IBM Tivoli NetCool vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

"The tool is much easier to manage than running scripts and figuring out how many endpoints have been exceeded."

"NetCool has a huge database that can collect and process about one million alarms a day."

"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."

"It improves customer satisfaction, deploy-ability, adaptability, flexibility, scalability, and reduces cost of operation."

"The solution has very good integration capabilities."

"Full featured - event/fault management, performance management, topology map, discovery, RCA, event enrichment, Proviso will chart data from almost any source with a variety of aggregation options."

"The feature I have found most valuable with NetCool is how it collaborates all the alarms, and then it does a predictive analysis, providing a consolidated alarm view and management."

"The Netcool solution is great, and it's very easy to use."

"Configuration pushing, upgrade capabilities, job backup, configuration backup, and real-time configuration change monitoring are highly beneficial features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."

"Its main functionality is highly beneficial as it centralizes the management of configuration items across the network."

"Compared to other vendors, like NetBrain, managing the solution is easy. They made it very user-friendly."

"NCM has provided for the following benefits - Mainly to to with audit readiness on 3 fronts - regular configuration backups, configuration hardening and Vulnerability management."

"It's a helpful tool and I really like it."

"SolarWinds NCM provides updates on the status of your network infrastructure. If any issues arise, such as a link failure or a device going offline, you will receive notifications and alerts. Additionally, if someone unplugs a cable, SolarWinds NCM will detect it. It also features a Topology Mapper that displays the connectivity of your network devices, giving you a visual representation of the network's structure. With SolarWinds NCM, you have a clear understanding of what's happening within your network and can generate comprehensive reports."

"The most valuable Real-time fault detection is beneficial as it enables the identification of changes made to a device's configuration through the SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. This makes it easy to pinpoint which configurations were added or removed, potentially causing network issues. Such changes are saved in logs for future reference."

"The tool is useful for security purposes."

"From a customer perspective, it is quite an expensive solution to initially implement and then support."

"This is another one of those suites glued together from a myriad of acquisitions and it shows once you get under the hood."

"Customization and integration that you need to do to make the product fit your needs is very complex. It is not a product that somebody could easily pick up without any prior training or experience."

"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."

"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."

"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."

"Tivoli NetCool's has medium scalability - there are some problems with its replications not being mature."

"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release. IBM develops new features for Power BI or Cognos Analytics, which is good. As of now, we use Cognos Analytics, we are not using Power BI. They have the Insight concept but we don't like that."

"The only thing that requires some experience, and training doesn't fix, is how to set up your custom policy-based reports to check compliance."

"When it comes to the way of managing the network devices, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager should provide the simplest way that devices can relate to the server. For example, when we want to get the devices on board, we go by SSH to make the SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager create the connectivity with the device. After that, we pull the configuration. It would be helpful if they could combine both so that everything will be done in one step."

"The network logs could be improved. When the error logs come across with those false positive alarms in the error logs."

"When we run the SolarWinds NCM jobs at the cellular line, it runs in the morning. They're just not finishing. We're getting false processing."

"Our experience has shown that most of the problems we've had with SolarWinds NCM are related to software issues."

"The integration with the network performance monitor wasn't complete as at the last time I used it."

"On NCM, reporting could be a bit better. It's completely become just one report. When I try to create a custom report, the solution just commits old server data."

"We had issues with the FailOver Engine module installation, due to the resources of each SolarWinds server."

"The price of the product is too expensive."

"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."

"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"In Africa, the cost is a major factor in decision-making for many companies. As a result, some companies may choose cheaper solutions, even if they are open-source, over more expensive ones, such as SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. However, as an engineer, I believe that the functionalities and services offered by SolarWinds justify the cost. Nonetheless, many companies in Africa may still view the prices as unaffordable."

"There is a license needed to use SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."

"I have a yearly subscription."

"Available at a moderate price"

"We have to pay additionally for its support and maintenance."

"The price of the solution is high compared to other solutions."

"Pricing is reasonable and competitive."

"The pricing is good."