Auvik Network Management (ANM) Reviews

I use Auvik in a couple of ways. It is very good at keeping configuration files organized for us. We can review the changes to configuration files in our networking infrastructure equipment. It is also very good at creating maps and helping me visualize the troubleshooting of any infrastructure problems we have. 

By implementing Auvik Network Management, we were trying to get better visuals on our network and more transparency in our equipment because Auvik could talk to all of it. It was sort of agnostic. It did not require using a certain brand or anything. As long as you can SSH to it or terminal to it somehow, Auvik can read it.

At first, it was definitely just a new toy to play with, but I saw its benefits the first time we were trying to sort through an infrastructure problem with a Wi-Fi network that was older and having issues. We saw several warnings on several of our older switches. We would not have seen this stuff unless we had gone into these switches and read through these logs on our own, but Auvik was holding this data and giving us these warnings so that we could go in and sort out what was wrong.

It gives me all of my infrastructure points very well because I have programmed it to do so. In terms of individual endpoints or workstations for users, the visibility is not as excellent, but it is still good enough. We do not use the tool for that. For our purposes, it is a very clean interface.

Auvik has 100% helped to decrease our mean time to resolution. If I was not using Auvik to troubleshoot infrastructure problems, I would easily be adding another hour of work per problem or using another tool that was doing this. Everything is in one place, so I do not have to jump to different places to see the information. I can very easily filter through warnings and information.

Auvik allows us to spend less time on issue resolution but not on the setup and maintenance of the solution. Any time that we save allows us to do more research into something else that we are doing. There is always a value-add in shrinking troubleshooting time.

The interface is very good. I generally do not have any complaints about it. It takes me where I want to go and is easy to learn.

The dashboard is very easy to use if you set it up correctly at the beginning. We have it all labeled the way we want it to be labeled, and everything is quickly navigable. We can see all of our different locations. We can see any locations that have errors on our map so that we know exactly what to poke at and what to take a look at today. I have no complaints. With big networks, it does become cramped, but there are filters built into the map. I filter out the points I do not want displayed on the map, and then it is very readable.

There are a couple of items here and there that float around disconnected from the network map. That is annoying because they are defined as something that they are not. For example, I have a couple of workstations that it thinks are Wi-Fi access points, and it is a hard and tricky item to clean up. The cleanup or more granular functionality of the network map would be an interesting feature.

If there was a way to do some sort of remote desktop control for endpoints from Auvik, that would be an interesting feature because we have another product that we use for endpoint control to remote into somebody's computer. If Auvik had that, we might move from the other tool into the product that Auvik would offer. We already have that from Auvik to infrastructure devices, which is awesome, but if I could go one step further or one step down right to the workstation that has an issue, that would be a very interesting thing.

I have used it for at least three or four years.

It is better than it ever was. I feel like it was laggier when we first jumped on with Auvik, but over the last year, I have not even thought about any lag or stuttering.

It can be as big as it needs to be for us, but I am only familiar with how it is for us. It met our scale, and ours is medium.

The quality of support is very good. Everybody I have ever talked to in tech support over there or in training is very familiar with Auvik and very comfortable navigating people around it. They have a lot of confidence and capability. I am never disappointed in support.

For me, Auvik is pretty unique. I have not used many tools that:

• Create a map the way that Auvik does
• Have the configuration review that Auvik has
• Have SSH or terminal access to the tools that Auvik has

Auvik is all in one. I have used SNMP collectors and things but never had another tool like this.

It is deployed in the cloud. Its deployment was easy.

It was not very long to get it fully deployed. The training was longer than the deployment.

We had no consultant. It was Auvik and us.

You can set up Auvik with one person. As long as there is somebody from Auvik with you to do the training, you can set up the collectors yourself, for sure. 

In terms of maintenance, Auvik requires some review for the number of devices it is counting. We had an issue last year where we saw that Auvik was double-counting some of our devices, so we do have to audit the count to make sure that we are not being overcharged.

Auvik is expensive, but given how much we use it and how many hours it is saving over the year, it is justified.

There are no critical devices in our network that are monitored by Auvik at no charge. They are charging for everything. The first page you get to mentions how many devices you are paying for.

Auvik was our first choice because it fitted the use case that we wanted, which was the network control, and not a lot of things. When we started with Auvik, there were not a lot of solutions that offered that, or they were very expensive. Now we are staying with them because it is still good.

Pay attention during the training and definitely play with it after or during the training. Play with your release so that you can ask the questions that are relevant to your network.

We did a demo of SaaS Management with Auvik, and it was very interesting, but the price point was too high for us to justify the capabilities.

I would rate Auvik Network Management a nine out of ten because of the billing thing from last year where we were being double charged. That was disappointing to find out, but we have cleared it up now.

We use the solution pretty much for what it was designed for. We use it for network monitoring and its dashboards. 

We were trying to solve for visibility more than anything else. The monitoring we do is more preventative than remedial. In the time we've used it, we've migrated a lot. It's helping us more on the understanding and project management side rather than monitoring. 

The ease of setup is one of its most valuable aspects. 

The visibility and topology diagrams are great. The dashboarding is quite useful.

Its integration with ConnectWise has been the most beneficial for managing our network performance. 

Auvik is a bit of a capturing tool. For us, we can highlight the high-level elements and problems. Our network is relatively secure, so we haven't actually used it for alerting. However, it is there as a preventative and monitoring measure more than anything else. 

The interface is great once the configuration is done. 

We do get a real-time picture of our network. The visibility we get is around 95%, with the remaining 5% our fault, based on the way we're set up.

The solution has helped decrease our mean time to resolution. However, it varies, depending upon the severity, for example. It's reducing any networking tickets time to resolution somewhat. For example, we are moving some clients from one subnet to another, and in those circumstances, it's taking half the time for us to do that in a process way. 

If it's purely network monitoring, it's absolutely brilliant. It shows ups and downs, and provides a lot more information than you generally need. However, since we know it provides a lot more information, we use it for lots of different things.

It reduced our mean time to resolution by 20% to 30% across the board. 

For our second line, third line, our network teams, it has increased productivity and reduced time source solutions by about 10% to 15%. 

As with all SMP's monitoring tools, it's a little difficult to get exactly where it needs to be until you've completed your desktop.

We're a bit complicated as a use case as we've got data centers and clients. We're mixed management with multiple subnets. If the network was simpler, it would work perfectly. There are a couple of overlaps. Things could be clearer.

Things are easily confused if there are multiple data feeds. So, if we have a server with three of our network clouds, it won't necessarily get the hierarchy accurate. Being able to drag and influence them in the network map would make a lot more sense. Therefore, being able to influence the map manually and overwrite it or customize it would make a lot of sense.

I've been using the solution for about a year and a half. 

We have the solution in multiple locations, for example, in data centers, client sites, and offices. We don't have a huge amount of endpoints. We do have a cloud platform and use it to monitor that. Our clients are largely SMBs.

We've had no requirement to be in touch with support just yet. 

The only instance of reaching out was when we raised a query during the first time installation. It was a deployment query, and it resolved almost instantly. If we understood the solution a bit more, we could have solved the issue ourselves. 

There is good technical support documentation. There are elements that need to be kept up-to-date, however. They could refresh it a bit more. That said, it's not really a problem or enough to complain about. There are too many changes happening in the industry for any documentation to be perfect. 

Positive

We've used all kinds of solutions. We do have SolarWinds instances, for example, however, we don't tend to use them much. We've also used PRTG. Auvik is faster to set up.

The deployment was simple. We implemented it in half an hour. 

We did have a vendor assist us with the deployment process. 

While I couldn't quantify it at this time, we have definitely seen an ROI. 

It certainly helped out with one of the projects that we're involved with. Whilst we've had it for 18 months, we've really only embraced it over the last six and we won't really see figures from it until the end of next quarter.

We've likely saved five to six hours a week so far.

The solution is a little on the expensive side. That may be skewed for us since we use it more as a monitoring and preventative tool, and largely it's meant to be a remediation tool. While it is expensive, it's not so much so that it makes me want to switch.

We're an Auvik customer and partner. 

While the solution has not yet empowered our entry-level technicians to solve more tickets on their own, they will be able to soon. We're just moving across to utilizing more alerting and bespoke alerting. We're telling Auvik some of the things that we want to know and don't want to know. That is now starting to power the help desk. That change has been happening over the last week. So, by the end of this week, it will be.

I'd recommend the solution to others. Its ease of deployment and ability to provide basic information about a network, and monitoring basic information about a network, is actually very good. It puts things on the screen almost immediately. When alerts fire, it points to those alerts, and you can literally click through and find the problem almost instantly. The only negatives are around some things that you would expect. That said, overall, absolutely, I would recommend it. The peace of deployment and ease of information are worth it. It's very, very easy to understand. It's very, very easy to see where your problems are, and it's very, very easy to use that information to remediate the problems. However, for my advanced monitoring, it's a little more difficult to understand exactly where the information is coming from and how it's utilizing the information. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We primarily use it to monitor our clients' networks. We are also using it as a monitoring tool for some of the clients for whom we manage VMware clusters. We are utilizing Auvik log gathering and alerting. It is like a poor man's VMware monitoring tool.

Auvik's network map along with its dashboard gives us a real-time picture of our network. It is nice. I like how it changes. Based on how big your screen is, it expands to fill in the free space, and as it understands the environment better, it gives you a nice topology. You can see that this device is connected to that device through this port and everything else. It gives you a lot of information in a very clean, concise manner.

The network map does get cluttered if you have a very large environment and you are not tearing it down to smaller sites or smaller chunks. I know early on when we started using it, we would have clients who had MPLS connections, so we were scanning all seven sites in one Auvik site. It was definitely unwieldy because of the number of devices there. Once you get an idea of how you can search and filter, it gets a little bit easier. In our experience, it was better to start creating multiple sites and breaking out each of our clients' sites into a sub-site. Even then, some sites were quite large, so we had to delve into it. It can get messy, but it is something that we worked through.

It gives you full network visibility assuming that you are setting up your devices correctly because, with the bad data in, you are going to get bad data out. You need to get into all your switches, firewalls, and everything else and make sure that SNMP is configured correctly. You need to ensure that your logging is pointing to the right IP and that creds and other things are correct so that Auvik is able to ingest the data correctly. Auvik can then provide a good map of what it is seeing and where all your devices are. It is definitely not a quick and easy setup if you have a fairly large environment. If you have an environment where maybe you have never set up SNMP, there is a little bit of heavy onboarding, but once it is in and Auvik is collecting the data, it is a good product.

We could see its benefits within days of having all the environments configured correctly, sending logging data, and having SNMP configured correctly. Within days, Auvik was able to collect the data, connect to all the devices, and see how switches were connected back to the core and how the traffic flowed. We started getting good data and performance metrics on port speeds and things like that fairly quickly. It was pretty quick.

We are still rolling out access to the solution for different levels of our support team. Those who do have access to it have found it beneficial to be able to see the data that they would not normally have access to.

Auvik has helped to decrease our mean time to resolution. We are not tracking that per se, but for the few issues that came up, we went to Auvik to review performance metrics. That minimized the amount of time it took to resolve whatever we were looking at because we had the data given by Auvik. We were not blindly trying to figure out what was going on by using a device's features.

Auvik allows us to spend less time on the setup and maintenance of the solution and less time on issue resolution. For some of the clients that we have brought on and utilized Auvik with, there has been a little bit of onboarding. We had to go and change SNMP settings or just enable SNMP, community strings, etc. We had to repoint the syslog so that it is pointing to the Auvik collector. There has been onboarding time there, but in the long run, because of the data that we get out of Auvik, it reduces the amount of time it takes to look into issues. So, there is a wash and probably a net positive, where we take less time to deal with issues because of Auvik than the time it took us to get it set up.

I love the ability to remote into network gear such as switches and firewalls directly from the Auvik dashboard. We do not have to get into a jump box or VPN to a client. We can get a nice, secure terminal session straight to any network that we are monitoring and managing through Auvik. I can access that directly from the Auvik dashboard. That is probably one of the biggest benefits since we got it. It saves time. We do not have to look up passwords for a random jump box in a client's environment.

Most of the past frustrations have either been resolved or were more about how I was trying to figure things out. They were not necessarily an Auvik problem. I have been pretty happy with the usage. I have not come across a pain point that was a deal breaker.

They can maybe provide some more best practices or guidance around how large a network should be. They can provide some cutoff points, such as, if you have 30 network devices, you might want to chunk that into a smaller subset or site. They can help you better plan and design how to create your Auvik sites, especially if you have a large environment. Most of our client environments are less than a dozen devices, but we have come across a few where they have had 60 switches. It has been interesting dealing with so many devices and seeing all the data that Auvik can provide with so many devices in one single pane.

It has been about a year since I have been exposed to it, or maybe a little bit longer.

I have never experienced any lagging or crashing with the product. With the amount of updates and the communication that they have about when they are doing updates or when they are having issues, it has been easy. Everything is well communicated. They do a good job with it. I have not experienced the product crashing on me or something like that.

The scalability is pretty good because right now, we have maybe 40 or 50 base sites in our environment. A lot of those base sites are multisite sites. We probably have 60 to 70 total sites that we are managing through Auvik. There have been no slowdowns or hiccups. Everything has been good.

I have contacted their support. There was a problem trying to get a device recognized in the dashboard or send data to the dashboard. It might have been a networking issue, not necessarily an Auvik issue, but they were helpful from what I remember.

The quality of their support was good. It was not necessarily a system-down type of scenario. It was not a high-priority ticket that I put in, but from memory, they responded in an adequate amount of time to the question I was posing. For the scenario, their support was good.

Positive

I have not used any similar solution. The closest thing I have used would be Meraki, but that is Meraki-centric. It is not something that you can use with anything. That would probably be the closest thing to the single pane of glass and seeing how everything is interconnected. It is a hard comparison because the Meraki dashboard is made for Meraki software. I like Auvik a little bit better just because it does not necessarily matter which network equipment is there. With Auvik, we are utilizing clients that have multiple kinds of network hardware such as Aruba, FortiGate, Cisco, etc. They have anything and everything. Auvik has been very good at giving us that guidance into what is going on in the environment.

It is cloud-based with on-prem collectors at all of the different client sites. There is usually a service installed on a virtual machine somewhere unless we have a physical management device in their environment, and then we put the collector on that. Aside from the collectors in the actual environment, the service is cloud-based.

Its initial deployment was easy. There is obviously a learning curve when you get new software. It took us a while to understand all the features and abilities that Auvik provides, but the initial standing up of the site, getting the collector spun up, and adding network devices was pretty quick. It probably took thirty minutes.

The implementation took a couple of days the first time. Now, when we bring on new clients, the time depends on how large an environment is, how many switches and other devices are there, and whether they have already configured SNMP across the LAN. On average, a normal new client takes 8 to 16 hours to stand up, set up the Auvik sites, get collectors posted, and start ingesting data after setting up all the settings on the switches to point to the collector. It is a decent amount of time. It is not too much, but it is not necessarily super quick.

We did it all in-house. A few technical people from Auvik assisted us, but I do not believe we pulled a third party in on it.

For a new client that we bring on, it is usually a one-person job. We assign a tech, and they get it going. It is simple enough that a single engineer can handle it unless you are organized a little differently, and then I could potentially see multiple people being required. Generally, a single person who understands Auvik management and dashboard has basic networking skills, can go in and change SNMP settings, and set up logging can easily handle it on his or her own.

For us, it has been good. I do not get too much into the pricing side. We are an MSP, so we have a number of clients, and we are utilizing Auvik as a way for us to be able to better manage and support our clients. The more clients we bring into Auvik, the better the pricing, so we have been happy with how it is.

There are critical devices in our network that are monitored by Auvik at no charge. That is why we have been using Auvik for some of our VMware cluster management clients. We can add VMware servers to the Auvik dashboard and get basic monitoring and up/down alerting by utilizing Auvik, but we do not pay for them because they are not network devices. That has been a nice additional feature. We have way more network devices that we are monitoring, but being able to add those in and not having to worry about additional costs has been nice.

The data you get out of Auvik is only as good as the data you put into it. So, you need to make sure that you are scanning the subnets that you need to scan. Ensure that you are scanning everything in your environment, you have all your devices configured for SNMP, and you have syslog set correctly out the gate. That will set you up for the best usage of the product and get the best data out of it.

It is pretty good in terms of ease of use. Over the last year or so that we have used it, it has improved here and there, not drastically, but in terms of little annoyances that I cannot even think of right now. It is definitely easy to understand once you go through basic training for how the dashboard is laid out.

I would rate Auvik Network Management a solid nine out of ten.

A client uses Auvik Network Management (ANM) for network administration and monitoring. They don't use it completely for MDM and how one would use Intune; they mostly use it for monitoring their network elements.

Auvik Network Management (ANM) provides complete global visibility and has a centralized dashboard. Working in India, I can monitor the entire North American network and take charge if anything goes wrong.

The network map, along with the dashboard, gives a real-time picture of my customer's network. Sometimes there's a bit of delay due to factors such as internet connection, but the lag is minimal enough to maintain real-time functionality.

Regarding network health checks, it is very user-friendly and provides instant visibility and insights. We have Auvik Network Management (ANM) integrated with our ticketing tool, ConnectWise. When critical elements are offline or there's heavy traffic, Auvik Network Management (ANM) sends an alert for technician review.

Auvik Network Management (ANM) has helped decrease the mean time to resolution. Manual work would never be able to match the efficiency that Auvik Network Management (ANM) provides. 

All the information about the device is automatically updated in Auvik, requiring no additional action on our part. Additionally, there is a rollback option available. If we are not satisfied with the current version of the software installed, we can revert to the previous version. It is easy to utilize these automated documentation capabilities. We can just check the device configuration and find everything. 

Real-time performance insights are extremely important for us. Any downtime will lead to inefficiency for us. We can take proactive steps whenever heavy traffic is on the network. Auvik Network Management (ANM) gives us an alert, and we have an overview of what is going on. It has a very easy interface to interact with.

The automated network discovery feature in Auvik Network Management (ANM) is particularly valuable. It automatically maps out networks, eliminating manual discovery on your system. This automated process removes a significant burden for users.

I would prefer a simplified dashboard in Auvik Network Management (ANM) because it can be challenging for new users to interpret all the provided data. However, Auvik Network Management (ANM) has done an excellent job with its knowledge-base articles.

In terms of new features, for our purposes, Auvik Network Management (ANM) fulfills all requirements. The main improvement needed is a simpler interface in the next release.

I have been working with Auvik Network Management (ANM) for about five months.

In my five months working with Auvik Network Management (ANM), I haven't experienced any downtime. For scheduled maintenance or tasks, Auvik provides advance notifications. There have been no unexpected or accidental downtimes.

I haven't personally needed to submit a ticket to Auvik Network Management (ANM). However, my colleagues who have reached out to Auvik Network Management (ANM) found them helpful. There don't appear to be any issues with their technical support.

Positive

I wasn't present for the deployment of Auvik Network Management (ANM) as I'm not part of the implementation team. However, with all the knowledge base articles available, the deployment process appears to be straightforward.

It supports various deployment models, including hybrid and cloud implementations, and integrates well with other tools.

In terms of the setup, we have 22 clients, so we have a varied approach. Some are completely on-prem, some are hybrid, and some are on the cloud. Auvik Network Management (ANM) handles all that without any problems.

Auvik Network Management (ANM) brings a great return on investment for our customers. 

We receive real-time alerts if there is heavy traffic or if any critical system experiences a failure. We are informed in advance, which saves a significant amount of time and money. Initially, there were many alerts, but we were allowed to add about 50 different configuration alerts. I believe these alerts are more effective than experiencing real downtime in any critical network that is essential for an organization’s operations. I prefer it when organizations receive multiple minor alerts and have them resolved promptly, rather than facing a complete disaster.

Crisis aversion is something that any organization prefers. It is easier when people work on small tickets and resolve issues before they become larger problems.

I haven't evaluated other solutions on the market apart from Auvik Network Management (ANM). For our specific requirement of monitoring network and server health and performance parameters with real-time monitoring, Auvik Network Management (ANM) fulfills all requirements.

Initially, the network map and dashboard can be confusing due to the amount of data that needs to be interpreted. However, Auvik Network Management (ANM) provides comprehensive knowledge bases for reference. The overall ease of use depends on familiarity with the software. While initially challenging due to the volume of incoming data, once familiar with the articles and layout, it becomes very easy to use.

The main consideration for new users should be familiarizing themselves with the comprehensive knowledge base articles. Everything is detailed within their knowledge base articles.

I would rate Auvik Network Management (ANM) a nine out of ten. The solution excels in proactive network management and automated alerting. The only notable drawback is the complex dashboard that presents a large amount of data which can be challenging to interpret initially.

We use it for network management. We use SNMP to get notifications about various issues on our network.

We implemented it because we tried out a free trial. The goal was to get more visibility into our network. I get notifications on everything from printers being low on paper to network cards that are dropping packets. It does a lot of things that otherwise I would not have known about.

It is very easy to use. After you do the initial setup, it is kind of set-it-and-forget-it.

The network map is pretty straightforward. It is like a lot of other discovery applications that I have seen. The network map gives a good visualization of our network as an overview. We can make it larger, and it is easier to see. Our network is pretty well segmented. It shows different switches and things coming out of it. We have got everything segmented very well, so we have not had any issues with it not being able to fit everything in.

I had to have a couple of support sessions to get everything configured correctly. The simple SNMP monitoring was pretty easy for devices using a public tag, but I did have to get some support with the firewalls to get them correctly into the system. I had to make a few configuration changes on the Fortinet firewall to get it to work, but after I got that worked out, the benefits were immediate. Within two days of implementing it, I realized that I had a lot of packet loss on one of our Hyper-V servers, and I was at a loss for what the performance problems were. I immediately found a lot of packet loss on one of the network adapters. I was able to swap that out. That immediately fixed the performance issues we were having with our Hyper-V server.

Auvik has not empowered our entry-level technicians to solve more tickets on their own because this is a one-man shop here. It is just me. I do not use it as much for resolving tickets, but it prevents some tickets from being created because of the notifications I get for various issues. I simply would not know about them otherwise.

As long as everything is cooking along fine, I do not get any alerts. I do not have a lot of false alerts that cause me to waste time. When I do get an alert, it is usually something that is pretty important, and then I can look into it. Oftentimes, it gets resolved before tickets are created by end users.

Auvik allows us to spend less time on the setup and maintenance of the solution and less time on issue resolution. The initial setup took a little bit of time, but it was not anything outrageous. It was not super complicated. For the most part, all the devices were plug-and-play after they were discovered. Firewalls were the only ones that took a little work to get working, but after that, the notifications that I get do save me a lot of time from responding to tickets because oftentimes, I can get things resolved before end users even notice it.

The notifications for events are valuable. If a copier is low on toner, I can get the toner ordered instead of being surprised when it runs out. It saves me from running around and having to check a lot of things. I get notifications based on the alerts that we have configured for it.

There was an issue where I did not have the ability to turn off certain notifications or noise that I did not care about. I worked with the support guys. They showed me how to do it, and I was able to silence notifications on a specific device, which is something that I was having trouble with. I had one device that was getting non-stop notifications about one issue that could not be fixed. It just had to be that way. It was a legacy machine. After working with support, I was able to turn those notifications off specifically for that one device and that specific problem, which I could not find on my own. After they showed me how to do it, I have not had anything to complain about this product.

If anything, the spacing on the network map can be better. In the network map, we have one switch crammed in there. Some improvements in the spacing on the network map would be good.

Their documentation and knowledge base can also be improved.

We have been using Auvik for about a year and a half.

I have seen a couple of emails come through about them doing scheduled maintenance, but other than that, I have not had any issues with any downtime. If they did have any downtime with their cloud application, I did not notice it. I might not have seen any alerts for that short period of time. If they were down, nothing has been to the level that I noticed it.

We only have 150 devices here. We have not had any issues with scalability because we are not that big of a shop.

I have called them two or three times, and each time, they have been able to resolve my issue very quickly. I always try to do things myself using their documentation, but I had a little trouble finding the documentation for my Fortinet FortiGate issues. Another thing that could be improved is their documentation and knowledge base, but in terms of their support personnel and time for them to get a resolution for me and get me up and running, they did a great job.

Positive

I did not use any other product previously. This is the first time I have used this type of product. I do not have anything to compare it to, but I have nothing but good things to say about Auvik.

It is deployed in the cloud. It was super easy to deploy. The Fortinet firewall required some configuration changes on the firewall itself. I did that with the support folks on the line. I was able to do the rest of it on my own without any problems at all. I just had a few issues with the Fortinet firewall.

It was all deployed within one day.

I did it all myself except for the two firewalls. I had to have a support call to get that done.

The pricing is good for what it does. It has been a few months, so I do not remember exactly how much it was. I believe for our network here, it was about 2,000 a year, so the pricing was good.

A lot of printers and things of that nature are not one of the charged devices.

We went directly to Auvik. I got an email about a trial. I installed it and thought how useful it would be to be more proactive than reactive with the types of issues that it spots.

The only advice I have for new users is that if they have Fortinet firewalls, they will have to do some command line configurations to their Fortinet to prepare it to be able to send the alerts to all of it.

I have heard of Auvik's SaaS Management product. They sent me an email about it recently, but I just read the headline of the email and moved on. I do not have a solid understanding of what it does other than maybe keeping track of your software as a service license. I am not familiar with it that much.

I would rate Auvik Network Management a nine out of ten for what we use it for.

I use Auvik to create a network topology map for my business, which also serves as a monitoring tool for any downtime or issues within our company's network infrastructure. As a production company, we require continuous operation, so a tool like Auvik provides valuable visual insight even when I'm not physically present.

We previously had a basic alerting system in place, but it was not sufficient when we experienced networking issues within one of our two buildings. Often, it was unclear which cables were connected to which devices and where the connections led. Auvik, unlike other tools I've used, excels at visualizing these connections, making it easier for me to identify the source of the problem.

Auvik's interface is one of the most intuitive interfaces I've used.

The ease of use makes troubleshooting network issues easier and faster.

Auvik's network map and dashboard offer a real-time overview of our network. I rely on it daily, starting my workday by checking it for any potential issues and then adjusting my priorities accordingly.

I found the dashboard very easy to understand and easy to manipulate and customize.

The network map dashboard typically provides me with full network visibility. I haven't encountered any instances where something wasn't displayed within the network from Auvik's perspective. Even for devices where I haven't explicitly provided credentials, Auvik still manages to identify and display them, ensuring comprehensive network visibility.

I am the only technician that uses Auvik in my organization and it has empowered me to come up with better solutions to solving our tickets.

Auvik has helped decrease our mean time to resolution.

Auvik's value became immediately apparent when we needed to investigate an issue causing a server cluster to intermittently shut down. Auvik accurately detected and reported the problem, pinpointing the exact location and nature of the fault, including the specific port experiencing instability. This information was invaluable in resolving the issue quickly. We have encountered other scenarios where Auvik's responsiveness surpasses even our power distribution units. For example, in an instance of power loss within a specific room, Auvik alerted us significantly faster than the PDU itself. This enhanced speed significantly improves our ability to react to critical situations.

Auvik allows me to spend less time on setup, maintenance, and issue resolution. 

The cloud monitoring portion of Auvik that provides visibility into each piece of my infrastructure is the most valuable feature.

The use of a mobile app would be very beneficial because sometimes I cannot access a computer. Additionally, I believe that more monitoring could be done on certain devices, especially since we have credentials for them. Ideally, there should be more comprehensive monitoring for endpoints, such as switches, firewalls, workstations, and even servers. Support for other hypervisors would also be valuable.

I have been using Auvik for just over one year.

The Auvik website experiences occasional stability issues, which may coincide with their frequent maintenance windows. Although they perform maintenance at least once a week, my monitoring has not identified any significant delays in reporting.

Auvik is highly scalable. While the price does increase as it scales up, it is remarkably easy to deploy, even to new sites. I have done this myself. I have also restructured the network topology twice since I started using Auvik, simply to improve organization, and it remains very easy to scale or adapt the configuration.

Previously, I used PRTG. The main differences between PRTG and Auvik are the user interface being much easier to navigate, and Auvik being much more intuitive in indicating what it can and cannot scan, as well as what it is currently scanning. With PRTG, we had to manually select and choose what we wanted to be monitored, which required a significant amount of setup time. In contrast, I found Auvik to be much easier to set up and get running quickly.

The previous solution lacked many features that Auvik provides. For instance, it didn't offer bandwidth or power consumption monitoring. We needed to go into specific devices and enable reporting for each one individually, like for power devices such as rack-mounted APCs or PDUs. Usually, configuring these devices requires manual intervention. Auvik automatically discovers and monitors them, allowing me to access reports directly through its interface. This information, combined with other reports like server power-down events, helps me map the order of events during a system crash. I can analyze which devices failed first and work my way back using the network map and alerts. No other tool offers such ease of use and diagnostic capabilities as Auvik's built-in features once a device is connected.

Furthermore, Auvik provides extensive functionality for firewalls and network switches. The configuration backup feature, which was a key factor in our decision to purchase the software, is unparalleled. It securely stores configurations in the cloud, enabling quick redeployment and comparison between backup points to identify changes. Additionally, it allows for easy reversion to previous configurations if necessary.

We encountered a scenario where an older switch in our server room lost power. Auvik notified me of this event, and the switch automatically reverted to an older firmware version. Recovering the lost firmware required redeploying a configuration file, which was readily available through Auvik. Restoring the configuration was a simple click away. This incident highlighted how Auvik goes beyond mere monitoring by actively facilitating troubleshooting.

The initial setup was incredibly simple. I was brought into an onboarding meeting with just two or three others, and within a couple of weeks, I had a firm grasp of the platform. I also took advantage of the excellent training offered. 

The integrator would answer any questions I had, but for the most part, I was directed to their knowledge base. This prompted me to take the courses they offered, including a certification for the tool. Completing these courses on my own proved to be much more efficient than waiting to schedule meetings with the integrator. Consequently, I was able to learn the tool independently.

The implementation was completed in-house.

The pricing is very good. It's extremely competitive and I've shopped around on Auvik to see if there were cheaper solutions like Traverse, and there's no comparing the pricing. No one can beat their pricing right now.

Auvik monitors my core switches free of charge. I only pay for my firewalls.

I evaluated SolarWinds and another solution, but neither met my needs because they required extensive setup. Auvik, on the other hand, simplifies the process significantly. As a single person in my department responsible for the entire infrastructure, networking, cybersecurity, and other tasks, I rely on efficient tools. Auvik allowed me to seamlessly integrate into my new workplace and gain immediate visibility into the entire environment. Implementing the other tools would have been a much more time-consuming process. Auvik offered a smoother, faster, and easier implementation within my company.

I would rate Auvik a nine out of ten.

Maintenance on Auvik is only performed when we are aware of downtime. The only reason I have ever needed to perform maintenance on Auvik is to unmanage devices that are looping alerts. While troubleshooting, I may occasionally need to make changes to Auvik, but there are very few day-to-day tasks required. Once configured, Auvik requires minimal maintenance.

For anyone evaluating Auvik, my advice is this: understand that while this tool won't fix problems on its own, it will help you diagnose and solve issues more efficiently and logically. It provides a visual representation of your network that you wouldn't normally see unless you were physically present in the server room. But with Auvik, you have this vital visibility from anywhere you have a computer. That's a major benefit in itself. Additionally, Auvik is very quick to set up and easy to deploy. You can be up and running in as little as a week, which is a significant advantage over other network monitoring solutions.

We use Auvik to monitor our whole network infrastructure. It helps us keep track of issues that arise and things that go offline. We have one main corporate office here that has multiple buildings and a lot of private fiber.

We have 68 access points, 46 switches, and 240 employees. Every person here utilizes the network on a PC, iPad, or iPhone. All of our CNC machines are on the network. That adds up to about 600 total devices on the network, including everything with an IP address. 

Auvik allows us to get on top of issues before they become an outage. It alerts us about when dropped packets on an access point get out of hand, so I know to look at that. It speeds up the remediation time for network issues by about 25% to 50%. I get a heads-up about all the potential issues in my network. 

I don't have to worry as much about the network because I have something telling me when issues are happening, so I can be proactive. If a situation is happening, I know where to look because I've gotten emails about what's going down before the problem hits my desk.

I know about power outages at our facilities before somebody calls me about it because Auvik sends me a report that the network at one of our facilities is offline. I can investigate and find that the power went out long enough that the battery backup for the switch gear ran out. 

I have peace of mind because Auvik constantly records the state of the network configurations on all of my devices, and it provides one place to find everything. I don't need to waste time searching a million different settings in a million different pieces of software and endpoints. It's given me back some time. It has saved me time because I don't need to create Visio drawings of our network. That was massively time-consuming, and everybody does it differently. Nothing ever looks great, but Auvik's printout of the network map looks phenomenal.

We don't have a global footprint, but we utilize multiple buildings. Auvik has given us a lot of visibility by allowing us to see what's going on in other buildings a lot easier. We can remotely log into networking devices through Auvik, so you don't have to manually open a window and remember the login credentials. Everything is stored inside the app on the cloud. It's easy to jump in and hit the ground running instead of trying to look up an Excel document or a OneNote with information on how to get into the device.

We use a product called PDQ Inventory to keep track of our software inventory, but Auvik helps us manage our network inventory, letting us know what's on the network, and where it's located.

The network flow piece is the most useful. We can identify the busiest parts of the network based on the reporting from the switches about what is utilizing the most bandwidth on specific switch ports. I can narrow down which segments of the network might be having issues.

Auvik has everything I need in one place. I don't feel like I need other modules to use the product. In the past, we had about five different pieces of software, none of which did anything like what Auvik does. It provides a whole network map breaking down all the connections and ports so that you can drill down. I had nothing like that in the past that let me track everything. It has helped to see the state of my network at any time.

I like Auvik's cloud-based solution. I prefer to have a collector that pulls all the information and sends it up to the cloud so that I can access that from basically anywhere. It's all multifactor authentication, so I don't have to worry about people hacking that. At the same time, I also love that I don't have to tie up computing resources here in my data center locally. I like that better than setting up something that collects it on-premises. Then I have to back that up somewhere. It creates a larger overhead to maintain.

I love the network visualization because drawing the network out in Visio was becoming almost impossible because of our network's size. The ability to show a dynamic, updated view of our network has been a huge help. I enjoy that because you can drill down into visualization and focus on different segments of your network

When I change IP addresses on a device or on a server, I have to wait for Auvik to figure out that change. It will tell me the device is offline until Auvik scans the whole subnet again and finds it. If I change 25 devices, I'll get 50 emails in a short time because they've gone offline. 

I'd love the ability to change that where I can update that device with the IP address without it going offline. That goes against the idea of a system that dynamically scans. It's information overload sometimes when you need to change a bunch of factors. You get inundated with emails. I would almost love a button whenever you first log in that says maintenance window, and then it would maybe take some of those alerts away.

It's fairly intuitive but sometimes you have to search for things because it's hidden in the user interface, so I think that could be improved a little bit. The search could be better because they have these strange search terms. Instead of being able to look for what you want, you have to lay out the query in a specific way to get results.

We've also been dealing with some weird bugs lately. We get alerts on miscellaneous items that go offline and online all the time. I've reached out to support, and they said that they've got a fix that they rolled out. However, we're still experiencing the issue, so I've got to work with them to fix that. They seem to be on top of the support.

I've used Auvik for a little over a year. 

Auvik is pretty stable. I often get emails about preemptive maintenance outage windows, but there's never been a time when I needed to access it but couldn't. My computer also struggles with visualization because it's a little older. I'll usually remote into another computer that handles it better.

It seems to be like they would be able to handle quite a bit, especially being cloud-based. I feel that if I had to triple or quadruple the size of my network, they would be able to handle it really well. It doesn't seem like it would be tough for them.

I rate Auvik support eight out of 10. There have been times when it has been excellent. However, I still have some issues where things go offline and come back online. They reached out after the ticket to ask, "Hey, would you recommend Auvik to your colleagues?" That was the first time any company has reached out to me, so it sounds like they care about that score.

Positive

I used a free solution from a company called Spiceworks. It was a network monitoring software that listened to SNMP traffic. However, it got overloaded with the size of our network and wouldn't function how I needed it to. The alerts were out of control. It was too much for me, so I turned it off and looked for something else.

We set up Auvik over a demo call, and they said they would set me up with a production-ready environment. I would have 30 days to play with it. After that, they got me into a little bit more in-depth setup. It took me and the technician 30 minutes in total. About 15 minutes after the installation, we were collecting data and setting up alerts.

It's phenomenal how quickly Auvik was set up. It reminded me of another system that I used called Action1, a remote endpoint management solution. We installed the collector for that, and within 20 seconds, it had installed its agent on every machine with a domain login in my environment. Auvik was very similar to that. It was up and running and collecting data within minutes.

The network map started to populate the same day. It takes a while to get most of the map worked out, but it started populating within an hour or so. My previous solutions were fairly easy to set up. Still, I never got them to work in a way that served my purpose, and I ultimately uninstalled them because the features weren't good enough to justify the amount of time it took to set them up and get them working. 

The majority of them were free tools that I had looked at before going with Auvik. I  generally understand why they were free, which led me to the point of needing to buy a service where I had support. I need support to fall back on if I don't know what I'm doing rather than just sort of meandering through a free tool.

Auvik doesn't require much maintenance. Suppose I'm looking for some information on why something's happening or what a device is, and I don't have any information besides spreadsheets. In that case, I go to Auvik to get an idea of that device because it has some good guesstimates based on a MAC address. 

We saw value almost instantly because of the visibility we get into the network. If I'm curious about why a device is dropping offline, I have a map to see what devices are offline and dig into what's going on. I can check to see the state of the network if a lot of things are going offline. We didn't have that before. We were able to get value out of it within the first week.

Auvik is affordable. The license was under $4,000 annually for our setup. That covers a lot of switches, firewalls, and integration. It was well worth the price.  I think it's around $20 per device per quarter.

It's the best monitoring software we can get at that per-device cost. They get pretty aggressive with pricing. When you add network switching that will be managed by Auvik, you'll see it on your next quarterly bill. You have to choose not to manage it whenever you install it if you don't want to be billed for it. You can keep your costs under control if you don't want to manage a device you're adding to the network.

I looked at SolarWinds. Their problem was that they had just been hacked at a pretty high level, and I didn't want anything to do with a vendor that had any hacking going on. The other one was called Netwrix. We had a demo of ManageEngine, but setting it up was like pulling teeth. I was in the middle of the demo with the people, and nothing was working right.

With Auvik, we were up in 15 minutes after downloading the collector and getting it on the network. It started populating data without the need to provide a lot of information. It went so smoothly. That sold me on it.

I rate Auvik eight out of 10. My advice would be to try the demo and kick the tires as much as possible to find out if it's the right tool for you. Annual pricing is cheaper, but I believe they do monthly licenses if you're still not. Utilize it as much as possible before signing a contract.

We have a medium-sized business. We have two data centers and two small physical offices. Our main goal is to monitor the traffic between the data centers to get an idea of the traffic, and our current firewalls don't offer that as a solution.

The main selling point was the traffic insights feature, which better explains our network traffic. Auvik has many different features, but we primarily want it for traffic insights. It has monitoring and network discovery. Network discovery is useful, but we already have a monitoring solution. The network map is easy to use.

The onboarding could be a bit better for Auvik. We've had a few issues out of the gate because we already had an existing Auvik setup that was invalidated. Given that we're a new customer, it's taken a while to get support for these issues. It's taken a couple of days, but I would have thought that as new customers, we'd get priority support until the solution is running. 

I would like it if you could filter out workstations. We've got Windows workstations and servers, but we only care about the servers. It would be nice if we could filter out devices based on the operating systems, so we don't have to see the workstations, but you can't. 

We used the Auvik trial for about three weeks and then purchased the full product after a couple of months. We're now a week into using it.

I rate Auvik nine out of 10 for stability. I haven't had any downtime. 

I rate Auvik nine out of 10 for scalability. It has the potential to scale because you can add collectors or create new sites as needed. 

I rate Auvik support seven out of 10. The people I've spoken to have been pleasant, but it's taking a while to deal with our outstanding issues. 

Neutral

We also use PRTG for our network monitoring. We invested a lot of money in PRTG, so we can't replace it all yet. We adopted Auvik for its traffic insights. 

It should be straightforward, but some things don't work, and the guides aren't necessarily correct either. We've used it for a week now and don't have much in there because there are a few teething issues that I've opened tickets for. 

The price is what I expect for a product like Auvik. It's reasonably priced. 

I rate Auvik eight out of 10. 

Our network infrastructure is monitored by Auvik Network Management. This includes firewalls and network traffic. By using Auvik, we gain data and analytics that fuel our diagnostics, alarm systems, and overall network environment insights.

We decided to implement Auvik after struggling to find a network monitoring solution that ticked all the boxes. We needed a cost-effective option with a user-friendly interface, backed by a responsive company committed to ongoing product updates. Unfortunately, the market seemed to offer outdated, once-great products or solutions prohibitively expensive for small businesses and MSPs like us. Thankfully, our experience with Auvik has been good. Both our dedicated sales representative and the onboarding technical support team have been phenomenal.

Despite the usual setup time – an hour or two for getting things connected and entering credentials – the platform started pulling data from our devices almost immediately. It was practically instantaneous, aside from the standard management deployment time. Interestingly, the network map took a bit longer to figure itself out compared to the platform itself. The platform started showing me interface details, traffic information, and even automatically identified our WAN connections. We did have to set credentials later, and thankfully, we had backups of our devices ready beforehand, since it seemed like the platform wanted that information before the network map fully visualized everything. Overall, the deployment process was remarkably quick and easy.

Last Sunday, I encountered an issue that the dashboard interface helped resolve quickly. I could easily locate the specific device on the map and clicking on it brought up all relevant information. This allowed us to directly investigate the problematic port, view its traffic status up or down, without the need for a more cumbersome process. Traditionally, we would have had to VPN into the network, log in to the switch using its credentials, and then identify the specific port involved. The dashboard streamlines this process, saving time frequently. While it may not be a massive improvement, it offers a noticeable efficiency gain in our mean time to resolution.

Our company is still in the early stages of adopting Auvik, a monitoring platform that can be used for all of our customers. This means that we will eventually have one platform for all our alerts and for our technicians to access. This will simplify things internally for our company by reducing the number of platforms our technicians need to be familiar with to support our clients. It will also reduce the amount of documentation we need to maintain. With Auvik, our technicians will spend less time on maintenance and troubleshooting because they will only need to learn and use one platform. Currently, our technicians haven't started using Auvik yet, but the plan is to move away from all the various monitoring solutions we've been using for different customers and consolidate everything onto this one platform. Once our technicians are using Auvik, it will make our jobs significantly easier and faster.

Auvik stands out for its ability to combine network and per-port traffic inspection with log aggregation and data flow analysis in a single platform. This comprehensive approach is rare in network monitoring solutions. Even more impressive is that Auvik offers these high-end enterprise features at a cost-effective price. Traditionally, such capabilities are only found in expensive products. The combination of powerful features and affordability made Auvik a very attractive choice for us.

The Auvik interface has a modern look and feel in terms of its color scheme and layout. However, some elements are arranged in a way that I find counterintuitive. As a company with a web and application development team, we have a strong focus on user interface and user experience. For some features in Auvik, the placement of buttons and functionalities doesn't feel optimal. We've had to consult our representative several times on how to find specific options. For example, editing a device requires navigating through the sidebar to a specific category and tab, then selecting the device, line item, and checking a box before finally reaching the edit button. Additionally, the placement of buttons seems inconsistent across different sections, making the overall workflow less intuitive and requiring more training to become proficient.

My ideal real-time network monitoring would involve seeing all my data at once, including connection speeds and throughput. While Auvik's automated network map is visually appealing and generally accurate compared to competitors, it lacks some key features. For example, unlike a competitor's recent feature that shows traffic between trunk connections, Auvik only displays a single color for connection links, indicating wired or wireless status. This doesn't provide vital information like link speed or potential problems. Additionally, connections with momentary issues simply disappear from the map, which is frustrating. Auvik could integrate valuable alerts and insights from other parts of the platform directly onto the map. This would highlight potential issues with specific devices and their connections. While I acknowledge ongoing development efforts, there's still a significant gap in desired features. Another limitation is the lack of manual map editing. For instance, our server has multiple Ethernet connections entering a single switch, but the map erroneously shows them spread throughout the building. With no way to manually adjust this, the map's accuracy suffers. While Auvik's map is aesthetically pleasing, I wouldn't rely on it for complete accuracy.

I've had some trouble using Auvik's device proxy, which allows technicians to connect to network devices through Auvik's platform. The Mac software I need isn't fully functional yet, so I might be doing something wrong, but other products like Domotz work flawlessly. One of the main reasons we chose Auvik was to eliminate the need for VPNs, on-site PCs, or network tunnels for technicians to access devices. This would reduce our equipment costs. While the pricing is fair overall, the jump between plans is significant. For instance, their higher plan offers features like NetFlow statistics and analytics for firewalls, which require more data and rightfully cost more. However, the entire client site is included in that plan, and there's no option to pay extra for specific devices. I'd be happy to pay more for those features on select devices, but the current pricing structure prevents me from getting them. This seems like a missed opportunity for both Auvik and us. Not all my devices need the extensive logging and data collection offered in the higher plan. Network switches and access points, for example, have their own controllers that handle SysLogging, so I wouldn't need Auvik for that. However, I would like to pay extra for those features on our firewalls and routers. In the current situation, neither side benefits. If we pay for the higher plan, our costs increases, which will eventually impact our customers' prices. However, convincing customers to pay for this one additional feature within the entire monitoring platform is difficult.

I have been using Auvik Network Management for one year.

Throughout this process, I've primarily relied on my representative for assistance. While I haven't directly contacted their technical support line, my representative has involved them on my behalf. This may be a slight deviation from the usual procedure, but it has still allowed me to reach the appropriate people.

The technical support team has been very responsive in identifying and resolving any technical issues I've encountered. They were able to quickly understand the situation with minimal questions. Additionally, I appreciate the granular control I have over their access to client data. I can grant them temporary or read-only access, which allows for collaborative troubleshooting without compromising security or hindering our learning experience.

Overall, I've been very impressed with the technical support team's knowledge. We understand they aren't responsible for diagnosing internal network issues; their focus is on supporting their platform and ensuring our connection to network devices. So far, their responsiveness has been excellent.

Prior to implementing Auvik, we experimented with a number of network management solutions. These included PRTG, Domotz, LibreNMS, and the built-in NinjaOne option. We also evaluated SolarWinds. We've explored a wide range of options. Our goal is to find a standardized solution, and we believe Auvik fits the bill. PRTG was expensive so we could only use the free version that only allowed for 1,000 sensors, proving too restrictive for our needs. LibreNMS required a high level of technical expertise for deployment and maintenance, which wasn't feasible for all our technicians. SolarWinds simply didn't meet all our requirements. While NinjaOne is still in active development. We may revisit it in the future. Overall, Auvik strikes the perfect balance between functionality, ease of use, and scalability.

The deployment of Auvik requires installing an agent and some information. The deployment took around one hour. 

Although Auvik is a cloud-based solution, it requires software installation on a computer or server within our network. This initial process can be cumbersome. In our experience, the provided API key wasn't functional, and creating separate API keys isn't an option. Instead, we need to create full user accounts, which feels unnecessarily complex.

Once the connector is installed, the user interface presents challenges. Management credentials and network scanning configurations are located in separate areas. While the deployment section attempts to consolidate these settings, it becomes irrelevant after the initial setup. Ideally, the interface should streamline the initial configuration process, instead of requiring users to navigate through various menus.

Another concern is the requirement for generic credentials. Instead of specifying credentials for each device, we must provide generic ones that are simply tested for functionality. This raises security concerns. These generic credentials are tested against various devices in our environment, even those for which they are not intended. While we trust our security measures, a compromised device could potentially allow the Auvik connector to expose these credentials to unauthorized devices. Ideally, the system should allow for specifying credentials on a per-device basis, eliminating the need for generic credentials and the associated security risks.

The implementation was completed in-house.

I came to a surprising realization about Auvik's pricing. It turns out they only charge for routers and switches! This means all our access points, security cameras, camera servers, and other infrastructure are monitored for free. While the client understandably wanted the server on-site, most other devices are a bonus. This is a huge advantage – with a typical network, we might have one firewall, three switches, and 60-70 access points. With Auvik, we only pay for the four core devices, bringing the cost down significantly. In my opinion, Auvik could advertise this benefit more clearly. Many other platforms charge for every device, so Auvik's free monitoring for a large portion of the network is a game-changer. It not only helped us make the decision but also benefits non-profits we support. The fact that they're confident enough in their platform to offer this makes Auvik a truly valuable and supportive solution.

In the end, we were deciding between Domotz and Auvik. Auvik's initial pricing structure was a concern. Their tiered system required a minimum number of devices per tier to get a reasonable price. While their desire to be profitable is understandable, this presented a hurdle for us. However, Auvik impressed us with their willingness to work with us. They emphasized that they wouldn't lose a customer solely on price, as long as open communication existed. This flexibility in finding a solution was a major factor in our decision. Another reason we chose Auvik was the user interface and user experience. We found Auvik's interface to be superior to Domotz's. Additionally, Auvik's pricing based on individual devices, rather than NetFlow, was a significant advantage. This meant we wouldn't be penalized for devices with minimal traffic or high port counts. From a business standpoint, this eliminated the need to constantly monitor billing for small variations in device usage. With Auvik, we pay a fixed cost per device and receive all the necessary features, regardless of its size or complexity. Consistent and predictable billing was another key consideration in our choice.

Auvik Network Management gets a solid eight out of ten from me. While the network maps and user interface could be improved, the software delivers exactly what we need out of the box. It connected to our devices seamlessly and provided valuable analytics data and information logging. The setup process was straightforward, and the learning curve wasn't steep.

We're currently in the early stages of implementing Auvik, which means our existing software is still operational. To ensure a smooth transition, we typically allow a three-to-four-month overlap period for new software before fully integrating it into production. While I've been the primary user so far and can provide initial insights, our help desk technicians haven't yet been granted access to Auvik.

There is a minimal amount of maintenance required, primarily for alerts. The default settings include alerts for all devices, but not all of them are relevant to our needs. We simply need to adjust these defaults. Aside from that, the system is truly "set it and forget it." It will notify us of any problems, and as an IT company, we have internal procedures to log in and investigate any alerts. However, there is no ongoing maintenance required after the initial installation.

Setting up Auvik is smoothest when your network devices are already configured for SNMP. If you're unsure about your equipment's SNMP settings or lack a configuration altogether, take some time to familiarize yourself with your devices before proceeding. Having your device credentials readily available will also expedite the process. As long as both SNMP logging and credentials are prepared, Auvik deployment becomes a breeze. However, investing a few minutes to learn the Auvik interface beforehand will pay off in the long run. A grasp of the interface will make Auvik exceptionally user-friendly and position it as a powerful and functional solution for your needs.

Auvik is primarily for monitoring network devices to see which ones have gone down. Another use case is tracking bandwidth utilization on the interfaces.

Auvik has improved visibility across our entire network. We don't want to wait until a user calls to tell us a switch is down. Auvik enables us to be proactive, not reactive. We realized the benefits almost instantaneously. 

The solution speeds up our resolution time. When we're troubleshooting, it's easier to see if a device is down or the utilization is too high. That is helpful. It makes the whole process faster. If I didn't have this solution, I would only see whether the network was up or down. 

I couldn't, for example, see that the bandwidth utilization is 100 percent. Auvik sends notifications when the bandwidth utilization passes 80-85 percent. We get an alert telling us that it's something we should look into. Otherwise, I would need to rely on customers and application owners complaining that sessions are dropping. 

I appreciate Auvik's traffic insights. The network map provides solid visibility in real time.

Some things about the interface were a little hard to set up, and it was difficult to figure out where to find information. The Auvik team did a great job helping us get started. If I had to figure it out by myself, I would have probably gotten frustrated. You need to go on the device first to enable it. If you don't, then traffic insights won't start working. It's pretty intuitive for most stuff, but some things are tricky if you don't have someone tell you how it works. 

I have used Auvik for roughly a year.

I rate Auvik eight out of 10 overall. 

Auvik is easy to scale. It covers thousands of servers. 

I rate Auvik support nine out of 10. I can't complain. They solved my problem quickly. 

Positive

Setting up Auvik was pretty easy. It was a little tricky to get some of the things set up correctly and working, but it was fairly straightforward overall. Deployment took about a month or two because we have more than a thousand locations.

We did it in-house with Auvik's help. They assigned a team to us, and they did a great job. When we had questions or issues and needed help, they assisted us almost immediately. Four departments were involved. After deployment, Auvik doesn't require much maintenance on our end unless there are significant changes to our environment. 

My boss makes the purchasing decisions, but we're happy with Auvik's overall pricing. We had some issues with the licensing. You need to pay for premium to use NetFlow, and we had a problem with them counting the same device multiple times for licensing purposes. It was a little frustrating because the Auvik database in the background didn't see it as a single device even though it came from the same critical hardware and only had one serial number. However, it was in different groups, so it was counted two or three times. It took a while to work with the accounting team to get that sorted.

We looked at a few different solutions. We went with Auvik because it was the best fit for our requirements, security standards, and budget. The security department didn't approve some of the alternatives.

I rate Auvik eight out of 10 overall. We had a few hiccups here and there that we couldn't fix easily without help. With Auvik's assistance, we got everything fixed.