SolarWinds Security Event Manager Reviews

Our primary use case is analyzing log files from any kind of source which is IT related. We use the product in our company on a daily basis and also integrate it for others. There are four people in our company using this software, and it's part of their daily routine to check everything. We are consultans and a reseller of the solution. 

The most valuable feature of the solution is intuitivity of navigation; it's easy to build rules and actions which are based on the logs and event types we collect with the software.

Some things on the roadmap could be improved but I understand they're working on those issues. The main area that would mean a big improvement for me would be for the product to include multiple dashboards. I would love to see a multi-page dashboard where you could see information side-by-side; to slice through the dashboard to see specific topics. For example, one network dashboard, one active directory dashboard, one VMware dashboard, etc.

That feature is something they could include in the next release - the ability for a report to flip to different technologies. And it would be nice if there were some pretty configured templates for the dashboard so that you don't have to fill all the data in. For example, a template for active directory or KPIs, or a template for VMware KPIs.

We've been using the solution for about one year.

It's a very stable solution. 

Scalability is a plus with this software. 

Technical support is good, they've even helped us during the night because they're in a different time zone.

The setup process and determining all the log files from all the different systems is quite easy. However, to get all the information out of the log files and create rules and access based on the log files, means that it's sensible to hire consultants. The simple setup of the virtual machine takes about two hours and after that it really depends on the number of log files and the number of devices. You're looking at about half a day and you have pretty much installed everything. 

The setup cost is not as expensive as Splunk or many other competitors. Cost is dependent on the size of the company.

I would advise people to make themselves familiar with the SolarWinds work community which has all the users' comments and where you can get the newest topics about everything connected to the software. It makes sense to peek around there. There is also SolarWinds SCM online training which is a big help when getting started with the software.

The product fills all our requirements but there is always room for improvement and so I would rate this product a nine out of 10. 

We work with and resell all of the SolarWinds products, and SolarWinds LEM is one of the solutions that I have experience with.

This solution is used in conjunction with others to find the root cause of problems when a user is not able to access an application.

This tool is simple to use.

The reporting and alerting capabilities are really nice.

The Heat Map is a very good feature that is related to Wi-Fi and helps to monitor access points.

It takes a long time to perform a root cause analysis.

I would like to have a more customizable dashboard.

I have been working with SolarWinds LEM for four years.

We have had no issues with stability.

This is a scalable solution. We have deployed it both in Windows and Linux environments.

I have contacted SolarWinds technical support six or seven times and I think that the support is very good. The only problem is that when the system goes down, the diagnostics might take a long time.

For example, in a large environment, we had a situation where the application was down for one or two days. Normally, at most, it will take three or four hours for a large environment. In a small environment, the time that it will be unavailable due to diagnostics is about an hour and a half.

The initial setup is totally straightforward. It takes a maximum of two hours to deploy.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are using this solution for our internal log event monitoring, as well as for file integrity monitoring.

SolarWinds LEM performs the job of log collection. It collects logs and nothing more. It does not really provide much in terms of security. It will trigger alerts but it will not give you any recommendations, filter according to rules, or anything other than logging the events if your server is attacked.

The most valuable feature is the reporting. The log conversion for generating reports is good.

The dashboard is running in Adobe Flash and this should be changed because there are vulnerabilities that are related to the browser. We constantly have to patch the system.

There is no information provided in terms of security.

The licensing model is poor, which in turn affects the scalability.

There is no correlation made between log entries, so no threat information is presented.

The performance degrades when there is a lot of traffic.

We have been using SolarWinds LEM for three years.

The stability is good when there are a low number of events per second on the servers. However, if there are a lot of events then the server is very slow. 

The scalability is poor because of the licensing. Having to buy blocks of fifty licenses is not good for our business. Our model is that of a managed service provider and our customers are interested in adding two or three nodes at a time. We cannot just keep buying fifty licenses at a time.

There is not much in terms of technical support because it is a web-based application. They do not support Adobe Flash because it is a third-party application. The just provide you the knowledge base, as with the other SolarWinds products. Using that, you experiment on your own.

It is a straightforward implementation. The deployment takes about two hours before everything is running.

Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time.

I am not expecting a future release of SolarWinds LEM because they have released another solution. They are continuing with a new security event and information management (SEIM) solution that is more suitable for large-scale enterprises.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

Our installation is on-premises at the moment. We are a consultant group so we implement multiple solutions for different customers using a variety of different products. Some clients are in the Cloud, some on a WAN network and some are on-premises. SolarWinds LEM is one of the products we use for certain purposes and often recommend.  

I'm very technical. I work as a network and security technical architect. At the same time, I also own the company, so I'm the director. I still remain very technically involved with the solutions and the architecture for solutions, based on networks and security. SolarWinds is one of the products that I use, amongst many others to fit the needs of our customers which includes their budget, size, and industry.  

I like the graphical user interface because it is very user-friendly. I like the fact that SolarWinds is a hybrid solution so you can use it across many platforms.  

I think the product can use some improvement on the reporting side. The reporting could be easier and more robust. I also think the NetFlow Analyzer component can be improved substantially in the way it is integrated with SolarWinds and with Orion. In my opinion, you are not able to drill down enough into traffic flows. It can be a lot more granular and that will make it a lot more useful in comparison to how it is incorporated at the moment.  

I think that incorporating a security management platform would also be good. This would be a solution like a dashboard or control panel where you can just snap-in modules. A global dashboard where you can snap in all the different types of solutions or the different types of services and products that you will leverage would be a great step forward in ease-of-use by making integration easier.  

I've been using SolarWinds LEM since its inception, so that would be for close to 10 years.  

This product is quite stable and I don't have any issues with it on that level. I think one other thing that could be improved is that the Syslog Server should be integrated as a system startup service. Right now you have to bring it up and take it down manually. This isn't entirely a stability issue but it might be an improvement. It would be valuable especially in the security environment.  

I think that the scalability of the solution is good enough. I don't think there are any issues with that.  

I have not actually had to use technical support very much. I can not even count more than five instances in the span of 10 years where I had to call in with an issue. As I have not really had the need to actually go that route much, it is hard to give constructive feedback in that regard. But it may say something positive about the quality of the product.  

The initial setup is pretty straight forward. In the standalone small business solution, we are using Microsoft SQL Express which is already integrated with the solution. I think they could make it easier to move from the Express version to the SQL Server version to give the user more flexibility.  

As far as pricing, we always want it to be less expensive or more cost-effective as a consumer, especially when you take into consideration that SolarWinds has got a very broad spectrum of services that can be integrated easily but need to be licensed separately. I think they can come up with a way of putting bundles together which would encourage customers to use a wider array of their products and it could be a better way of increasing sales. People would show a lot more interest in a package deal instead of having to buy the products separately. Bundling might reduce instances where customers look at other solutions for comparisons. For example, I've got some clients that use the Web Help Desk solution, and some users that use the NetFlow Analyzer and SolarWinds. If these solutions could be bundled together in a more cost-effective package when they are purchased together, I'm sure that SolarWinds would realize a lot more sales of peripheral products and increase their total market share.  

The renewals are currently priced so attractively that they are much cheaper and more cost-effective than when you buy a solution brand new. This helps retain clients over time. My comments on cost mainly refer to the initial purchase of solutions where you are deploying a product and purchasing it for the first-time.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate SolarWinds LEM as somewhere between eight and ten, so let's say nine. To make it a ten they would have to make improvements in pricing, reporting, and product integration. These facets of the solution are not so bad now but they can be improved.  

The advice I would give people considering network event management would be to go with the product that appeals to me the most. The advice that I would like to give would be to go with NPM (Network Performance Monitor) which is a different, more sophisticated SolarWinds product. As far as I'm concerned, that is a product that can challenge any competing product out there on the market. If anyone is looking to do any type of network performance monitoring at a high level, I would definitely recommend Network Performance Monitor Orion — the Orion version of the product of SolarWinds is the one to go for. As far as NetFlow Analyzer, I like it and it fits some company's needs very well, but I've used better products. That is why I mention making improvements in its feature set.  

From a security perspective, which is a lot of work that I do, the Syslog Server needs to be completely integrated as a system service. That is one of my biggest wishes for the improvement of the LEM product at the moment because the product itself is a good product. The only trouble is that when server engineers work on the servers and they perform some type of updates to get the operating systems back on par, or need to do something with security updates and so on, the servers get stopped. When the servers are rebooted, the Syslog Server does not automatically restart. That is a major problem, especially from an auditing perspective.  

I use this solution to examine our logs and the logs of our customers

We have experience with on-premises deployments.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the visibility into both attempted and failed logins.

The query capability in this solution needs improvement. When you watch to fetch logs at specific times, sometimes there are issues.

The filtering engine needs to be improved to make it more accurate. When you are filtering, it comes with a lot of unwanted data.

I would like to be able to dig deeper into the visibility of events or incidents to determine whether they are malicious, such as by doing behavior analysis.

This is a stable solution. I have seen issues, but they have been related to the platform, and not to the product itself. We use this solution on a daily basis.

I don't think that this solution would do well for very large organizations. For smaller organizations, it should be good.

We have approximately three hundred users. The users are a mixture of programmers, system engineers, database administrators, and others in our IT company. 

When we were doing the scoping we left room to grow, I don't expect that we will be expanding our usage anytime soon.

I have used IBM QRadar. It is a SIEM solution, but it can do what LEM can do.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward.

The length of deployment depends on how big the infrastructure is. Most of the deployments take less than a week, but some go beyond that. In my experience, it all depends on how many boxes you have and how many we are taking logs from. Some people will give you a whole list, while others will choose only specific things. You have to give people something that is unique to their environment.

One person is enough for the deployment.

I take care of the implementation and deployment of this solution.

We did not evaluate other options before choosing this solution. Some of the customers have their preference and will ask for something else, so that is what we will do for them.

My advice for anybody who is considering this solution is to really review their expectations. I know that some people who do not review their expectations are upset after the implementation because they feel that they are getting less than what they bargained for.

People also have to consider the system resources, and what they will be on the physical box or on a VM. If the proper resources are not assigned then it will impact the solution.

This is a good solution but there is no perfect system.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for monitoring the network.

The NTA & NPM are the most valuable features of the solution.

The solution is very user-friendly.

We're currently looking for an application monitoring solution and maybe a DHCP management module. It would be ideal if the solution could add these in its next release.

The solution should offer better support and better SLAs.

The solution is very stable.

Scalability is fairly simple if you have the right licenses in place

The solution's technical support is okay, but we don't have an SLA, and sometimes the response times are very slow.

We did previously use a different solution, but SolarWinds is much better. It's easy to interact with SolarWinds. It's easy to operate, easy to configure and is generally easier compared to what we were working with before.

The initial setup was straightforward. The deployment took about two weeks. You only need two people for both deployment and maintenance.

We handled the implementation ourselves in house.

It gives the business visibility as to what is down so that the turnaround time for fixes is much less.

We do a yearly license renewal.

We are using the on-premises deployment solution.

It is a good solution to work with and it's very easy to use. I would only ensure that the organization that decides to implement the solution has the internal capability to manage it. If not, then I would ensure that direct support or an SLA is in place to help handle any issues or troubleshoot problems. 

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

We are using this solution for the purpose of security monitoring. It performs network behavior monitoring, log monitoring, and disaster recovery monitoring.  

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

The flash-based interface can be improved because sometimes, the speed of monitoring is reduced. The interface should be replaced with something else.

Training for this solution needs to be improved, as new employees are sometimes unfamiliar with the product.

The gadgets in SolarWinds should all be in one place.

There should be a default template because as it is now, the user has to create one for each and everything.

SolarWinds is a big brand, and they will adapt as necessary. 

Our monitoring team has between fifteen and twenty users.

We do not have any new infrastructure, so we do not need to increase usage at this time.

Technical support for this solution is good. We have had no problems with them.

Prior to this solution, we were using AlienVault and IBM QRadar. I have also used Nagios, which is faster than SolarWinds LEM regarding alerts.

I would not say that the initial setup is straightforward or complex. It is a bit of both. I would say it's forty percent straightforward and sixty percent complex.

Deployment time depends on the size of the infrastructure, the number of services that are going to be monitored, and the types of services.

This is one of the good products in this market. People are always looking for easy-to-use products, and don't want to invest time on learning new or complex things.

This is a solution that I recommend, although there are a lot of products that are better.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We have a hyper requirement to maintain logs of access and changes, so this solution logs everything.

The most valuable feature is the ease of use for the end user. 

It can be difficult for users who are inexperienced with the solution. 

It is managed by our tech support team that is in-house, so we do not need their tech support help. 

My advice to users of this solution is to make sure that you know what it is you are looking for, and what it is you are trying to log. Otherwise, it will be difficult to manage.

The out of the box reports and dashboard. It was easy to trim down these windows to something we could quickly use.

It allows us to monitor access and pull cyber reports quickly. No more searching through logs on each server. There was not much customization, which we had to do with Splunk.

I imagine we will have to develop our own reports soon, this seems to be more cumbersome.

For five months now.

Not really.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Good. There can be lag times on responses.

Eight on a scale of 10.

Splunk. The pricing was too high and you need a PhD on customizing the reports.

Setup was straightforward. We were able to use the default reports and window displays.

We did it ourselves.

The pricing was low, around 30K so ROI is less than one year. Splunk was elevating into the 100K arena.

Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high. The storage can be an issue as well, we already had a SAN setup, but this is true for any SIEM.

Splunk and Oracle Audit Vault. We almost picked Oracle, because it pulls in the databases in a quick manner.

Don't over think the situation. We went with the one which had a better user presentation because we have managers using it as well. Splunk is nicer if you have a bunch of technical people wanting to play with it.

We were suffering from a lack of visibility into our logs, so we implemented SolarWinds LEM. After building a few rules and alerts, we were notified when events happened before our end users notified us. Many times we were able to fix an issue before a call to the helpdesk was made.

• Alerting
• Searching

The solution was a little slow when running some larger queries. After upgrading our SAN many of the problems disappeared.

Tech support was always on top of things. I usually got a response within a couple hours of opening a ticket and once on the phone, they took time to answer my questions.

We needed a product but didn’t have one. We found it when it was still Trigeo, and followed it to SolarWinds.

The initial setup was very easy to start getting logs to the solution. It took some time to understand what data to get and what was important.

We did the implementation. My advice, understand what you want in the system and after letting it collect some data, swing back and make sure you have everything setup that you need. Give it some time, and learn it to get the most use out of it.

It’s a great product, but like other SIEM software solutions, you only get out what you put into it.