SolarWinds NPM Reviews and Pricing

Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 15, 2012

Solid monitoring tool with lots of extra features and highly customizable

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is a powerful, scalable network monitoring tool. It has a vast range of features, and a large number of expansion plugins that can add functionality for almost any need.

Some of the main features of the Network Performance Monitor include:

Great UI – SolarWinds has consistently good UI design that makes it easy for administrators to manage the network. Customizable dashboards make it easy to view status of key services. If a problem arises simply click and drill-down to view devices and their components like network interfaces, CPU, etc.

Monitoring – SNMP or WMI monitoring is SolarWinds’ big strength. But NPM also can function as a Syslog server (see also What is Syslog' - http://www.networkmanagementsoftware.com/what-is-syslog), and also adds native support for VMware, as well as ability to monitor VSANs. Unfortunately there’s no native support for Hyper-V yet.

Alerting – send messages to administrators when pre-specified thresholds are exceeded (e.g. low memory, high CPU) or if devices fail. Or, events could trigger a script to run.

Reporting – The NPM reporting center includes a large number of pre-canned reports that can be run ad-hoc, or scheduled to run automatically. It also has a custom report writer module that allows users to design their own reports. However I found the stock reports to be a little basic and would love to see this area of the product improved in the future.

SolarWinds has great integration across their entire product range. Nearly every plugin and additional product (think NetFlow monitoring, application monitoring, DDI management, etc) seamlessly integrates with the rest of their Orion suite, streamlining access and reporting.

Surprisingly, one of Solarwinds other strengths comes from their customers. Thwack is the name of the Solarwinds user community, a place where both users and Solarwinds staff go to exchange ideas and support – and also product extensions and customizations. Need to customize NPM for a specific need, add a custom report, or poll a custom device' Odds are good that someone else has already figured out a way to do it, and posted it on Thwack.

NPM is priced on a per-interface model, so that could add up quickly depending on your requirements. This is a little different from most of their competitors who price their software on a per-device basis. Make sure you do the math to understand the total cost of the product.

Overall, I’m consistently impressed with the power of NPM, ease of use, and quality of this product, and would have no trouble recommending it for most networks. SolarWinds offers fully-functioning, free 30-day trials of Network Performance Manager so you can test it out in your own environment.

Pros
SolarWinds Orion NPM has one of the best user interfaces in the business.
The NPM product does an all-round great job at automatically discovering network devices.
Support for other features: Syslog, virtualization, VSANs.
Thwack (SolarWinds User community) integration.

Cons
Some administration tasks can't be completed through the web UI and require the old windows application consoles.
Stock reporting feels limited - would like to see simpler ways of generating my own reports.
No native support for Hyper-V - though can poll with SNMP.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user110553Works at a recruiting/HR firm

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May 4, 2014

Awesome article. I have been searching for this type of valuable information for a long time now. Thanks for providing this info.

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it_user2871

Network Engineer at a university with 51-200 employees

Nov 28, 2012

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Solarwinds network performance monitor adds flexibility and ease of management. It monitors network devices and their states.

Valuable Features:

Why do I recommend this product? As compared with other products we found Solarwinds to be more robust and includes more powerful functions including: -Scheduled scan of the network automatically discovers network devices and monitors the IP of the device, the name, machine type and polling method. -Support multiple vendors so it will support lots of devices to be scanned. -Mobile view for IPHONE, BLACKBERRY and ANDROID -Microsoft active directory integration For the above reasons our company has chosen it instead of Angry IP Scanner or solar winds engineering toolset.

Room for Improvement:

-New, web-based interface lacks some features of traditional GUI. -Increases the processor load if it operated for a period of time. Solarwinds is a strong company in the network monitoring, management and configuration market -- it has a lot of products and one of the most famous is solarwinds TFTP server. Solarwinds engineering toolset is a set of products that include all monitoring and management network programs combined in one software package. Solarwinds network performance monitor is a strong product that combines management (SNMP), monitoring (SYSLOG) and configuration of routers and switches. It is also very effective to analyze the link bandwidth and network device performance such as CPU utilization and memory.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user3876Database Manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees

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Feb 12, 2013

Can we use network performance monitor for monitoring OSI layers?

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it_user1125

Network Engineer at a retailer with 51-200 employees

Jul 12, 2012

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The most efficient Network Performance Monitor with its added characteristics like sniffing, alerting system, and fault discovery.

Valuable Features:

• Simplicity of Use, instinctive, lots of attributes, simple to Install and keep, economical, and makes network management easier. • Sturdy network error and accessibility management. • Well established SNMP based network performance check, which allows for adding wireless, Voice over Internet Protocols, and Net Flow checking support as required. It also offers simple and configurable custom attentive and reports. • Network Performance Monitor can also receive Syslog output and SNMP traps for fault discovery and alerting. • Alerting system of Network Performance Monitor is strong, supple, and comparatively simple. • The product has module based pricing, meaning that you only have to purchase the required features.

Room for Improvement:

• Bulk Node attach is chaos • TCP Service Monitoring • Unable to perform stop or edit for several events • Slightly costly • Latest web based interface does not have some characteristics of the traditional Graphic User Interface. • I am having a problem with putting up a reliance structure.

Other Advice:

The monitoring system of Orion is powerful and has become a positive feature in the company. Latest versions need no extra training, further software installation, added licensing, and no other exertion. Updates are flawless and consistent. The application is highly self documented and sufficiently instinctive and competent, reasonably priced, and flexible. For basic enterprise network monitoring or a complete set of network diagnostic tools and monitors, Orion is the best option for its complete attribute set and simplicity of use.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user1143

Network Manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Jul 11, 2012

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Orion NPM is a great real time network activity & performance tracking utility. Web interface is great, but needs minor improvements

Valuable Features:

Orion NPM is a mature and reasonably priced product. It is easy to deploy and configure, and has an excellent user and network mapping interface.

Room for Improvement:

Resource utilization is heavy so you need to analyze the server before using it for multiple roles. We are unable to use web console to configure new alerts.

Other Advice:

SolarWinds Orion NPM tracks bottlenecks in your network infrastructure and lets you troubleshoot them before a disaster happens. It uses protocols and tools like ICMP, SNMP, Cisco NetFlow, and Syslog to provide you with the alerts and statistics you need to run your network at optimal performance and speed. The product is easy to deploy on top of an IIS and .Net framework. It also has excellent built-in thresholds and alerts available to help you get started, yet provides the option to create custom thresholds and alerts as required by your specific network and infrastructure requirements. A comprehensive web interface is available to identify inconsistencies and trouble spots in your network.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user1023

Director of IT at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Jun 28, 2012

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Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is the SolarWinds Orion entry in the monitoring and alerting systems market.

Valuable Features:

- Powerful network fault & availability management. - Mature SNMP-based network performance monitor; lets you add wireless, VoIP, and NetFlow monitoring support as needed; provides easily configurable custom alerts and reports. - NPM can also receive Syslog output and SNMP traps for error detection and alerting. - NPM’s alerting system is powerful, flexible, and relatively easy to use. - The product features modular pricing, so you can buy only the features you need.

Room for Improvement:

- New, web-based interface lacks some features of traditional GUI. - One of the problems I've had in the past, is building out a dependency structure.

Other Advice:

NPM uses Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) ping requests to gather basic connectivity and response-time information. It allows network devices that support this, to gather additional information, by using SNMP queries and Cisco IOS NetFlow. NPM can also receive Syslog output and SNMP traps for error detection and alerting. Add-on modules let Orion NPM monitor NetFlow devices, wireless appliances, and VoIP networks and also let NPM monitor more devices as your network grows. Whether you want basic enterprise network monitoring or a full suite of network diagnostic tools and monitors, I recommend Orion 9 for its full feature set and ease of use.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user714

Network Engineer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

May 29, 2012

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We moved from nGenius to Orion NPM about 3 years ago and are very happy with the performance, features, and pricing

Valuable Features:

We moved from nGenius to Orion NPM about 3 years ago and are very happy with the performance, features, and pricing, The company is very pro-active, as in adding additional features and being responsive to customer requests.

Room for Improvement:

1. The constant flow of new features and re-designing of the product sometimes presents bugs that were not identified. 2. Most of the primary support people in Austin do a good job, but they also have outsourced support that also responds to tickets .. and they can be very frustrating to deal with.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

sandeepSenior Manager of Network at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Sep 13, 2013

Hi nicodiablo,

What additional features does Orion NPM offer over the GNU NMS tools like Nagios Core and how is the pricing of Orion NPM compared with other NMS tools.

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it_user555

Network Engineer at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Apr 29, 2012

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Quick to get up and running, but not as granular out-of-the-box as you would expect.

Valuable Features:

Quick to launch. No agents required. Many configuration options.

Room for Improvement:

Network discovery missed many devices. Network mapping & topology was not accurate and does not update automatically. Alerts can not be configured differently for different device categories (e.g., alert comms guys about routers; network people about switches, etc.). While Orion offers many options, many features must be purchased as separate modules.

Other Advice:

It has now been about 3 weeks since we launched the Orion Network Performance Monitor and Netflow Traffic Analyzer. We chose this product based on colleague recommendations.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.