SolarWinds NPM Reviews

We use SolarWinds for monitoring internet bandwidth, both outbound and inbound. We also use it to check out network tools like switches, routers, and other things including user monitoring for RAM and CPU. We typically get a report on the internet interface about, for example, HTTP traffic and other software traffic. 

The solution is easy to use. It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical.

It's quite stable and reliable. 

The reports are excellent. They give good graphical information. It gives a lot of great details about everything that's going on in my network and it's easy to read and understand due to its visual nature.

The scaling is quite good.

It's a very easy solution to set up.

If SolarWinds integrated with other solutions, for example, something like in a SIEM, security operations system, it would be more useful for customers. It would be ideal if they could integrate more with security solutions down the line. 

There isn't support available to us as they don't offer support in our country.

I've been using the solution for more than five years at this point.

The stability and reliability of the solution are very good. It's got more stability than other software options. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. The performance is good.

The solution can scale well. It's not a problem if a company wants to expand it.

Currently, we have more than 50 users on the solution. 

Unfortunately, in our country, we do not have access to official support channels. We need to find answers online. It would be ideal if they could establish agents in the country that can help with setup and questions. It would be good for customers like us and good for SolarWinds. 

We did not use a different solution previous to SolarWinds. 

The implementation process is quite simple and straightforward. In fact, it's easier than a lot of other solutions. I wouldn't describe the process as difficult. 

The deployment is fast. It likely didn't take more than ten minutes or so. 

We have a technical team of about five or six people that are able to handle deployment and maintenance tasks. Two of those team embers are managers. 

We didn't need any assistance with the implementation process. We did not use any integrators or consultants. We did it ourselves. 

You do need to pay for a license in order to use it. We have a license paid for two years. 

I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We're pretty happy with it overall. The downside is that there is no official support available in my country. 

The most valuable features are language support and technical support.

An area for improvement would be the use of modular licenses, which are not practical for big clients.

I have been using this solution for seven years.

The initial setup varies but can be quite complex.

This product is priced quite highly. Its licenses are available yearly, and the calculation of costs is quite complex.

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten.

SolarWinds NPM is used to monitor network components and solutions.

We used it to monitor downtime and latency between applications, as well as the latency between services.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the monitoring capabilities.

If they did some type of synthetic monitoring, it would have been better.

I have been working with SolarWinds NPM for 10 years.

We are working on the most up-to-date version.

SolarWinds NPM is a stable product.

You could question the scalability. It could be improved.

The technicals support is fair. I would rate them a three out of five.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

I believe that we pay approximately $80,000 per year.

There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on.

I would suggest putting in a larger VM infrastructure than they ask for because, if you don't, it'll probably be a little slow.

I would rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

This solution provides one standardized platform for network device monitoring.

This solution allows us to monitor physical and virtual devices and applications.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the alerts.

It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution.

We have been using this solution for more than ten years.

It is hard to identify a single feature for each product as the three products function as a chorus to help me manage our IT throughout the enterprise. Nonetheless, here are the valuable features of each product.

NPM 12.0

The most helpful feature with in NPM is the NetPath Services. Having the ability to view the end-to-end view of the path for accuracy and availability provides me with the data to visualize an issue in the network.

NCM 7.5

With NCM, I am able to track the accuracy and changes to my networking devices to make sure configuration integrity is adhered to.

SAM 6.3

With the SAM application, the Application Health Overview feature lets me know that my production traffic is running as expected.

Having all 3 products tied together gives me the data I need to accurately pinpoint a problem within moments, instead of collating data from various applications and servers. The difference is five minutes with SolarWinds, compared to two hours without SolarWinds.

These three products have provided us with the information we need through a single interface to identify issues from server to network to remote site. They provide us with the intel we need to make better decisions on improving our network while reducing costs through under-utilized paths.

I would like to see more information on design, customization from the community, and a better certification department.

I have been using SolarWinds products since 2000.

Once I installed it as a high performance server, there were no stability issues.

Once I got my pollers deployed to different areas of the globe, the system functioned better.

Technical support is good, but I got faster answers from the community pages.

The SolarWinds setup is wizard based and walks you through each step. It will identify shortcomings with your system resources, but it could use a little more work. It would be helpful if the system would identify and configure based on a solution type, such as large (with pollers), medium (different buildings), or small campus.

Start with the three products and your licensing needs, and then increase capacity as you grow.

I would suggest the following:

1. Install the product with default settings
2. Build the database
3. Reinstall based on the needs and requirements of your deployment

The most valuable features are:

• The new F5 Load Balancer dashboard and NetPath.
• The flexibility of the product to meet any organization’s needs, instead of forcing the organization to bend to the limitations of the product.

The most common feedback I receive as a consultant is how the product ultimately finds issues and bottlenecks in the enterprise that the engineers were previously unaware existed. Also, issue resolution speed is always improving!

Two or three of the core functions are still nested in Win32 apps on the server; but it seems that the foundation was laid in the current website for porting those functions over in the near future.

I have used this solution for about eight years.

We have only very rarely experienced any stability issues; and hotfixes are generally made available in a timely fashion.

I have worked with some of the largest SolarWinds deployments in the world. It seems that we are always able to push the product far enough to cover the needs of any organization.

Technical support is superb. Not only is the actual technical support very knowledgeable, but the user community at www.Thwack.com is the best online community that I have ever been a part of.

I have used several competing solutions over the years and always come back to SolarWinds’ superiority in function, flexibility, support, and price.

You can quite literally download the installer, run through it, discover your network to add devices, and be “live monitoring” within one hour. Obviously, there are other factors in a complex environment to consider, such as scalability; but the installation of all SolarWinds core modules is extremely straightforward.

I always advise anyone who is new to the suite to run a free 30-day demo in their environment; and set it up as they would for production. At that point, you will have a solid idea about your license size requirements. When you make the purchase, you can apply the license to your demo with no downtime or loss in man-hours from the initial setup.

I evaluated SolarWinds Network Performance Manager and compared it to WhatsUp Gold, PRTG, OpenNMS, InterMapper, ManageEngine, LanSweeper, Cacti, and FogLight.

• Download a demo.
• Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries and customize the product according to your needs.
• Use the Thwack community!

The features I find most valuable are--

• Reliability
• Security
• High-tech development
• Collateral
• Essentially they deliver what they promise for the end-user

We use it to create guides for end-users. We install SolarWinds on cloned virtual machines and offer free access to partners of my company.

I've used it for four years.

I had a customer who had a problem adding to a database for DAP-end integration with Orion. Simple details were needed to resolve with correct passwords and the release of ports on a firewall. Also, a deployment problem was failing in some versions of Windows and Meso. After all updates were performed, the Orion installation package did not work. We restarted it and worked.

I have no problems with the support of SolarWinds. When my client has a problem, our support always uses the documentation immediately. As we also have a lot of training and always test a lot of tools in our environment, when the client asks for something we know exactly where to go. Our SLA is five minutes for the first call, and to solve problems one-and-a-half hours.

We did, and we switched because the interface is more user friendly and easier to configure.

It's very simple. Anyone can install and configure SolarWinds with a step-by-step guide, even if that person is a layman when it comes to IT.

We used a vendor team.

It's the best of platform for IT management. It shows statistical data in a very detailed manner, where the user can customize the entire platform and input any information from the database through a fully-customized report.

It gives us an insight on what we need to monitor on our network. We get granulated data on where issues are occurring in regards to traffic latency and bandwidth utilization. Also we can monitor the health and functionality of our nodes on the MPLS.

Both the NPM and the NTA modules. We are able to track down information in regards what kind of traffic is being generated on our network and also help us determine what applications we can allow and what not to allow.

We were able to determine if end users were using the network to do work related stuff or otherwise and reduce bandwidth hogging for non-business related activities on the network.

So far I am satisfied with the result but I am still learning how it works.

One year

No it was very straight forward. You have understand the concept of networking to apply the tool. If you do then implementing it is easy. There were some version releases that had stability issues but the support team was very good at letting us know what we needed to do to fix the issues.

There were some version releases that had stability issues but the support team was very good at letting us know what we needed to do to fix the issues.

Scalability was not a problem. We only monitor nodes that matter most on the environment. This makes managing the environment easier. Less is more`

They have always been helpful when we needed support I have no complaint at all.

I would rate it at an 8 out of 10

We used network instruments. For what we were trying to accomplish it was not just doing it to the level we needed and it was not very straight forward to use either.

The initial set up was very straight forward. I think complication comes with differences in environment.

It was an in house implementation and I did it myself.

ROI on this has been fantastic. It was supposed to be a very expensive investment. We got a good deal and the product did not disappoint it has definitely help us dodge several bullets on several occasions.

Product including support was about $6000 but I would say for what its able to help us do its more than that.

Yes I was able to go through a whole bunch of options such as managed engine but I was not very impressed with the licensing scheme. Also most products were SAAS and we wanted independence and ownership over the product.

I would say understand your environment and what you want to see. Also know what you deem important to your business and policies that guide your network usage. Not everyone one would find this particular product to their liking but for those who want to get to the granular level of assessment this is definitely a product to look at.

Also they have now added a feature where the traditional style of setting up monitoring reports is no longer necessary. Initially you had to create complex alerting to know what happened at a particular time. Now you just have to filter by date and time and you can choose what network protocols to filter by to see what happened at a particular point and time in real time stats.