Patch Manager Plus is an automated patch management software that provides enterprises with a single interface for all patch management tasks. The vendor claims it works across platforms, helping users patch Windows, Mac, Linux & 300+ third-party applications. With Automated Patch Deployments, users can automate the entire process of patch management:…
$245
50 endpoints
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is network diagnostics and troubleshooting technology, from Austin-based SolarWinds.
If you are managing a very large number of computers, I would say 1000+, the standard patching tools provided by Microsoft will fail to do their job properly. This is where you will benefit from ManageEngine PATCH MANAGER Plus, being agent-based it is fast, easy to manage, and reliable. If you require functionality more than just patching, like security auditing, you have to look elsewhere.
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
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.
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.
The overall usability for the application is great precisely for the ease of use the application provides, if i would go in a different organisation, i would suggest implementing ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus or Endpoint Central due to its features, and productivity.
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.
The support team at Patch Manager Plus has been awesome. Very responsive and knowledgeable. There are times when there is confusion between different tickets but there is still good service.
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.
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
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
We were talking to Action1 and Adaptiva about their solutions of patch management. The main factor of choosing ManageEngine was pricing, which was considerably lower compared to these tools. Also, for Action1, it didn't featured some important features (like Linux patching), and it looked like a solution that is getting started in the market, even being more expensive than Patch Manager Plus.
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.
It has saved engineers so much time when monitoring patching out of hours.
We no longer need to log into each individual server to patch it if it's failed, it can all be done from inside ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus itself.
