SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Reviews

Name: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
Brand: SolarWinds
Rating: 4.0 (40 reviews)

4.0 out of 5

40 reviews
88% willing to recommend

1,199 followers

What is SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

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SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the #11 ranked solution in top Server Monitoring solutions, #14 ranked solution in top Active Directory Management solutions, and #24 ranked solution in APM tools. PeerSpot users give SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor an average rating of 8.0 out of 10. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is most commonly compared to Splunk Enterprise Security: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Splunk Enterprise Security. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is popular among the midsize enterprise segment, accounting for 51% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a educational organization, accounting for 45% of all views.

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

October 2024

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Featured reviews

Subhajit Nag

Senior Process Associate at Tata Consultancy Services

SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.

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VIVEK PATHAK

Solutions Architect at Airtel

My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

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UmeshJoshi

Presales Specialist at Hexaware Technologies

SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time. Based on the historical data, and with the help of ML algorithms, the device is smart enough to find out when to add a CPU to the device and when to reallocate those resources again. For example, if the utilization always goes up on a particular day in the week, the system knows from historical data that this is happening, and it automatically increases the threshold or schedules the threshold accordingly.

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SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor mindshare

Product category:

As of November 2024, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor in the Server Monitoring category stands at 4.9%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring

Key learnings from peers

Valuable Features

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is highly valued for its ability to create tickets for immediate issue awareness and quick triage. Integration with Remedy is seen as a major advantage. The AppStack feature is impressive and aids in the identification process by providing an overview of faults and helping to pinpoint performance degradation. Infrastructure dependency mapping is also highly valued as it provides a clear view of networks connected to applications and processes. The monitoring capabilities of the tool are considered powerful and the network devices' performance monitor is particularly praised. Additionally, the component and cable monitoring are good, and SolarWinds is seen as more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics. The ability to monitor processes and services in-depth is another valuable feature.

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."

Room for Improvement

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor needs improvement in speed, reporting flexibility, and pricing complexity. It requires better Linux support, enhanced AI and predictive features, and integration with security compliances. Users want more application monitoring, cloud readiness, easier upgrades, and improved support. The dashboards, templates, and user interface need enhancement. Custom applications, root cause analysis, and synchronization of licensing periods are additional areas needing attention. The technical support response times are also slow.

"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."

ROI

Based on user feedback, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor has proven to be a valuable investment. Users have reported positive outcomes and benefits, indicating a satisfactory return on investment.

Pricing

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor's pricing is considered reasonable by most users, although some find it to be on the higher side. Despite the cost, many believe that the solution is worth the money. There are no additional costs associated with the solution, which is seen as a positive aspect. However, others feel that the solution is overpriced, particularly in terms of application management. The pricing varies depending on factors such as the number of engines and elements, and it is based on marketized pricing by SolarWinds. Some users find the pricing to be expensive, while others consider it less expensive compared to competitors like AppDynamics.

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"The product is expensive."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

Popular Use Cases

The primary use case of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is to monitor certificates, VMs, server health, application health, web services, databases, and other applications in the organization's infrastructure. It serves as a central monitoring tool for every transaction related to the organization's infrastructure, including network device monitoring and server monitoring. Additionally, it is used for reporting on server utilization and gives alerts based on defined thresholds.

Service and Support

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor's customer service and support have received mixed reviews. Some customers have had issues that took a while to resolve, possibly due to their specific environment or the support team. However, others have found the support to be very good and have had positive experiences working with the technical support team.

Deployment

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor's initial setup can be completed in a couple of hours. Planning and defining what to monitor is important, especially for larger environments. The tool is flexible and allows for customization. The deployment process is generally easy, with step-by-step instructions provided by SolarWinds. However, for some users, the setup may not be straightforward and can take a few days or even months, depending on the environment. Upgrades can be problematic and time-consuming, requiring manual deployment on each polling engine. Documentation and support from SolarWinds may be inadequate in these cases.

Scalability

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor appears to be highly scalable. Users have reported being able to monitor thousands of servers and VMs without encountering any issues. The product's scalability is rated highly, with some users mentioning that they can add more devices and scalable engines. However, there have been some concerns about the performance and resource requirements of monitoring servers.

Stability

Based on the given reviews, the general consensus is that the solution is stable. Users have rated the stability of the tool between eight and a half and eight out of ten. However, there have been some instances where stability issues occurred when there were too many sites or devices to monitor. Some users have mentioned that the solution is not stable and frequently goes down, but this seems to be an exception rather than the norm. The latest versions of SolarWinds are reported to be stable and perform well. Users appreciate the stability of the solution and the ability to identify overutilization of resources for better performance.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

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