Cisco Crosswork Network Automation vs. N-able N-sight RMM

Cisco Crosswork Network Automation has been great at reducing the workload our engineers face on the day to day aspects of their jobs. CNC has been able to reduce the time it takes to provision a device while using NSO and has provided valuable data to assist in troubleshooting network wide issues. CNC has been a pivotal aspect to our multi-million dollar network refresh

Incentivized

It's great for the basics of device management for Windows PCs, I wouldn't recommend it for Mac other than asset management. The patch management and monitoring templates are helpful for the day-to-day, and the "Take Control" feature for remote assistance allows us to provide fast service to clients - we often are on a machine within 5 minutes of receiving a ticket.

Incentivized

• It provides fantastic remote access capabilities. The Take Control tool gives us a robust platform that is capable of remote controlling almost any endpoint we need to and the chat, file transfer, and screen recording tools are all exceptionally useful.
• SolarWinds RMM is particularly useful as a single pane of glass solution that allows us to monitor and manage thousands of endpoints across dozens of different clients. It does a solid job of allowing us to sort, organize, and filter based off of who and what we want to see at any given time.
• Due to its client based nature, the platform excels at in-depth monitoring of services, event logs, and the functionality of systems with custom script checks.

Incentivized

• UI speed and threading across multiple windows (1 window refreshing, causes all refreshes to hang).
• Load times in certain menus, regardless of server specs.
• Integration with 3rd party applications.
• Speed of dev team response in regards to existing features malfunctioning, or major bugs that Solarwinds does not consider major.

Incentivized

Giving this a 5 as CNC classifies to a specific set of users. CNC is not an 'easy to use' product and thus requires some training to ensure that it can be used to the best of its capabilities. CNC can when used fully provide valuable data that Network Engineers would otherwise have to hunt for on their own.

Incentivized

The interface is easy to navigate. Setting up policies is straight forward. The antivirus and web filter are simple and exceptions are easy to make. Upgrading the agent is made simple and creating scripts is made fool proof. (Well, almost)

Incentivized

The ease of use, full functionality, reliability and excellent support.[N-able RMM (formerly Solarwinds RMM)] gives users a full suite of tools with a single installable file. Unlike standard tools, you don't have to install several different executables to be able to have fully protected end points.

Incentivized

Ultimately, we chose to stay with N-able N-sight due to their competitive pricing and billing system that we integrated into our accounting. The other competitors do offer better-made modules/new technology, but we were not ready to make this big move because of the cost. In the future, perhaps, we will still consider NinjaOne.

Incentivized

• The ROI is immediate for us. The advanced alerting alone makes this product an ace in our bag. The confidence you have in your network is wonderful.
• Another big ROI we get from the advanced alerting is the peace of mind that our engineers feel. We are a 24/7 shop, so being on-call goes from being hectic to extremely manageable.
• The only negative I can honestly say is when the time comes to patch the product. Micro-patches are easy enough, but jumping versions can be a bit taxing.

Incentivized