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IBM Tivoli NetCool vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Tivoli NetCool
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (11th)
SolarWinds Network Configur...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (13th), Network Automation (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Tivoli NetCool is designed for Network Management Applications and holds a mindshare of 3.5%, up 2.0% compared to last year.
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Configuration Management, holds 3.0% mindshare, up 1.4% since last year.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Tivoli NetCool3.5%
Cisco DNA Center9.4%
OpenText Network Node Manager5.5%
Other81.6%
Network Management Applications
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager3.0%
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform10.5%
Microsoft Configuration Manager7.8%
Other78.7%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Monitoring Engineer at Commerzbank
Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed
There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict. And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly. Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.
AB
MD at Thembanet
Flexibility and reliability enable effective network monitoring with integrations and compliance reporting
The flexibility and reliability of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager are particularly valuable. It allows for a significant amount of integrations, including with collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams and Telegram, as well as ServiceNow and Microsoft BI. The solution facilitates compliance reporting through an NCM module, effectively generating out-of-the-box reports on software vulnerabilities and outdated software versions. Additionally, the real-time change detection feature significantly reduces the time to resolve issues by allowing alerts to be tracked through to resolution. The use of templates helps in deploying configuration standards, preventing configuration errors.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It improves customer satisfaction, deploy-ability, adaptability, flexibility, scalability, and reduces cost of operation."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"It's very easy to use."
"The tool had many built-in automation capabilities."
"The solution is a complete package; it has various useful elements including inventory management and incident management packaged inside it, and anything is possible with Tivoli since it is quite a robust system that offers a lot of useful integration capabilities."
"It's very easy to use."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."
"The tool is useful for security purposes."
"Compared to other vendors, like NetBrain, managing the solution is easy; they made it very user-friendly."
"SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager can be used for backing up network device configuration, which helps you be more secure because when you have a system failure, you can get the information back."
"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."
"It's perfect for network configuration management, and it's easy to use."
"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."
"NCM has provided for the following benefits - Mainly to to with audit readiness on 3 fronts - regular configuration backups, configuration hardening and Vulnerability management."
"This solution has helped our organization by allowing us to store all the device configurations for the various network devices in NCM and making it easy for us to retrieve and look them over."
 

Cons

"The solution is too expensive."
"It was a bit expensive to purchase but the benefits outweigh all the cons by far."
"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release."
"IBM's technical support takes a long time to do root cause analysis, and we have to go through several levels of help before getting a solution."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."
"This is another one of those suites glued together from a myriad of acquisitions and it shows once you get under the hood."
"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."
"I would like to see more features in terms of wireless reporting and more historical information for client connectivity in SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."
"I will email them and I won't see the response for another two or three hours. I have to give them a call and it's a pain, it's a nightmare."
"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 privileged assessment in the next release."
"The integration with the network performance monitor wasn't complete as at the last time I used it."
"We do health checkups for the network devices. However, compared to NetBrain, the NCM health checkup is getting very bad."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
"The price of the product is too expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."
"Additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee are inevitable."
"You have a base license for 50 devices, and then you can add more licenses as you go."
"The pricing is good."
"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."
"The price of the solution is high compared to other solutions."
"Pricing is reasonable and competitive."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
6%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The main challenge is its licensing model, which is very complicated.
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool?
NetCool is the manager of managers in the stack. It basically combines the devices of the whole network. We are the mobile network operator, so we use it to assist us in cross-domain correlations a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager?
The licensing costs of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager are expensive, but considering its reliability, feature enhancements, and support, it is worthwhile.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager?
NCM could benefit from enhanced automation capabilities — for instance, enabling workflow-based configuration automation tasks. While regex and command-line scripting are available, they require sp...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager?
I work with SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager ( /products/solarwinds-network-configuration-manager-reviews ) as a significant part of our operations. Our primary use case involves handling c...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool
SolarWinds NCM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
United Lincolnshire Hospitals, Air Rarotonga, NetSuite, Thai AirAsia, REA Group, 335th Signal Command, Agilisys, Marine Expeditionary Force
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli NetCool vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2023.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.