more licenses on that part. Currently, we are monitoring 12,000 nodes. If we want to go to the 13,000 nodes, then we have to purchase one additional license, the Additional Polling license.

We have about 50 people using the solution. They are system admins. In the North, the solution is used vastly. In the South, the solution is used by the different departments. I'm not part of the South. I'm part of the North.

We do have plans to increase usage.

For L2 or L1 problems, we are giving the support. For the L3 level, if the issue is beyond our reach, then we contact the support team from Solarwinds.

We have an online number. We have to call that number, and we’ll get support. They will support you, for example, if the system is down. Otherwise, you can open a support ticket, and they will help.

Overall, the support is good.

Now we are using Tripwire also for some of our customers. It is also good.

I am not using any other products. However, there are some solutions that are free tools.

The initial setup is straightforward. We have to just go to NetPath and just connect to the database. Once the connection is established to the database, then we will be up on both devices. There are a lot of options for onboarding the devices. It is easy. Anyone can do it.

There's an admin guide. There's a very helpful guide that SolarWinds has provided on their customer portal. There are training options too. You are well prepared.

The deployment took two to three hours to install the product and five to six hours for the entire deployment. It’s pretty fast if you have a good strategy.

While one person is enough to deploy or manage the solution, it would depend on how many devices you are dealing with.

If you are going to monitor 2,000 devices, one person is enough. If you're going to monitor a large number of devices, you might need two managers for all devices.

We are the third-party vendor for the bank. We deploy the solution, and we support them. We provide professional services as well.

The basic ROI is the fact that the client is happy, and that’s all that matters.

I’m only a technical person. I don’t have access to the pricing.

Extra costs come under support and maintenance. Obviously, we always consider support and maintenance under the same licensing cost. They'll only provide one year of support and maintenance.

We had to go for the SolarWinds. We are not able to work with any other solution.

Once the solution is implemented, we'll populate whatever the dashboard is. However, some of the things will not populate. There is a need for services there. We can use the NetPath services feature. We can export that feature to the dashboard. However, it will be easy for any of the system admin to troubleshoot the issue.

I’d rate the solution ten out of ten.

We have been using this tool to monitor our multiple network devices, interfaces, physical and virtual memory, application servers, databases, and applications to keep a track of what is causing an issue that we are having.

Either it is the network, or it is the application, or it is the database queries that are causing our users to experience slowdowns. Due to alerting mechanism, we get notified if anything is responding slowly or if anything goes down so that we can resolve the issue as quickly as possible and keep providing best services to our customers.

We had been having some issues recently with network choking at a specific time, and we had been working on multiple things to identify the root cause. Using those methods, we were unable to trace it.

We decided to install a tool that would show us where the issue is being produced, and we can monitor our internal and external network traffic. We are able to determine whether the issue is being caused at the ISP end or our internal network, and with the help of SolarWinds NPM, we were able to track down the root cause of the issue.

We have configured multiple alerts for our network devices, including routers and switches, so that we are notified if any interface goes down.

In the event an interface goes down, we have multiple reports that include availability monitoring, network uptime monitoring, and network downtime monitoring. These reports are on multiple schedules such as the end of the day, end of the last business day of the week, monthly, and quarterly. This gives us the ability to provide reports to our management and let them know the performance of our network.

Even though SolarWinds NPM provides monitoring for a vast number of vendors and products, they do not support all of them. They should keep in mind that due to ongoing threats and daily malware attacks, companies have deployed network security and hired security professionals who are doing penetration testing. Certain devices provide ongoing security features, which can keep our network secure.

Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM.

We have been using SolarWinds NPM for more than two years.

The stability of SolarWinds NPM is very good.

Scalability-wise, it is very good.

Technical support from SolarWinds is the best.

We previously used ManageEngineOpManager, but we switched because it did not have enough features.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We had to do some customizations, which was great to provide better visibility of our entire network.

We implemented it through a vendor and their level of expertise made us choose this tool. They gave such a great demo that we didn't even have to consider other options.

We achieved ROI within six months.

The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes.

We were recommended SolarWinds by a friend so we tried it and purchased it. We did not evaluate other options.