IBM Tivoli NetCool vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

"The scalability of monitoring, the breadth of supported network components, the scale of the number of monitoring events, and the flexibility in customization make this a well-rounded product."

"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."

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

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

"The tool had many built-in automation capabilities."

"It's very easy to use."

"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."

"It's very easy to use."

"The scanning features have proven to be highly valuable, particularly due to the comprehensive information they provide."

"I use it for monitoring the entire network for the company. We oversee nodes down, we oversee devices heading up to crossing the threshold for CPU usage. We oversee power so power backups on the switches, we oversee if they're down or if they're failing. We oversee any node down or any router from any vendor."

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

"It allows us to manage backups in big companies. It is also useful in managing the configuration changes."

"The solution's view is very nice, and they have a great customized dashboard."

"The feature that I really enjoy is the ability to script changes across all of your devices."

"The configuration compliance aspect of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager allows for easy comparison of configuration settings across branches, ensuring adherence to security guidelines and best practices. Automation capabilities have greatly impacted workflows, enabling tasks such as configuration backups, template deployment, and firmware upgrades to be automated, thereby streamlining processes and saving time. Compliance reporting features provide valuable insights into network compliance, offering pre-built security audit reports and customizable options to meet specific requirements."

"The most valuable features the solution offers are compliance, reliability, and information about reliability."

"Tivoli NetCool is based on a Linux platform, it would be beneficial if they moved it to Windows because not everyone is acquainted with Linux."

"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 solution is too expensive."

"The solution is not user-friendly."

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

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

"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."

"Its customer service response could be faster."

"We want to be able to store it in a data warehouse format and integrate it with Google single sign-on."

"I would like to see more integration tools. Something like dialysis, for example."

"Improvements are needed in the automatic network mapping function."

"It would be great if they include a network service manager, network performance manager, or a privileged assessment in the next release."

"For each device, when you open the network performance monitor, it will give you all of the information about the device, but many of the natural configuration management features are not on that page."

"The interface of solar winds could be improved."

"The AI features do not work well."

"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."

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

"The price of the product is too expensive."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"There is a license for the use of this solution and it is priced well, there is a lot of value for the money."

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

"With a minimal bundle, we pay about $3000 a year in licensing costs. If you have multiple devices in your network, you must buy the bundle, which is 100% identical for your infrastructure. If you have 15 devices, you need 15 licenses, for example. That's one bundle. You don't pay for anything over and above that."

"Additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee are inevitable."

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

"Available at a moderate price"

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

"The pricing is good."