Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution is discontinued. Current users are encouraged to explore Cisco Catalyst Center as a modern solution.
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Progress WhatsUp Gold
Score 7.5 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
WhatsUp Gold developed by Ipswitch (acquired by Progress Software May 2019) offers network performance monitoring and mapping. It supports core monitoring features, including automated workflows and network capacity planning, and monitors across hybrid environments.
As our network depends on Cisco devices, so it was logic to choose Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution to manage these devices. Also, WhatsUp Gold can monitor devices but can't manage them or give more statistics on devices like Prime. Also, from the Prime side, we can see the …
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.
[Progress WhatsUp Gold (formerly Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold)] is good for what it is. An inexpensive but accurate monitor for alerting on systems and services. However, it is time consuming to configure, The GUI leaves a lot to be desired and the formatting for txt alerts stinks (I just use it now as an alert to check my email to view the actual alert.)
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.
Monitoring the connection; performance, switching, and issues. We use a broadband connection for our primary and a cellular backup for the secondary. While we use routing protocols to make this switch and WhatsUp isn't used for Syslog monitoring. it alerts us within seconds.
Backup configurations and archiving. WhatsUp does this particularly well. I use it for both Cisco routers and switches.
The diagram feature is nice. Though I don't use it as much because of the size of our structure, it does come in handy for mapping routes of all traffic.
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.
Navigating the new WhatsUp Gold 2018 is a bit complicated and not user-friendly. The best part about using a software is the user's ability to use it with ease.
You cannot click sites being monitored from Map Dashboard View. This feature was previously possible in the older version.
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.
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
Progress WhatsUp Gold (formerly Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold) is more network focused than some of the other products we looked at, which had basic capabilities but were not as strong on the reporting or programmatic resolution of issues. Progress WhatsUp Gold (formerly Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold) is cost effective compared to some of the other upmarket solutions.
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.
