OpManager was the first one we had for a while. It did the job for which it was intended. It did not keep a systematic IP management like SolarWinds IPAM but it did the job okay. So as time passed, our network was getting larger so we needed to look for something to run …
We purchased the full Orion suite, so it made sense to also purchase IPAM for the integration benefit. In all honesty, we didn't look at any other products and we didn't really need to. IPAM covered everything, you really don't need to look any further if you need an IP/DNS and …
OpManager offers a set of advantages that allow it to adapt to the needs of the company, guaranteeing effective monitoring of the application networks used in our organization. It has an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. The initial setup went smoothly and in a decent amount of time.
SolarWinds IP Address Manager is very useful the bigger and more complex the environment. Smaller organizations will have to consider the cost as it provides little benefit over monitoring maybe 2-3 servers. But I have over 24 DHCP servers with on average 15 subnets each so tracking and monitoring all that was very time-consuming. As a result, it was generally ignored until there was an issue. With SolarWinds IP Address Manager, I was able to set alerts to monitor scope utilization and duplicate IP addresses.
With IPAM automated address scanning, we can be confident that we are looking at an up-to-date, accurate snapshot of our network.
The built-in alerts are a great safety net. We know that even if we aren't paying close attention to our IP address space, IPAM is. If a range is nearly full, IPAM lets us know before it becomes a real problem.
IPAM's event logging gives us insight into any and all changes made by our network engineers.
Adding devices to existing groups and applying a group-wide parameter.
Email alerts can be a bit challenging depending on how email is managed within a company, sometimes adding ManageEngine OpManager to the allowed relay list for Exchange is necessary to receive any alerts
The user experience is not as intuitive as other products. We have to be more restrictive around level 1 help desk access compared to NCM or NPM in SolarWinds.
Making and enforcing changes, not just monitoring, has been hit or miss in some instances.
We are heavily invested in SolarWinds. We currently own Network Performance Monitor, Netflow Traffic Analyzer, User Device Tracker, Server Application Monitor and Network Configuration Manager. We have NOC mode setup for deskside support for monitoring any down devices that may effect our network across the globe. This application gives us the information we need when we need it.
We are extremely pleased with the network discovery feature of ManageEngine OpManager. It greatly streamlines the process of discovering our network. Additionally, the bandwidth utilization feature is crucial. The detailed bandwidth and traffic reports aid in monitoring traffic at various levels.
SolarWinds IPAM is like what SolarWinds itself says, i.e. easy to use and simple. SolarWinds has really made their orion and non-orion platform products so simple that any newbie can give a try and make the best use out of it. I learned SolarWinds IPAM by myself in a POC environment, and not just IPAM but other modules and now I own 6 certifications. You see how easy to use this product is.
We do not integrate IPAM into other systems other than the standard Orion integration. The performance is reasonable, however, we are running all the SolarWinds applications on a very large server.
At first, we were not able to add our Avaya switches to the configuration backup module, our partner tried to help, but they did not find the solution, we had one remote session with tech support of ME and they solve the problem.
I have not contacted customer support and therefore have no experience in this area. I know we have some issues with our VAR support at this time for Orion, but I don't know if the IPAM falls into the same support structure. Perhaps others in the organization may know more regarding the support area.
ManageEngine OPManager has already made its place in the market as compared to other tools available due to following reasons - 1. Monitoring capabilities for almost every infrastructure types such as Network, Servers, Virtualization etc 2. Medium Licensing Cost and not that aggressively increasing every year. 3. Good Support and steady pace of growth and marketing.
SolarWinds IP Address Manager was cheaper than both alternatives and far easier to manage. Device42 interface is years behind what Solarwinds offers. It is very outdated; BT Diamond required remote management and we constantly had to message support, it reached a point where it was better not to have the product at all.
We have not experienced any scalability issues with this product. However, SolarWinds needs to allow users to scale horizontally without any license restrictions. For example, we would like to separate Netflow and Orion onto different platforms but are unable to due to license restrictions.
IPAM has saved countless hours of running scripts and gathering data to compile reports to plan re-subnetting globally.
IPAM has reduced helpdesk incidents by immediately spotting bad DNSR and IP conflicts.
IPAM has helped eliminate blocks on projects whereas there is not currently enough address space requiring major changes to accommodate more IP'ed servers, gear, etc.
