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Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued) vs. LiveAction vs. SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/ACisco Prime LAN Management Solution is discontinued. Current users are encouraged to explore Cisco Catalyst Center as a modern solution.N/A

    LiveAction

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ALiveAction’s LiveNX is a network performance monitoring and analytics platform. It supports packet-level, network-wide visibility and proactive alerts. It can be deployed on-premise, virtually, or in the cloud.N/A

    SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset

    Score7.6 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds® Engineer’s Toolset (ETS) helps users monitor and troubleshoot a network with over 60 tools for network management. ETS allows users to monitor and receive alerts in real time on network availability and health, and perform network diagnostics for faster troubleshooting and resolution of complex network issues. With ETS users can deploy an array of network discovery tools including Port Scanner, Switch Port Mapper or advanced Subnet Calculator, manage Cisco® devices with specialized…

    $1,585

    Per Instance

    Pricing
    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    One Time Price
    $1,585
    Per Instance
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Free Trial
    NoNoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Considered Multiple Products
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    BlueCat
    No answer on this topic
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    90%
    Delivers good value for the price
    9 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    11 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    5 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    10 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    Features
    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Network Performance Monitoring
    Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued) and LiveAction and SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Feature
    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    LiveAction
    6.9
    2 Ratings
    14% below category average
    SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    -
    Ratings
    Automated network device discovery00 Ratings7.22 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network monitoring00 Ratings7.22 Ratings00 Ratings
    Baseline threshold calculation00 Ratings5.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Alerts00 Ratings6.32 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network capacity planning00 Ratings6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Packet capture analysis00 Ratings7.22 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network mapping00 Ratings6.32 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable reports00 Ratings10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Wireless infrastructure monitoring00 Ratings8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Hardware health monitoring00 Ratings6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
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    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
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    User Ratings
    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.2
    (12 ratings)
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    8.6
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.6
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Discontinued Products
    Although Cisco Prime [LAN Management Solution] is a nice tool and no other 4rd party tools can match its native monitoring and managing capabilities still i have given less rating and that's because it is only for Cisco vendor Devices. Hence if you have only Cisco infrastructure then go for it or else look for another 4rd party tool in conjunction with Cisco prime.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    BlueCat
    From a packet tracing standpoint, it was easy to setup and analyze an issue we were having with eigrp errors between 2 data centers. Took a few minutes to stand up on both sides and compare the traffic to determine hellos weren't being sent. On the other spectrum, had it had the analytics of such products as Extrahop, it could have recognized and alerted us of an internal DNS attack we had.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    I have found the toolset especially useful for scanning subnets to discover devices, and for setting up temporary real-time monitors when we are troubleshooting or setting up new connections. The most useful aspect has been the ability to apply the tools to help troubleshoot and pinpoint intermittent issues. More general tools like Orion often do not have the granularity to detect issues like intermittent packet loss which are especially impactful to applications like Voice. The toolset gives us another level of capability to dig into issues.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Discontinued Products
    • Wireless file detection and planning mode has helped us expand into new areas of our buildings.
    • Alerting is detailed when we have issues with hardwired and wireless devices, and Rogue Access Points are easily identifiable.
    • Cisco equipment information is much more detailed than other management products' SNMP queries and is an excellent tool for troubleshooting end-device connectivity issues.
    • Our KPI reporting for senior management and centralized management of our WIPS 'Wireless Intrusion Prevention' setup have both benefited significantly from the detailed reporting capabilities.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    BlueCat
    • Network QOS Assessment, and recommendations, and point-and-click remediation
    • Network L2/L3 Assessment, and recommendations, and point-and-click remediation
    • Network Security Assessment, and recommendations, and point-and-click remediation
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Various monitoring
    • Stores history
    • Suggests indices
    • Helps to find the SQL query text
    • Helps to see what machines/users the bad queries are coming from
    • Shows current blocking session
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Discontinued Products
    • Maps. One thing that I miss is the fact that you can't see both wired and wireless equipment in the same topology map. For visualization and troubleshooting purposes, that would help a lot, and I honestly don' t think it's that much harder to implement.
    • I'd love to see an option to show 'live dashboards,' maps, or other visual tools to publish in a NOC room, or even just to broadcast in a big monitor to allow multiple workmates to check that information. Again, I don't think that would be too hard to implement. I remember a similar feature was available in the first versions of the product, way back in the 90's (yes, I'm that old :-) )
    • Sometimes, depending on what screen you are, the solution can be a little slow. I'm not saying the whole system is slow, but sometimes that slowness can bother a little.
    • Talking about areas for improvement, one area I think can be improved is the upgrade process. Even for not so large deployments, it can take a lot of time. Having this time decreased would be the right thing to do.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    BlueCat
    • I use it primarily as a monitoring tool from a security standpoint, so one complaint is that the filter creation process takes a little time to learn.
    • In the digital days of printing less, I do still need to print network diagrams for compliance documentation and some of the larger network diagrams documents do not print easily.
    • I wish the network connection lines were easier to see. They are typically very light and you have to drill down to see them more clearly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • The unifying component that is intended to be the initial interface to the tools seems clunky. I prefer to start the tools individually rather than using it.
    • The port scanner could use some improvements to make it easier to use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    BlueCat
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Very easy to use and intuitive. Just be careful with the WAN Killer...it does what it says.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Discontinued Products
    We are very happy using Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution for the following reason: 1- Ease of use with the GUI. 2- Very well organized dashboard which can view many statistics on your devices. 3- Customized dashboard for different views ( for technical team and executives ) 4- Schedule configuration templates to use whenever we need on whatever device we want.
    Incentivized
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    BlueCat
    Can't really rate this, we never had to call support. The product wasn't complicated to setup and learn. We have a high level of network knowledge so the product was self-explanatory.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    Our organization uses it regularly. It is reliable, and we keep finding new uses for it
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Discontinued Products
    There are various 3rd party tools available in the market which not only supports monitoring of cisco devices but also supports non-cisco devices, even with these capabilities in these 3rd party tools Cisco Prime has maintained a uniqueness in its products being the native tool from Cisco. The uniqueness is about product supportability for given devices and some of the edge features such as configuration management, detailed heatmaps etc
    Read full review
    BlueCat
    There is not any other product that does exactly what LiveAction does. Some come about halfway close, like scrutinizer by Plixer. However, there is a gap with that product as it doesn't give proper quality of service recommendations, or to update l2/l3 configs to head off problems. Plixer's scrutinizer product costs about the same. It was a no-brainer to pick LiveAction.
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    I haven't compared any tools similar to SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset. This might be because I'm pretty biased when it comes to monitoring, and reporting solutions. I've found that SolarWinds provides the biggest bang for the buck in my opinion. I'm sure there are other solutions on the market that compete, but I haven't tried any of them because I've been very satisfied with SolarWinds.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Discontinued Products
    • It has helped us with our quarterly wireless security testing by pinpointing the location of non-approved access points vs. hunting for them via signal strength.
    • Saves time by helping to identify network health issues before they become a definitive problem causing downtime.
    • With errors detected early, we have noticed our wi-fi network is much more stable thus freeing up our engineer's time elsewhere.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    BlueCat
    • Real time insight to network issues whether security related or not.
    • Great reporting features for executives.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Spend less time downloading free buggy tools
    • All the tools in one spot, so you don't have to look around for tools
    • Get to the solution sooner
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset Screenshots

    Screenshot of Perform network stress tests with Engineer's Toolset WAN Killer. You don’t need to use real traffic for studying network activities, like testing traffic and load balancing. Instead, deploy Engineer's Toolset WAN Killer to help interactively test connections and adjust the IP traffic generated to achieve the desired network load based on your requirements.Screenshot of Quickly troubleshoot your network with enhanced ping capabilities and packet route tracing, among other network bandwidth usage and monitoring tools included in ETS.Screenshot of Using ETS, you can run scans to gain insight into how routers, hubs switches, and other devices are configured by analyzing SNMP queries and viewing MIB attributes. ETS is designed to help you more easily understand whether your network and ports are using appropriate settings.Screenshot of Config Compare, a part of ETS, is built to compare the running configuration of a Cisco router with the startup configuration. With the Cisco configuration compare tool, you can easily detect the changes made to the network, switch, and router configurations that are not committed to non-volatile memory (NVRAM).Screenshot of Manage your IP network from discovery to address tracking. Discover subnets on a seed router and scan the subnet or a range of IP addresses, generate a list of subnets along with their mask, size, range, and broadcast address and actively monitor subnets to identify and track which IP addresses are in use on your network.