Likelihood to Recommend Intermapper is a light weight, quick and easy to use monitoring application. It will get you up and monitoring key infrastructure devices with a simple management interface and effective alert system that doesn't generate a lot of noise. It provides mobile device access through a web interface and is relatively inexpensive.
Read full review I would suggest this tool to any user that has to monitor multiple sites and locations where bandwidth monitoring can be a labor. This software works really well for central monitoring of multiple sites and services where having a technician onsite isn't feasible. I really like the reporting, though, and would recommend this for someone wanting to keep an eye on bandwidth usage for replication of data across sites.
Read full review Pros The best thing about Intermapper is that it is map-based. You start by building your map, which is done completely automatically. I've used many different monitoring software packages, Solarwinds, Nagios, Opmanager, and it is a royal PITA to create live maps with those. Another great feature is that it shows you, visually, the bandwidth utilization of your network by using "ants" and color codes. Incredibly useful. Alarms are very easy to setup, again much easier than the packages mentioned above. Read full review The level of customization possible with Network Bandwidth Analyzer is very valuable. Rather than being stuck with a "one-size-fits-all" presentation, an administrator can easily create customized views, reports, and alerts so that users can have a more tailored view of the data provided by Network Bandwidth Analyzer. This has the effect of making the tool more attractive to the end user. The NetFlow Traffic Analyzer piece of Network Bandwidth Analyzer provides the details on bandwidth usage on the network. More than knowing how much bandwidth is being used, one is provided with detailed information on how that bandwidth is being used. This provides invaluable information for capacity planning and even certain forensic tasks faced by the network engineer. The ability to produce network maps provides an easy way to create an attractive and functional NOC/SOC view of the entire network. Both technician and the occasional passerby can quickly determine if there are issues to be addressed. The ability to customize a map with background images and custom icons and stencils can make these maps really pop. Read full review Cons Setting up probes in bulk can be difficult, so it can take a long time to get the system set up correctly to start. Sometimes the probes can be sensitive and report false positives. Interface can be a little clunky and non intuitive at times. Read full review The ability to intuitively and quickly serve up specified information up to a dashboard for general “public” consumption, that cycles through several pages of information. The ability to intuitively set up alerting on bandwidth levels, instead of having to dig through all types of alerts available to find the one needed. Provide a pricing model based on different support levels: if I want only available update installations, don’t make me pay the same amount as those wanting full support. Read full review Usability As far as rating for usability is concerned I would give 10/10 as NTA is very easy to use. All you need to do is install that module and ask network Team to configure the Netflow towards Server IP. [The] rest is pre-configured and reports are pre-built. Moment you receive the flows from Network all you will have is information about traffic.
Read full review Support Rating The product works well and is very easy to maintain. As such, we haven't had many occasions to use support. When we have called them they were easy to contact and responsive to our questions. We have had the product for years and it may have been a year or better since the last time we contacted them.
Read full review It is useful for our Infrastructure team and also provides valuable insights to our application team regarding the traffic being sent from various endpoints. They can monitor their applications and ensure there are no network issues that may impact their application.
Read full review Online Training The training offered by SolarWinds is some of the best out there. They have several different videos that go into great detail from initial setup to advanced configurations. In addition to the view at your own pace video, they also have live training for customers that focus on a single product and you can ask questions with the folks who develop the software. I have had good success with their live sessions and getting questions answered.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Read full review SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer compared to
Wireshark and
PRTG Network Monitor beats it by just the simple interface. Though all are manual setup, NTA takes it a step further with graphs and reports that analyze the data for you. In comparing to Extrahop from a bandwidth comparison, Extrahop wins but Extrahop is a lot more than just a bandwidth monitoring and cost.
Read full review Return on Investment Downtime costs money. Every minute we can get ahead of an outage is time that a plant is not sitting there waiting. We don't need to wait for a call from a plant, we know they are down immediately and we can begin troubleshooting. Read full review Be prepared to answer lots of questions. When people see the data in NTA they are going to want to know why App A is talking to App B. Be ready to explain! Hand the keys to the NTA kingdom to the network team. They will thank you. Everyone wants to have friends on the network team, right? Be prepared to invest in some significant compute and storage performance to keep up with your NTA monitoring Running the latest firmware for your network gear is (often) required to take advantage of all the flow-monitoring. You upgrade regularly, right?? Read full review ScreenShots