Device42 vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

1. Installbase management feature allows us to retire our old spreadsheet methods for tracking the data in favour of a singular database with some excellent reporting.2. We are also providing data connectivity from the WAN Providers and keeping all connections in Device42 gives us the ability have documentation of all connection that are made. 3. Ever changing and growing inventory that needs to be carefully tracked and inventoried. We find this so simple to use that we spend much less time than we used to on tracking these items.

Incentivized

If your IT team isn't proficient in automation and scripting, Solarwinds NCM can fill that gap (assuming your company's security team signs off on approving SW in your environment given the hack.) Basic device configuration, pushing mass changes reliably and backups are NCM's strong suites. If you have a complex scenario where if/then cases are needed, NCM is a bit lack luster. Auto discovery isn't as easy either as certain parameters need to be met for that feature to work 100% of the time

Incentivized

• Device42 can discover physical and virtual servers as well as your network devices
• Device42 can give resource utilization details like CPU, Memory and Storage
• Device42 can give dependency mapping
• Device42 can give inbound and outbound communication details
• Device42 can create Affinity Groups (Move Groups)
• Device42 can recommend the Cloud platform to which you can migrate your infrastructure.

Incentivized

• Integrates with Network Performance Management for Alerting and Reporting.
• NetPath and detects issues due to Configuration Change.
• Keeps a record of which user made the change.
• Which devices are not being backed up, devices where backups are failing, dashboard and alerting available.

Incentivized

• UI/UX is not up to the standards.
• Can't mass update everything.
• No export option for the sub components that have changed linked to the device they are assigned to
• Plugins options are limited
• Sometimes randomly times out my login forcing me to log in again.

Incentivized

• For our use case, it does everything great and some of the features we underutilize but I would like to be able to set a configuration baseline when initially adding a node instead of after the configuration is pulled but it's not a particularly big deal to let it pull the configuration then set it as the baseline.

Incentivized

Medium complexity to set up in the beginning if using any non-standard devices or configurations, else fairly easy (e.g. Cisco Nexus or IOS-based devices). Reports are fairly straightforward to set up. Updates to the platform are fairly straightforward and don't take a major effort. Easy to add or remove devices.

Incentivized

The user interface is lacking. It is difficult to navigate at times and things can be done multiple ways. Quite often I am confused by how their notification structure works. It is not very intuitive. They do offer a free Academy. They also offer a community of other technical folks. I have enjoyed both.

Incentivized

To be fair, I have not had to involve Support in a number of years, but when I did, I was greeted with enthusiastic engineers who wanted to understand and solve the issue. It was a fairly complex scenario and I have discovered in my most recent implementation that engineering included that option as a standard now.

Incentivized

Solarwinds has actually produced new training since I last used it that is available on their site at any time. Their previous training was more than enough to get us started but now there is significantly more content. Since I'm comfortable with the Orion platform and the products we use I haven't checked the new training out yet but we have new staff go through portions of that training and they always come away with an understanding of the platform and ready to use it

Incentivized

it was a fairly easy implementation and everything was pretty straightforward. only challenge we had was getting all the snmp communities updated on the networking equipment

Incentivized

What I appreciate and love about Device42 is how everything links together from room layout,to server rack organisation,down to all VMs and Business applications. We are also able to get full value of our money and full visibility of our assets management process.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a great tool and matches much of the functionality of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. Nothing about Ansible will likely be overwhelming to an engineer with a little time to spare, but that spare time combined with SolarWinds already being our monitoring tool made the decision easy. Time is at a premium in small teams and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is very easy to use right out of the box without all the tweaking required by powerful command line driven tools like Ansible.

Incentivized

• The support is amazing has always been very helpful and supportive 24/7.
• Very easy-to-use, no learning curve required.
• Cost effective and flexible.
• Offers one-stop-shop for all things DCIM, robust IPAM, password management, and additional add-on which enhances workflow and top-notch security.

Incentivized

• The time savings from automatic daily backups is significant
• The compare configuration tool is super helpful at spotting errors when small changes occur that are hard to detect otherwise.
• The compliance check tool saves countless hours going through configurations for errors.

Incentivized