PeerSpot user
Information Security Engineer at a cloud provider with 51-200 employees
Real User
It offers dashboard customization and integrates with other tools to provide a single pane of glass.

What is most valuable?

  • Ease of use
  • Ease of training for others
  • Good reporting
  • Nice dashboard customization options
  • Good map building capabilities
  • Good integration with other SolarWinds tools to provide a “single pane of glass”
  • Great support
  • Great online community, “Thwack”

How has it helped my organization?

We were able to unify our entire company under one monitoring solution that works for everybody, saving a ton of time and significantly speeding up problem-resolution time.

What needs improvement?

  • More automation around node additions and management

With regard to this I am looking for a faster way to add nodes. Currently we deploy nodes in bulk into different environments for our clients and having the ability to have monitoring deploy equally fast would be helpful versus having to spend a significant amount of time manually adding each system. I did recently open a Feature Request for this HERE

  • Adding multi-tenancy into the product

We are a hosting provider and we give our clients access to Orion to see their nodes. Orion is not a multi-tenancy platform by design so I am continually challenged to provide clients access in a way that limits them to only see their stuff. In a more true multi-tenancy platform, it would be easy to choose what a client sees and what they don’t and not have to worry if there is a way to work around or break free of the limitations.

  • Providing more monitoring capabilities for public cloud such as Azure, AWS, etc.

We are a Hybrid Cloud service provider and we work very closely with Microsoft and Azure. Currently, I am able to monitor nodes in Azure just fine, but I don’t have a good way to monitor PaaS based services.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used it for about 10 years.

Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds NPM
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about SolarWinds NPM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There have been some versions that have had stability issues, but the current version seems pretty stable.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is fantastic.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used HPE OpenView, OpenNMS and Zenoss.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward; you can have it running in about an hour.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Compared to other solutions on the market, the pricing is very good. The licensing is a bit confusing, though.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated:

  • OpenNMS
  • ScienceLogic EM7
  • Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold
  • A few others that either no longer exist or were consumed by other companies

What other advice do I have?

Take advantage of their free, 30-day demo.

Definitely leverage the online community, “Thwack”.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Director of Operations at 802BR
Reseller
Top 10
Useful diagnostic, beneficial network search, and good support
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features in SolarWinds NPM are the network search and diagnostic tools."
  • "SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery."

What is our primary use case?

SolarWinds NPM is used for searching equipment in the network, troubleshooting the network, and mapping the networking.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features in SolarWinds NPM are the network search and diagnostic tools.

What needs improvement?

SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using SolarWinds NPM for approximately three months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

SolarWinds NPM is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of SolarWinds NPM is easy to do.

We have three or four users using this solution.

How are customer service and support?

The support is very good for SolarWinds NPM.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of SolarWinds NPM is easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend this solution to others.

I rate SolarWinds NPM a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds NPM
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about SolarWinds NPM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
BenjaminRafrafi - PeerSpot reviewer
System and Network Administrator at a educational organization with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 5
A network monitoring software with a useful tracking feature, but it could be more user-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected. This is very practical."
  • "The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."

What is our primary use case?

We use SolarWinds NPM for monitoring. We don't change anything, and we just look at it.

What is most valuable?

I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected. This is very practical.

What needs improvement?

The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have worked with SolarWinds NPM for two or three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

SolarWinds NPM is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution, but it costs a lot. As long as you pay, you can scale it as much as you like.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is quite efficient, but they have to be a little more responsive.

On a scale from one to five, I'll give them at least four.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was quite complex and took a while. You need an engineer to install the solution and the database and configure everything. We have only two people accessing and maintaining SolarWinds.

What about the implementation team?

We had a contractor implement this solution.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I did a proof of concept with ManageEngine. The functionalities are similar, but the ManageEngine interface is way more user-friendly.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SolarWinds NPM a seven.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
RajeshB - PeerSpot reviewer
Server and Network Monitoring Manager at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
User friendly console for the end user
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well."
  • "This product could improve by adding cloud monitoring. I want SolarWinds NPM to do much more integration, and have more involvement in cloud monitoring, like AWS or Google, or Azure. I feel like it requires lots of improvement for cloud monitoring in NPM."

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well.

What needs improvement?

This product could improve by adding cloud monitoring. I want SolarWinds NPM to do much more integration, and have more involvement in cloud monitoring, like AWS or Google, or Azure. I feel like it requires lots of improvement for cloud monitoring in NPM.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with this product for almost ten years.

How are customer service and support?

The support could be improved. Within the last two, three years, I would say the support has declined. It has degraded, but not that bad. We are still getting solutions, but sometimes, calls stay on hold. When we try to call the support team, it continues to ring on their side. About half of the time it gets connected very quickly, but the other half takes some time to connect. Sometimes I wait more than 10 minutes. It's not totally bad, as we are still getting support. Nowadays, we prefer to send emails to them, so whenever they have someone available, they can revert back to us and we can schedule a call with them.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is reasonable. In the last year we tried to look for different applications and those other applications are even more expensive. 

If someone wants to install this application, they need to be very specific what environment they want to monitor, whether they want to monitor in a hybrid environment or just cloud, or just on prem, because the setup is going to be quite different in all aspects. When it comes to installation, someone has to have a better understanding of what they're actually going to monitor, how many nodes they are going to monitor, how many network device they are going to monitor, etc. With respect to that, the licensing changes.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Executive IT Program Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Reliable monitoring with good reporting and good technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
  • "One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."

What is our primary use case?

My team uses SolarWinds to do some of the network monitoring. I look at the reports.

What needs improvement?

One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives.

False positives or positive falses are a concern because you want to be as accurate as possible and get them down to zero, which is what you want on your network. Once a week with the reports there, is always a false positive or vice versa where it's showing that it's up and really it's down.

We are looking at how we can overcome that issue. Is it a work issue, or does it come from the tool itself? It will show that something is down when it's up and every once in a while if something is down it shows that it is still up.

We would like to be able to pull information from the vendor's OEM. It would be helpful to have crosswalks or if it could have a running list that goes out of models, software, and it can pull out the end of life, or end of service life dates. Also to suggest the recommend current version to use, that way you can do the comparisons without having to do a manual search. That would be beneficial.

Similar to other tools, I would also like to see a graphical map of your network that highlight in green, red, or yellow, and if you see a specific device you can click on it and it will help you drill down on the details of that device.

There are other things that it should be able to do, such as when it comes to monitoring the infrastructure and my server, and there are issues developing like the circuits degrading or latency is increasing it should give you a notification to know what is going on, rather waiting for the device to go down which at that point it would be too late. You want to be able to do proactive monitoring and reaction.

We want to get to a monitoring level where if it is monitoring the server, the CPU, or the storage level you could have presets where it will identify and give you warnings to say that you are at 70% or 80% storage capacity. This would allow you to get ahead of it before you run out. 

It would be the same for the CPU utilization and knowing if it is running 20 or 30% premiums normally or is it running at 90 or 100% and you have to add CPUs.

It could let you know if you have other tools or applications that are running too hot or if they need to be changing out that tool or is it something else.

To have something in place where it can help us to do some analysis and be proactive would be helpful.

For how long have I used the solution?

I don't use this solution, I oversee a team who uses it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM. 

We had one problem, but it wasn't a stability issue, it was a hack that occurred earlier this year that affected everyone using SolarWinds. After that, it took a bit to get it stabilized to where it is now. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Our team that has worked with technical support hasn't had any complaints. It goes pretty well. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I am familiar with several tools.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

They will be putting NetScout on their network to look at some of the differences and to look at the pluses and minuses of each of the two tools.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate SolarWinds an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user216372 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
High level of flexibility. Most valuable feature is the level of customization it provides.
Pros and Cons
  • "From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization."
  • "Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers."

What is most valuable?

In my opinion, one of the most valuable features of this product is the level of customization. From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization.

How has it helped my organization?

It has helped to provide a user friendly interface for support to drill down and see where the issue lies and remediate issues quickly. We have other solutions that might have features NPM does not but the front end could look confusing to an inexperienced user. With NPM, we are able to fine-tune what the support accounts look like so users only see the things they need to do their jobs effectively.

What needs improvement?

Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers (which have no connection to the public internet). Also, if you add a new license and don’t remove the old one first, NPM will recognize only the expired one and ignore the new one, which prompts an additional call to support.

For how long have I used the solution?

Personally I have been actively using this product for a little over a year but our organization has been using NPM for many years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We had some issues with getting failover polling engines working properly and were forced to abandon the effort. So we’re currently backing up data to a warehouse database but we currently don’t have any redundancy with our polling engines.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

On the whole, NPM is a very stable product. Occasionally, we might have a poller that stops communicating with the mother ship but usually a little bit of basic troubleshooting is able to resolve the issue with minimal downtime.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is one of the strengths of NPM. As our infrastructure grows, NPM is able to grow organically to accommodate it. Scalability is as simple as spinning up another VM, installing the product, and ensuring connectivity to the primary instance of NPM.

How is customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Customer service at SolarWinds is great. I have had several issues in the past and they were prompt, helpful, and were able to resolve these issues quickly. SolarWinds also cares about what their customers want from a network monitoring standpoint. Rather than release a new version and hope that this is what customers want, they hold regular sessions to show customers what they’re currently working on and can fine tune future releases of NPM based on the feedback.

Technical Support:

As a company, SolarWinds goes out of its way to put a human face to their technical support staff. The main way they’ve accomplished this is by creating a community out of their customer base. Using their forum, Thwack, customers are able to interact with SolarWinds staff from numerous departments, including from support, development and marketing. I’ve been a member a short while and I’ve already been blown away with how tight knit this forum can be.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward. It’s installed via a wizard and walks you through the steps, installing the extras it needs to function along the way. Then, it’s just a matter of activating your license and configuring the front end web page to look the way you want it. Most of the complexity of the initial setup and configuration is from custom modifications done by us on the back end. We had to modify the database to get NPM to hook into our in-house alert management system. But, for other companies' environments where this level of customization is not needed, NPM has an excellent amount of alerting methods that work right out of the box.

What about the implementation team?

We do all of our NPM implementations using an in-house team. I am one of the engineers responsible for setting up new environments when new data centers come online. I’m not sure if SolarWinds has vendor teams available that can do this function but as I’ve stated, NPM is designed to be unboxed and up and running in an hour or less depending on how much customization is needed.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Due to the large size and scope of our organization, our cost of using this product is comparatively high. Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines. Pricing differs if the NPM server is a primary or secondary polling engine and how many elements (nodes and interfaces) will need to be monitored by it (e.g. 250, 2000, or unlimited).

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others before implementing this, is to attend one of their webcasts to get a feel for what NPM can do for you. The presenters are technical people who understand the product well and can answer a wide range of questions. Secondly, I’d make an account on their forum, Thwack, so if you’re ever stumped on an issue, you can pose a question to the community and glean information from other NPM users or from one of SolarWinds’ resident “Head Geeks.” Lastly, from personal experience, I would make sure you’re on good working terms with your network engineers before considering implementation. Like any other network management tool, you will likely run into firewall or connectivity related issues when adding nodes and having a good network engineer on your side can really make a big difference .

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Ravi Suvvari - PeerSpot reviewer
Ravi SuvvariPerformance and Fault-tolerance Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees
Top 5LeaderboardReal User

Very valuable inputs regarding NP monitor Brian ; Thank you for sharing Ravi Suvvari

See all 2 comments
SME Solarwinds at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
An network monitoring solution that offers insights into servers and virtual machines
Pros and Cons
  • "SolarWinds NPM provides an overview of network monitoring, extending its capabilities to cover other aspects, such as virtual machines and servers. The platform has features like NetPath, which is particularly beneficial for end-users, offering insights into issues like latency, packet loss, and connectivity problems with routers, switches, or servers."
  • "The tool can only monitor up to 1000 instances in a single SolarWinds console. Customers may have over 1000 instances. Hence, it needs to support a minimum of 1500 instances. It should also improve support."

What is our primary use case?

We use the product for network monitoring. 

What is most valuable?

SolarWinds NPM provides an overview of network monitoring, extending its capabilities to cover other aspects, such as virtual machines and servers. The platform has features like NetPath, which is particularly beneficial for end-users, offering insights into issues like latency, packet loss, and connectivity problems with routers, switches, or servers. NetPath helps identify where the network path is disrupted or experiencing problems. For instance, if accessing Google services encounters issues, NetPath can pinpoint where the problem lies.  Another valuable feature is that it provides real-time data on device performance, including resource utilization, RAM status, and responsiveness.

What needs improvement?

The tool can only monitor up to 1000 instances in a single SolarWinds console. Customers may have over 1000 instances. Hence, it needs to support a minimum of 1500 instances. It should also improve support. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I worked with HPE for about six to seven months in 2016. It had similar features to SolarWinds NPM. However, the deployment process was complex.

How was the initial setup?

Deploying SolarWinds NPM is a straightforward process. The deployment steps include extracting the files, mounting them on the server, and deploying them. The documentation provided by SolarWinds is clear. 

What other advice do I have?

While I haven't extensively worked with ManageEngine, I've observed some of its features, and customization stands out as a strong aspect. ManageEngine can be a good option for those with budget constraints, as it offers similar features to SolarWinds NPM at a more affordable price. I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5
Stable and scalable product for enterprise-level users
Pros and Cons
  • "SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly. The product allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance."
  • "The product is scalable, but at a cost. Extra modules have to be purchased for each extra server. The initial set up isn't complex, but will require someone who is experienced with the network monitoring system"

What is our primary use case?

We use it for network monitoring, internet monitoring purpose and server monitoring purposes.

How has it helped my organization?

It allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance.

What is most valuable?

SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly.

What needs improvement?

The time monitoring could be improved from every five seconds to every second. If they can move to an every-second basis, then it will improve the monitoring analysis.

I would also like to see the security system updated to prevent virus attacks.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using SolarWinds NPM for around 10 to 12 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have found it is definitely stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This product is scalable by purchasing extra modules for more servers.

How are customer service and support?

They're one of the most responsive companies when it comes to support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup wasn't complex, but not as easy as some systems either. It requires someone with experience with the network monitoring system. 

What about the implementation team?

It was implemented in-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The charge is currently made per module for the product, and there is no option to buy it as a full system bundle which makes it costly. Also, charges are made annually, it's not a perpetual purchase.

It would not be affordable for SME level organizations.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The other solutions I evaluated were:

  • PTRG
  • Cisco
  • WhatsUp Gold.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this product at 7.5 out of 10.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free SolarWinds NPM Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free SolarWinds NPM Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.