Auvik Network Management (ANM) Reviews

We use Auvik for network mapping. It helps us to understand the layout and where things are so that we can troubleshoot the flow of data, where something is on the network, and why it might be having an issue.

Before Auvik, I had to go on-site to the client's offices to physically trace all the cables manually and draw the network map on a diagram tool. That would take a long time, and there was potential for human error. When something changed, I had to go back and update the map. It took hours. With Auvik, the devices quickly populate the screen, and I can click through them. That's incredible. It's a huge time-saving troubleshooting tool. We realized Auvik's benefits immediately. Once I understood the features, the benefits were very clear.  

Auvik has sped up our resolution time in many ways. When something is offline or something is wrong with a site-to-site connection or a switch, we can easily go in and see what's happening. We can identify what's connected and what may have been disconnected. It's more often used on the tier two side, but the tier one techs aren't using it. 

I like having a remote tunnel where I can access web interfaces inside a network, whether it's a DVR, an NDR camera system, a printer interface, or an IoT device that has a local web interface. I love being able to tunnel in straight through Auvik instead of having to VPN in or remote to another. It's more straightforward and makes troubleshooting that device more accessible.

Auvik gives us a real-time picture of the network. In the past, when we did things manually, it was never up-to-date. Auvik keeps everything updated. The network map is accurate in the sense that it generates the correct data. Sometimes, we need to update it with the SNMP credentials. If we're feeding it the information it needs, it's highly accurate.

Auvik's interface is decent overall, but I wish I could get more of a full-screen map layout. That would be helpful. Overall, the flow of everything on the screen is good, but I would like a more full-screen, immersive user experience. There are too many menus around. It would help to have the ability to sift and move through it more easily, but there's too much stuff in the way.

I found the search feature somewhat frustrating. For example, let's say I'm searching for an IP address. Even though this thing exists, it doesn't do a good job of showing it to me. 

We have used Auvik for nearly six years.

Auvik is stable. We haven't had any problems. 

Our customers aren't growing quickly, so scalability means rolling Auvik out to new clients or clients adding new devices. If we're talking about adding new clients, it's easy to implement. If we're talking about clients adding stuff to the network, it's automatic, so we don't need to do much besides inputting the credentials.

Before Auvik, I constructed manual network maps. We are using other remote management tools like Kaseya RMM. It's a different type of tool that overlaps in a few areas. 

I was not directly involved in the deployment. After deployment, it requires very little maintenance. We only need to deploy the Auvik collector and ensure it's running. 

I rate Auvik nine out of 10. I suggest reaching out to their customer relationship people. They're super personal and helpful. Take advantage of them. 

It is mainly used to monitor new devices on the network and get alerts for printers that might be out of paper or jammed. We also use it to troubleshoot network connectivity issues.

By implementing Auvik Network Management, I wanted to get visibility into the network. I wanted to be able to see what devices are on the network.

Auvik's network map along with its dashboard gives a close to real-time picture of your network. It updates pretty regularly as you are using it.

Its benefits are pretty immediate. Once status starts populating, within an hour or two, we are able to get some good insight into the network and what is going on.

Auvik Network Management has decreased our mean time to resolution. We are able to pinpoint the device that may be causing issues on our network or having trouble connecting. It is definitely a valuable tool in troubleshooting that.

It has not empowered our entry-level technicians to solve more tickets on their own because we are structurally different. We have higher-end technicians taking care of networking issues. Our lower tier does not get into the platform.

Auvik does not allow us to spend less time on the setup and maintenance of the solution, but it does allow us to spend less time on issue resolution.

Traffic insights are valuable. They show you what type of traffic is on the network and how much bandwidth it is utilizing. It can help you pinpoint issues if a device is broadcasting too much or if there is any other issue.

The network map and dashboard can be difficult at times because they do not scale very well. You have to either view the map itself or the dashboard itself. You cannot easily view them both at the same time, but you are able to use them pretty well in conjunction. They could be a little better.

They can make it a little less cluttered on the display so that you can easily view the devices and the network map in one good window instead of having to jump between sizes on both. That would be beneficial. I do not know how that would happen, but that would be a plus.

I have been using this solution for three years.

Its stability has been great. We have not seen any issues yet.

It is scalable. It just depends on how much you want to pay when it comes down to it. 

They have a chat feature. They are very quick to answer any issues, and they work until it is solved. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

I have used Domotz. Auvik is better in terms of the information provided, overall layout, and ease of use. Domotz is better in price by far.

With Auvik, we could see its benefits within hours of getting the system set up with all the passwords and everything. Domotz took a couple of days to get it all figured out.

The agent is on-prem, and the solution is cloud-based. This is how it is provided.

It is easy to set up. It took about 20 minutes.

It does not require any maintenance from our side.

I am the one who set it up.

The pricing gets pretty expensive because it is per device that is managed. It is not per site, so it can get pricey.

There are no critical devices in our network that are monitored by Auvik at no charge. They are all charged.

The biggest piece of advice is to make sure you have all of the SNMP and command line interfaces set up on your networking devices. Make sure you have the passwords for those so that you can easily put them into the system. WMI would be great to have enabled for all your workstations.

There is a little bit of a learning curve. It is not the easiest to use, but it is full-featured, so that is expected.

I am familiar with Auvik's SaaS Management product, but I have not used it yet. I am looking at setting up a trial for it within the next couple of weeks.

Overall, I would rate Auvik Network Management an eight out of ten. 

We're using it just to monitor customer equipment and make backups for network device configuration changes. We're using maybe one percent of what it's capable of doing. We're trying to get some of our stuff straightened out since whoever set up our Auvik did not do a great job of organizing it.

I like the alerting. It integrates with our ticketing system. I like the fact that it integrates with our ticketing system so that we can open tickets and close tickets for network outages. 

I like that it can actually log in and make backups of multiple types of equipment. We have a lot of different customers out there with a lot of different equipment, and this one tool can actually log into anything. We haven't found one that it can't yet. It can log in to almost any piece of equipment and make backups for it, monitor changes, et cetera, if any network changes happen. We can also monitor network usage at different locations and check for overallocation.

It provides us with an intuitive interface that supports ease of use. Their website is very easy to use. This ease of use helps with troubleshooting network issues. We use the product a lot to troubleshoot. We don't use it as much as we'd like to. That's one of the aspects that we're working towards. It is capable of doing a lot more than how we're using it for currently.

They have a dashboard, and a topology map. I've used their topology map a few times. It actually shows you the connections between different devices. That has helped a lot in terms of finding how equipment is connected and finding loopholes in your network. This dashboard and network map give us a real-time picture of our entire network. I have found it to be very easy to work with.

It has helped us decrease our mean time to resolution, however, at this time, we don't really use it enough. I wish we were able to use it more. That said, I can see what the features are capable of doing. It's just that we haven't actually had that benefit yet.

The solution allows us to spend less time on setup and maintenance and less time on issue resolution.

The tutorial could be a little bit more comprehensive. Their online training is one area that needs improvement. 

I've been using the solution for six months. The company's been using it a bit longer. 

I've had zero experience with stability issues. 

The solution seems to be very scalable. 

Technical support seems to be very knowledgeable. They handle tickets in order once they come. They do everything fine. They've been able to resolve issues. Once, they just couldn't do something that we were asking them to do due to their policy. That said, it's fine.

Positive

I have used different solutions in the past. This is more network-oriented. If you know how to use either tool, you'll definitely realize the benefits right away. 

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Whenever we make a network change or whenever we add a device, it requires some maintenance.

I'm not aware of the exact pricing of the product. 

We're customers and end-users.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

I use it as a first line of information gathering. When properly configured, I am able to quickly diagnose and troubleshoot issues from the network's infrastructure level and go up to servers and other devices.

Auvik has helped to decrease my mean time to resolution. If configured correctly, it definitely takes 10 to 20 minutes off resolution. I am able to diagnose things at least 15 minutes faster than I would manually.

I like the feature that allows us to remote access and remote troubleshoot many of the devices, including terminal Windows.

When it tries to build the topology, it does it in a way that is usually incorrect. It cannot validate VLANs correctly, and it is a bit cumbersome. When we have a known topology, it makes it completely different. The network maps are not accurate.

It does not always give a real-time picture of your network. It all depends on how it was configured. I have seen proper configurations, and they look fine, and then there are other ones that are completely broken. For example, I have several clients with mixed equipment, but the topology map shows switches that are on top of the map, whereas firewalls are technically on top. It does not see them correctly. At times, it puts random switches not even connected to anything, even though we know they are physically connected in the topology.

If we are able to manually move devices on the topology, that would be great. It would be amazing if the network map could be manually redrawn. I have submitted this as a request previously.

I have been using Auvik for the last five years.

I have not seen any stability-related issues.

In my opinion, it would be a very scalable product.

I have not contacted them in more than four years. I only contacted them once very early on when I was asking about being able to move things.

To my knowledge, we did not have any solution that would be a comparative analysis of what Auvik provides. In recent months, I have come across a similar topology and diagnostic tool that is built into Fortinet's security appliance. It is a bit similar.

A similar networking map topology that I used to use was when we would build things in Visio and have them as interactive maps.

I was not involved in its deployment. 

In terms of maintenance, it does require maintenance. We have to update devices. When there are changes being made, we have to go back in and make sure that things are updated. Password maintenance needs to be done every so often, and our collectors need to be changed out every once in a while. We have some communication errors with them, so we have to do some troubleshooting with those. That is a bit of internal maintenance.

I was not the person who made the choice.

If you are a managed service provider, it is one of the best tools, and I believe it is worth the investment for senior engineers to do critical troubleshooting. It will take an application champion to make sure that it is configured properly, but it is very powerful for those who deal in the managed service provider workspace.

Auvik has not empowered our entry-level technicians to solve more tickets on their own because we do not allow our entry-level technicians access to Auvik.

It took me some time to learn the product and know exactly how it worked and how it was deployed. After I learned some of the nuances that were inside of Auvik, I was able to see remotes and things like that. It did take a few months of training to really understand it. A lot of it was self-paced. There was no sponsored training, so I had to learn on my own.

I would rate Auvik a solid seven out of ten.

I am the network administrator for our company, and we use Aruba Central but we're looking into Auvik to see what else we can do with it. We're seeing quite a bit of difference.

We have been using multiple applications for managing our networks. Switching to Auvik has been amazing. It has been impressive. Without Auvik, I go through five different applications every morning, clicking through everything. It's very irritating. I have Auvik open in front of me right now and it's simple.

It definitely reduces repetitive tasks with its automation. One of the biggest things is the mapping records widget. With our current system, I have to do the mapping. If we replace an item or we change an IP address, I have to go back through everything and change what I've done. I go through the five applications in the morning to figure out my APs, my Cisco equipment, my Aruba equipment, my Blancco Management, et cetera. Auvik saves a lot of time and a lot of repetitive work.

I can go into it and get a configuration file. With some of our other solutions, because not all of our switches are Aruba, I then have to go to the switches to pull the configuration files. With Auvik I see all of them here. It doesn't matter what brand it is. It saves me a lot of time.

The automation Auvik provides has allowed us to see areas that we need to fix, which, of course, is very important. And it has reduced our MTTR because I see things more quickly and I see things through Auvik that I can't see through Aruba.

It would improve things a lot for us [if we continue beyond our trial of the solution]. It noticed a drop on my network at the instant it was happening and sent me a notification. We had a couple of devices that were questionable and Auvik said, "Hey, you have Raspberry Pis on your network." To me, that's very important. I don't like Raspberry Pis because they are easily hacked and I don't want them on my network. So far, what I've seen with Auvik in terms of notifications has been great.

Another benefit is that it keeps device inventories up to date. It notifies us about firmware updates and about what we need to change, which is nice and has saved us time. It tells us everything. I like it because if, for example, the device is a phone, it tells me the subnet that it's on and the IP address. It's great.

We are trying to get a full package together to go to our vice president and say, "Hey, this is what Auvik has done for us and we need to continue." Right now, we have five different software tools that we're trying to use and manage things, while Auvik is one. I'm fighting very hard to get Auvik.

One thing I like about it is how it maps the network. It shows all my devices and it shows everything that is possibly connected to the network. Most of our network is in the cloud and the mapping starts with basic internet, where it is. It gives me how many devices or switches are connected, and what is connected to each switch, including how many printers are on it. We have Blancco Management and our backup servers, and Auvik tells me how many of those are connected. It gives me everything. At this minute it shows me that 346 devices are connected to our network and what they are. That's beautiful, and I didn't have to do it. I have had to go and map out, by hand, every device on the network with what IP address it's set to. That's a pain.

And the visualization is very eye-catching. It's easy to use and very self-explanatory. If something is eye-catching it makes people go into it more. I really like that.

I also like how it even tells us that printers are low on paper.

To me, it's very simple to use the monitoring and management functions of Auvik. We were setting up the SNMP with Auvik yesterday and everything on it—setting up our firewalls with it—is very simple.

It also seems to be a single, integrated platform. We have 26 switches and hundreds of devices and it has detected everything. So far, we're very pleased with it. I take care of our network in Oklahoma City and in Memphis. Being able to see everything in one place is very important. With Aruba Central, I'm only able to see the switches in Oklahoma City, and I can't even see my APs because my APs are not Aruba. Aruba only lets you see Aruba. With Auvik, I'm able to see all the types of devices that I have, which is extremely important.

We have a lot of remote users. It's nice that we're able to see them and keep up with what's going on there. That visibility is extremely important. We have a very small IT team and we have to stay on top of things quickly. Ours is a larger company and, with a small IT team, things can get away from us very quickly. It's nice to have that full visibility and those upfront notifications so that things don't get away from us very quickly.

The window view could be improved. For instance, if I'm in inventory and I'm looking at my devices, I don't like the way the window splits at the bottom. I want to be able to choose the way it appears.

Similarly, when it shows me all the devices on my network, I don't like the fact that I can't adjust the display to the way I want it. I can increase it, but it's very difficult to move up and down to see that part of it.

We've been on the free trial of Auvik for 12 days.

I'm very impressed with the stability of Auvik. I have not had it go down or had a major issue. I haven't even had a small issue with it.

We spoke to some people from Auvik and their support is very friendly. They're very helpful and very knowledgeable. I was extremely pleased with them.

Positive

We currently use five other solutions.

The price that Auvik is offering us is a little bit steep. I'm hoping we can figure out something else about the pricing, but right now, it's a little bit steep.

My boss has been looking at five or six different solutions and he came across Auvik. He asked me to check it out. I brought it in and started using it and, so far, overall, I like Auvik the best.

When comparing network monitoring solutions and there is a concern about pricing, my approach is that you get what you pay for. The functionality is extremely important to me. The pricing is extremely important to my VP. You need to write out the pros and cons based on your needs and figure out how the pros and cons compare with your budget. But I would suggest you give Auvik a chance.

I like Auvik's cloud-based solution much better than having an on-prem network monitoring solution. We still have a couple of servers that are not cloud-based. I like the cloud much better.

If you are looking for any type of monitoring software, make sure that you find a product that sees every type of device on your network. Auvik even shows me the redundancy that I have on there. For a network administrator that's very important.

I'm a system administrator. I use it to monitor and automatically draw a network map of our network.

It has helped us determine better ways to organize some of our physical networking, and it also allowed us to locate and troubleshoot issues more quickly.

It saved me at least a couple of days of work in regard to network mapping. There's a lot of detail that it figures out automatically that otherwise, I would have to do manually. It definitely helped that way. The monitoring is a little bit redundant. We already get emails for some of the things it warns us about, which is fine, but it also warns us about other things that we are not aware of. It saves me some time that way as well.

The network visualizations are quite intuitive. It comes with a number of different controls to manipulate, monitor, and change the visualization of what you're seeing. They're pretty intuitive and don't require many instructions.

We recently opened up a branch office, and it allowed us to visualize that remote network in more detail than we would have before. This visibility is quite important so that we have a better understanding of the way the network is configured and if there are any problems with it. Before, we had no way to visualize which devices were connected to other devices. It just had to be common knowledge or certain documentation, but now, we can visualize our network in real-time and troubleshoot if any issues arise.

Automatic network mapping, alerting functionalities, and TrafficInsights are valuable.

The monitoring function is quite easy. It's already set up with a lot of good defaults. So, I didn't have to change too much. The management function is also pretty useful. The interface sometimes takes a little bit of learning to navigate, but besides that, it has been pretty useful so far.

I like the methodology of its deployment and how it's set up. I like how we simply have to put a simple virtual appliance in our environment, and it figures out everything for us. The methodology of how it's designed to be used from that cloud environment works well. 

Some of the network map customizations could be improved to show or hide certain components if desired. There are already some tools built in to do that, but they could be improved upon.

Some of the discovery methodologies could be improved upon. It removes the device that is offline, but when that gets added back, if there is any custom information saved for that device, such as it's a smartphone, you have to change and reenter the information all over again. It would be nice to not have to manually modify certain devices that get added to the network.

I would give it pretty good marks in terms of helping to visualize the network mapping or the topology of our organization, but sometimes, the map refreshes in a way that doesn't always make sense. I have to create a support ticket to ask why the map is showing things the way it's showing, but that's more of a learning curve related to learning about the tool itself, but for the most part, it automates that whole process quite well and makes it easy to see what's on the screen.

There could be a mobile app or some type of mobile interface to review details on the go. I haven't tried it yet, and I am not sure if there's one.

I have been using this solution for approximately three to four months.

For the most part, it has been quite reliable and stable. There have been a few maintenance windows recently where they needed to fix some issues. It didn't affect me per se, but there was a little bit of downtime for the problems they were having with the collectors. They had to push an update for it, but it didn't concern me too much because it was over the course of a weekend. So, I wasn't paying too much attention to it. I would rate it an 8 out of 10 in terms of stability.

It seems it would scale very well to a large network, but I don't have experience with it in that scenario. From the way the tool works, it seems that it would be able to map out quite complicated networks and all the details.

Currently, Auvik is monitoring about 220 devices in our organization.

Their support is excellent. I've reached out to their support a couple of times, and every time, they've been very professional and quick to respond. 

I reached out to them recently, and there was very quick detailed research done into the issue. It wasn't a simple issue, but they were able to dig into it and get back to me with some good detailed answers.

I would rate them a 10 out of 10. So far, my experience with their support has been good.

Positive

We used PRTG, but we didn't necessarily switch. We're using both. We're still using PRTG, and we're also using Auvik. So, for managing the network, we are now using two tools. Previously, we used one tool, but now, we're using two tools.

It was straightforward. We implemented it out of the box. Network mapping started to populate in less than 15 minutes after implementing the collector. So, once it's configured, it does the job very quickly.

Its setup time is similar to other solutions. It takes a few hours of installation and configuration and then going from there, you just wait for it to collect the data.

It takes a little bit of time to configure and make sure that it's scanning and pulling in the right information. Some of the information, such as the system name and the type of the system, needed to be updated manually. So, a little bit of manual work needs to be done after the setup, but once it's properly set up, it does help to save time. It took extra three to four hours just for configuring and manually making changes to improve the data collected.

In terms of maintenance, it does require maintenance. On occasions, I need to clean up and monitor unknown and generic devices that show up in the list of devices just to determine if they are trusted devices that should be on the network. So, it's used for seeing what's on the network and paying attention to those devices that get added. We then ensure that they're trusted and should be on the network.

I implemented it on my own. I also take care of the maintenance. I do have other users with access to the service, but they only use it for monitoring. They don't make the changes.

We have seen time-to-value with Auvik. It's able to automatically make network maps that otherwise would take a lot of time. It would also take time to customize them manually. So, it has helped automate that task for sure. It has definitely saved about 48 hours.

We haven't seen a reduction in our meantime to resolution (MTTR) because I can't think of any situation where the tool has been involved in those types of scenarios per se. It's more to show the information that we were already aware of. So, it didn't necessarily change that for the better or worse. In the future, there might be a problem where it'll help us troubleshoot deeper by using some of the tools that we didn't have before, such as TrafficInsights.

It's quite reasonable, although it's reasonable for us right now only because of the small number of devices we're using. If we had a lot more to monitor, then I'd have to double-check the pricing and compare it with other solutions to see if it would be competitive.

To someone comparing network monitoring solutions but concerned about pricing, I would suggest that trying the product first is key and based on that, you can determine the value. I find the pricing to be reasonable, and I was able to try it first to make my decision.

We didn't evaluate other options. I knew about using Auvik from a previous employer. They had a good trial setup. The reason why I used it in the first place was that I was looking for tools to do network drawing or mapping, and I was aware that Auvik could do that type of work automatically. So, I just signed up for the trial and went from there.

I would suggest letting the tool add all of the networks automatically first as opposed to manually adding certain details and letting it fill in. Just let it gather all the information it can and then worry about cleaning things up. 

Also, I would advise monitoring generic and unknown devices just to understand what is present in the network. I would also advise getting familiar with filters and setting up filters in a way that allows you to customize the tool to suit you best.

Auvik has a single site that allows us to perform a number of dedicated tasks. Having this single site is moderately important for us because we do use other tools as well to collect data on what we're looking for. We're always looking for tools to add to our listing. We don't just always rely on one tool to do all our monitoring. This is an additional tool that we're using, but it offers functionality that our other tools don't necessarily have. That's why we're using it.

Auvik hasn't helped reduce repetitive low-priority tasks through automation because we're just using it for some passive monitoring. I can't think of a situation where that's had to occur per se.

Its automation hasn't had an effect on our IT team's availability. More time has been spent in the software configuring it, and now that it's set up the way we want it, we just go into it every once in a while to browse and see how things are going.

I would rate it an 8 out of 10. There are a few things to improve on, but for the most part, it does exactly what I'm hoping to do, which is automatically help generate a visualization of a network to better understand it and troubleshoot it.

We use Auvik to manage our network, infrastructure, and servers across various locations. We don't use the automation portion of Auvik except for automated integration with our ticketing system. Auvik sends alerts, but we haven't set it up to resolve issues automatically.

In the past, we had to use the web UI or an SSH prompt to access a network switch and make modifications, but now we find that we can do that through Auvik. It saved us a significant amount of time by bringing everything under one roof. It's a big time saver to go to the Auvik website and make those changes. It's hard to quantify, but I would say it reduces the time needed by around 80 percent. We can respond to alerts and resolve them more quickly. I estimate that decreases our resolution time by about an hour per alert.

Auvik has also helped us manage our IT team. We have multiple people in the department, so it's also nice that Auvik creates a record of who checks the network equipment. I can find out precisely who checked and cleared an alert or who might have tunneled into a piece of equipment to make changes. The audit trail benefits us greatly.

We get alerts about any issue that's happening in the infrastructure. We're able to take those alerts. If it's a low-severity issue that can be fixed over time, we can assign it to a lower-level engineer. The critical alerts go to higher-tier engineers who can respond accordingly. The Auvik platform makes it very easy. Some alerts come in by default. Many of them are already pretty well-tuned to detect what's critical and what is just informational. We've built on their current alert system with a few modifications, but those alert systems allow us to prioritize who resolves the alerts. I don't think the device inventories save us time, but it's nice to see our count. 

The ability to map out the network topology is one of the top features I like about Auvik. It's one of the best on the market. They have a feature called Loopback Detection, which has helped us, in many scenarios easily detect that without having to physically go to the location to see if there is a loopback somewhere. 

The monitoring and management features are easy to use, and the documentation Auvik provides is clear and easy to understand. We set up a collector, and it's on its way. We have never had any trouble. It's great because even my junior engineers can set it up without a problem. Auvik offers a single integrated platform for managing our devices and infrastructure in one place. It isn't essential, but it's nice to have.

Although the network topology is excellent, it has a hard time picking up some devices on the network. A device might not be fully supported, or Auvik is unable to pull all the information from it. 

The only other problem is the SNMP logging credentials. Sometimes, when I input these credentials, logging into the devices takes a decent amount of time to see if the credentials work. It would be fantastic if they could improve that.

I have been using Auvik for about three years.

Auvik is highly stable, and they communicate well about the maintenance windows. I don't think I've ever had Auvik go down in the middle of the day. It's very reliable.

Auvik is extremely scalable. They have options for scaling to multiple sites. I don't know if there's even a theoretical limit to its scalability.

I rate Auvik's support a ten out of ten. They're super knowledgeable. They typically have an answer for any question I throw at them.

Positive

Setting up Auvik is very straightforward. We started with a trial, and from there, we could follow the guides to get everything set up. Our initial trial deployment was out-of-the-box, but once we purchased it, we reached out to Auvik to get it perfected. 

Our deployment team consisted of me and one other person, so there were two people to deploy to every site. It was quick once everything was set up the way we wanted. It was a staged deployment, so it took longer than usual. If I were to do it right now, it probably wouldn't take longer than an eight-hour day.

We deployed it ourselves with vendor support. We got everything set up and configured the way we wanted in an hour or so.

I don't know if time-to-value is necessarily a metric I would consider because it's mostly internal, but from a productivity standpoint, we can respond to IT issues faster. I don't see it in my organization, but I can totally see how companies that support multiple clients could see a time to value.

I believe that Auvik is one of the most expensive tools, but it is also the best.

We tested various solutions, but Auvik was our first choice. However, I wouldn't say we tried other solutions in the same depth as we used Auvik. It was three years ago, so I'm having difficulty remembering names. There was another solution that was part of the ticketing system we use. We tried that because it was built in, but it was subpar compared to Auvik.

I rate Auvik a ten out of ten. If you plan to implement Auvik, you should deploy it in a testing environment to ensure it's running perfectly and customize the alerts that you want to get. With the out-of-the-box configuration, you will be getting alerts that you might not necessarily care about. If you take the time to go through those alerts and set everything up, it will probably make your life much easier.

The primary use case is for monitoring networks, traffic, etc. 

The solution provides us with alerts if anything goes down. We have an RMM tool, but if an entire site goes down, then the monitor we use for RMM will also be down and unable to inform us that it can't reach other devices. With Auvik in the cloud, we still get alerted if something goes down, such as a firewall or core switch. We received alerts through Auvik that we didn't get from our RMM tool, allowing us to get ahead of issues with our clients.

The product affects our IT team's availability; it frees up their time by helping them troubleshoot quicker and making them available for other tasks. 

We have seen a reduction in the mean time to resolution (MTTR). Auvik currently plays a small role in that, but once we leverage it more, we expect it will have an even more significant impact. It's more our overall tool stack that helps lower our MTTR.   

The mapping is excellent as it allows us to see where elements connect and got us out of a few binds. I accidentally wiped the configuration of three Meraki 48-Port Switches, and we could see each of the VLANs and their configurations using the solution. We utilized Auvik to see how individual ports were configured, which allowed us to get back up with much less effort than if we hadn't had Auvik.

Auvik provides a single integrated platform, which we integrated with ConnectWise for reporting. As far as viewing from within Auvik, it's a single pane of glass, and that's pretty significant for us, especially for scaling. 

Auvik is excellent for helping us visualize network mapping, especially as we can filter by network devices. We can easily see where all switches interconnect, which isn't as important in smaller environments, but we have a few environments with upwards of 15 switches. It's essential to visualize if one switch goes down, whether it will take down the entire network or if it is safe to take it down for maintenance. We know exactly what will go offline and how important that would be to us. Auvik allows us to hover over specific ports to see if they are connected, which is especially useful if we have to go on-site for troubleshooting. The overall intuitiveness of the network visualization is good, though there could be improvements; SNMP is only on some devices, which can limit our ability to get information from those devices.  

More capabilities in terms of default OIDs, so we can leverage more of the information from SNMP would be good to see. It's been a while since I messed with the OIDs, but the last time I was trying to get additional information from printers, such as the model number. I was able to find that information, but it took a good amount of research to figure out how. I want to see more default capability regarding what information gets spit out from SNMP.

I've been using the solution for five years. 

The solution has always been stable, in my experience.

Auvik is scalable; I never had an issue scaling it. It's ideal in this respect, especially for an MSP.

I've contacted technical support on several occasions, and they are great; they responded quickly and effectively.

Positive

At a previous company I worked at, we used ConnectWise Automate, which wasn't a great solution. It was a hope and a prayer that we got the monitoring portion correct and used whatever we could find, not anything centralized.

The first deployment was relatively straightforward, and the fine-tuning took more learning and familiarity with the tool. The deployment at the company I'm currently with was much smoother as I was more familiar with the product, and it was relatively seamless.

I carried out the initial setup by myself for the most part, and the solution requires minimal maintenance. We go in occasionally to see if there are new devices SNMP has been found on, find out which devices and get them added.

I'm unfamiliar with other network monitoring applications, as I've been using Auvik for so long, but it is one of the more expensive solutions. However, we have used the product to troubleshoot different issues. For example, one of our clients had an issue where their phones were constantly going down, and nobody could figure out the problem. We put Auvik on the network and found a loop in their switches, so it simplifies our lives, increases resolution speed, and makes us look like competent technicians.  

I rate Auvik eight out of ten. 

My advice to others is if you want to know all the details and all the ins and outs of your network, Auvik is the tool for you. It makes visibility easy and shows how everything is interconnected.

Regarding the solution reducing repetitive, low-priority tasks through automation, we're getting there. We don't currently use much automation on the Auvik side, more on the RMM side.  

The solution affected our IT team's global visibility into our remote and distributed networks, and they've been able to use this for troubleshooting. This visibility is more important than our IT team currently appreciates because they need to be more familiar with all the solution's capabilities to leverage it fully. As the tool isn't used to its full potential, its visibility is not as vital as it could or should be. 

Regarding Auvik helping delegate low-level tasks to junior staff, it helps somewhat, but it's another area where we need to utilize the solution's full capability. One other technician and I deal with the alert tickets, and we sometimes send them to our service desk, but we mainly deal with tickets ourselves. We could delegate more, but at the same time, dealing with the tickets ourselves helps prevent issues from growing larger. 

The solution helps us keep device inventories up to date to an extent. We use a combination of Auvik and N-central, our RMM tool. Auvik can get some information that N-central cannot, such as important information from Meraki devices, including serial numbers. The tool can push this information to our PSA, but it also has limitations. Our RMM tool tends to be better for pulling data from desktops and laptops, but in terms of network devices and equipment, Auvik is more effective for inventory purposes. This is another area where we need to leverage the solution more, including focusing on high-value tasks and delegating low-level tasks to junior staff. 

Auvik keeping device inventories up to date helped save us time for network devices but less for workstations and servers. It has helped us out when trying to find out where a device is, as we can utilize the solution's inventory.