SolarWinds NPM Reviews

We use this solution for network node monitoring and alerting.

This solution has scaled as we have grown.

It is very extensible with 'SWQL' and APIs to where we are beginning to integrate it with network automation.

This solution has a very large and active user community.

This solution would benefit from expanding on the capabilities within the API.

Network automation is a hot topic now, and SolarWinds needs to be focused on developing the product with that in mind.

We are a larger and dispersed company so there are many, many network nodes monitored by NPM. It has been able to expand and scale to manage that well.

We use this solution to monitor workstations and to remotely perform workstation software upgrades.

This solution has improved our organization because it saves time, in that I do not need to visit every workstation in order to update it. I can do everything remotely, including running PowerShell scripts or performing standard updates. I can also help customers remotely.

The most valuable feature is remote access and the fact that there are multiple options to choose from. These include VNC (Virtual Network Computing), RPC (Remote Procedure Call), and Splashtop.

This pricing for this solution needs to be better.

I would like to see integration with antivirus or other security endpoint solutions. There are only one or two solutions that they integrate with.

Sometimes, the responsiveness is slow, but overall the stability of this solution is good. 

We only have between one hundred and one hundred and fifty nodes, so it is difficult to judge the scalability of this solution based on that.

We have two people in the company who are responsible for this solution, and it is used on a daily basis.

We do not plan to increase its usage because we do not expect to increase the number of workstations or network devices.

Technical support is a paid service for this solution.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

The initial setup for this solution is pretty straightforward.

It took about a week to set up everything. First, we started with all of the networking devices and then we moved on to the workstations and servers.

I handled the implementation myself.

The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them.

My advice to anyone who is implementing this solution is to be well prepared. You need to know your network infrastructure before you start implementing. Otherwise, it will take longer than necessary to set up.

This product does what it is meant to do, although it takes ample time to get what we want. I would say that whatever is indicated in the product description, it does well.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We use this solution for infrastructure monitoring, including servers and network devices.

This has helped us to monitor the availability of our routers, switches, servers, and virtual environments. We also use it to monitor our services. When a critical service goes down, SolarWinds will send us an email alert. It also supplies us with information that makes it easier for us to find the root cause.

The most valuable feature is the notification that we get, via email, when a device in our network goes down.

The user should be able to customize the dashboard to their own requirements. Right now, we have to design separate dashboards for visualization. For example, there is one for the environment and another for the infrastructure. I would like to design a single dashboard that contains my visualized environment, my physical environment, my services, and my processes. This would make the job of monitoring easier.

Application Performance Monitoring should be included in this solution.

The reporting is in need of improvement.

The stability is very nice. This is a good solution, compared to other monitoring solutions.

We have had no issues with respect to scalability. As we get more devices, routers, and servers, we simply add them to SolarWinds for monitoring.

There are nine people that manage this solution and receive email alerts. We have six people with read-only access in our NOC department, and there is also an admin console that the remaining three people are managing.

There are a lot of guides online, and whenever we have issues we consult them. Most of the guides are "do it yourself", and we have not encountered any problem that has necessitated contacting technical support.

Prior to this solution, we were using HP NNM, the Network Node Manager. With HP the monitoring was in silos, whereas SolarWinds gives us a unified dashboard. This is the reason that we switched.

The initial setup for this solution is very straightforward.

The time required for deployment depends on the number of devices that you want to monitor. For example, if you want to monitor a hundred devices then I think that it will take three or four days.

In our environment, we are monitoring more than four hundred servers and approximately two hundred network devices. Our deployment took about three weeks to complete.

Two or three staff are suitable for deployment.

We handled the implementation in-house.

We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap.

In addition to this solution, we evaluated SCOM. We found that SolarWinds is better.

SolarWinds is a great solution, and I think that for anybody looking for a nice infrastructure monitoring tool, this solution will do the job.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I am working at a company which is an Internet service provider (ISP). So, I'm monitoring the traffic on some nodes, like switches, routers, firewall, the traffic, and the CPU.

I am using the latest version, which I just downloaded from their site.

There is a customization feature, but it is not a good feature. While it's somewhat good, it is too complicated.

The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable.

It is stable.

It does not take much staff to maintain.

It is scalable, but my network is not that big. We have just a few nodes.

For technical support, we are dealing with someone in Ireland. I have not always received responses to my inquiries.

I previously used PRTG, but PRTG is now forbidden in Libya. So, we switched to using SolarWinds and ManageEngine OpManager.

The set up was very easy. We didn't have any problems with the setup. The deployment took less than an hour.

We used a SolarWinds reseller for the deployment in Libya. We found them on the SolarWinds website.

The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it.

PRTG is easier to use, but SolarWinds is more customizable. SolarWinds also has more features, but they are complicated to use.

We are just trying the demo. I am not going to recommend this to my company because PRTG is much easier. We're looking for something that is very easy to export the reports from the dashboard. SolarWinds is sort of complicated.

If you are looking for something which is very customizable for the customization of your network, then you should go with SolarWinds. However, overall, the customization feature is also a disadvantage because it can be very complicated.

The primary use case is to to know what nodes or devices are up or down in our environment. I can also provide a performance report, if needed to anyone who asks, by pulling it out from SolarWinds NPM. We have it integrated with other SolarWinds products, like NDM.

I have been using the solution for the last seven years. The company has been using the solution for over nine years now.

This solution provides us with proactive reports.

We use it to understand our historical reports, since we keep these reports for 365 days per our compliance requirements. We can proactively fix historical issues, so we won't face those problems in future.

At this moment, we are facing some problem with Zoom and our web content sync. We are having trouble with the quality of our user experience. A lot of users are reporting that their calls and screen shares are getting disconnected, and it is happening very frequently. Therefore, I would like to monitor the Zoom application from SolarWinds NPM. Unfortunately, it doesn't have this capability right now, and I had to find another application for this.

We would like a single application from SolarWinds that incorporates all their products.

It is not that stable. As a Windows software, I have seen issues with SolarWinds. While it is very flexible, and you can do lots of things with the SolarWinds, the down side is that the product can be unusable. Also, sometimes, the performance is slow. In comparison, I have tested some Unix-based applications, which are very quick. However, SolarWinds is Windows-based, so we are seeing a lot of performance issues.

The scalability is good.

A number of times, I have contacted SolarWinds technical support. Depending the issue, sometimes they will just ask me for the diagnostic. However, if we call support for critical issues, we expect immediate solutions. However, sometimes in these cases, they still just ask us for the diagnostic report and tell us that they'll get back to us within 12 to 24 hours. But, if we are in the critical state, we need to answer to our management about what is happening. We cannot wait 24 hours. That is too much time for us. There are times that they do resolve issues quickly. Therefore, sometimes they are good, and sometimes they are bad.

We used to be on NetIQ, but were scaling very fast. This product was very scalable and flexible, which is why we went for it.

The initial setup was straightforward, not complex.

The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now.

We are currently exploring New Relic as an alternative product. The Zoom monitoring issue is one of the reasons that we are looking at New Relic and willing to pay their higher price.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor are support and flexibility.

Server and network monitoring.

• Single pane for monitoring
• Scalable
• Creates new business opportunities.
  

Monitoring.

More MIBs.

We use NPM to monitor our enterprise for up/down status on network devices.

We consolidated five different products into a series of applications which helps us monitor our production network.

Dashboards are very useful.

SolarWinds should have integrations back into products like ExtraHop, VIAVI, Riverbed, and NETSCOUT.

We monitor five firewalls and five switch stacks in five offices. We also monitor around 30 servers that are both physical and virtual. Most of them run Windows Server 2016.

The data available per device is particularly valuable when trying to determine what caused a problem.

• Performance history is the most valuable feature, especially when tracking down a problem. 
• Root cause analysis is very valuable to us.
  

Stability is an issue. We have installed SolarWinds (Server 2016) on a dedicated physical server and as a virtual machine in a brand new Hyper-V environment with brand new servers. We only monitor five firewalls and 30 servers. In both installation scenarios, SolarWinds randomly starts reporting falsely that devices are down. We have to bounce the server, and then it behaves for a while. SolarWinds support was no help. So, we are looking for a replacement.