Fortra's Intermapper vs NETSCOUT vSTREAM comparison

"What is really cool about HelpSystems InterMapper is that because of its SNMP base, you can integrate all different makes and models on the same map. You, of course, can have more than one map, but you have an option to have visibility into the entire network from one centralized system. You can monitor IPs, routers, radios, DC power plants, and UPS. You can do it all from one network management and monitoring solution. That's what really makes HelpSystems Intermapper great. Another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper is that you can really bundle different probes under one device. You can have a bundled device. You can monitor the physical status of a host based on the IP availability. You can also monitor services and actually see if anything happens. You can quickly determine whether it is the application layer, host layer, or network layer. HelpSystems Intermapper gives such a unique representation of a network. Ever since we started using HelpSystems InterMapper, we don't have to document everything in a detailed format and store it somewhere. Right now, it is really a combination of network topology, network monitoring, and network analyzing. So, in my opinion, it is awesome. When you have your SNMP topology defined, you don't require a dedicated NMS engineer to manage your system, which is another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper. I see how our operators get so excited by having the ability to map a device or interface and connect interfaces together. HelpSystems InterMapper is also very operator friendly; not just user friendly, but also operator friendly. This is a unique feature, and it works really great."

"The solution has a couple of features which are really interesting; it's not a fancy or expensive solution but we wanted to have a cost effective one and it's doing its job pretty well."

"Put Intermapper in as your base to start from, hands-down."

"The most valuable features are its: log history, real-time monitoring capabilities, accuracy - the number of false positives is very low, and the mapping features."

"It's a nice graphical interface, a nice map, that relates Layer 1 to Layer 3, virtually instantly, to the Helpdesk support staff. It provides a default place to get critical information so we can deploy our staff."

"Right now, it is really a combination of network topology, network monitoring, and network analyzing, so, in my opinion, it is awesome."

"It's all today portal-based which is a good feature for us."

"The graphical alerting with the ability to obtain a quick overview of a monitored device is my favorite feature."

"Sometimes it took a month to troubleshoot something that we can now do within days."

"vSTREAM gives us better visibility and reporting about our network infrastructure, allowing for cost-optimization."

"The generation of KPI-like information that feeds to the nGeniusONE (management) server is the most valuable feature."

"vSTREAM gives us better visibility and reporting about our network infrastructure, allowing for cost-optimization."

"One of the valuable features is the packet decoding."

"They can do a better job with SLA reporting. It does some basic reporting, but it really doesn't offer the ability to monitor devices by groups, customers, or carrier to give an overall health performance of specifically-defined environments. That's where HelpSystems Intermapper could have done a better job. I would love to see advanced SLA monitoring and reporting in this solution. They already have a lot of ingredients. They already have SNMP polling. It is really about what people are looking for from SLA monitoring, especially someone who looks at the network topology. You want to see your endpoints. You want to see half of your endpoints by simply analyzing ICMP or SNMP-based availability of your endpoints. Having an ability to define your group and how you bring devices into your group would be a huge benefit."

"I have seen instances where Intermapper does not seem to recover from network changes."

"I'd love to see more of the network management side of it coming back into it. If we were able to run scripts to bounce ports on switches, that would be great. It's asking a lot, but it's actually very doable because I do it through scripting into other products. If we could incorporate that directly into Intermapper, that would be fantastic."

"It's a smaller solution so tools are not as advanced as you would find in a larger solution"

"They can do a better job with SLA reporting. It does some basic reporting, but it really doesn't offer the ability to monitor devices by groups, customers, or carrier to give an overall health performance of specifically-defined environments."

"I'd love to see more of the network management side of it coming back into it."

"It's a smaller solution so tools are not as advanced as you would find in a larger solution"

"I would like for it to have a smaller footprint of the virtual appliance and better performance."

"The stability is okay, but sometimes we see that the memory on the server is not 100 percent correct and we need to stop and start the software to have it reallocated again."

"I would like to see improvements made to the user guide."

"I would like for it to have a smaller footprint of the virtual appliance and better performance."

"I would say that this is not a scalable solution."

"Room for improvement exists in filtering in the packet decode."

"Licensing is quite expensive."