Likelihood to Recommend SolarWinds patch management has had issues over the years. Sometimes requiring manual intervention to get resolved. The UI [with N-able RMM (formerly Solarwinds RMM)] makes it easy to see status of systems and identify any alerts easily. Remotely monitoring the status of servers/computers. Managing the systems, patching, systems maintenance and remote support.
Read full review For monitoring applications that run on Windows hosts on VMware or HyperV virtualization, SolarWindows offers a nice, vertical view of both the loads and the resources. In such an environment, this makes life really good! But if you have something else -- for example, Linux hosts -- you're on your own to some extent. That is, the things it does well, it does very well -- but everything else is much less polished.
Read full review Pros It provides fantastic remote access capabilities. The Take Control tool gives us a robust platform that is capable of remote controlling almost any endpoint we need to and the chat, file transfer, and screen recording tools are all exceptionally useful. SolarWinds RMM is particularly useful as a single pane of glass solution that allows us to monitor and manage thousands of endpoints across dozens of different clients. It does a solid job of allowing us to sort, organize, and filter based off of who and what we want to see at any given time. Due to its client based nature, the platform excels at in-depth monitoring of services, event logs, and the functionality of systems with custom script checks. Read full review Monitor Azure Cloud Severs- We use SolarWinds SAM to monitor Active Directory and DNS on Several DCs published on Azure Cloud. Monitor Hyper V and VMware - SolarWinds SAM monitors applications on both Hyper V and VMware, while also monitoring the physical host machines. It also helps us monitor Warranty expiration for physical servers. Read full review Cons UI speed and threading across multiple windows (1 window refreshing, causes all refreshes to hang). Load times in certain menus, regardless of server specs. Integration with 3rd party applications. Speed of dev team response in regards to existing features malfunctioning, or major bugs that Solarwinds does not consider major. Read full review Provides basic monitoring/visibility. Visibility into detailed/fine-grained issues best suited for more specialized/expensive solutions. Licensing per monitored application rapidly uses up purchased license count. More out-of-the-box templates or easier setup of monitoring less-common applications would make the solution more appealing given the target audience of the product. Mike Hochstein Senior Director, Infrastructure Architecture & Standards
Read full review Likelihood to Renew We are heavily invested in Solarwinds products for a reason. They are generally easy to setup and run with, requiring only some interfacing with support or help articles on rare occasions. They do what we bought them to do and we can't ask for more.
Read full review Usability The interface is easy to navigate. Setting up policies is straight forward. The antivirus and web filter are simple and exceptions are easy to make. Upgrading the agent is made simple and creating scripts is made fool proof. (Well, almost)
Read full review SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is quite easy to use and super versatile. It allows you to do just about anything you can through premade templates or through scripting. You can use an agent on the servers if you want to, or you can monitor through WMI or SNMP credentials. You can customize thresholds for alerting quickly, and you can configure alerts to be as complex or as simple as you want.
Read full review Reliability and Availability The tool works and monitors items 24x7, it only requires maintenance a little more frequently due to security fixes in the Windows operating system.
Read full review Performance The graphical interface and the performance of the database leave a little to be desired, they could be better explored.Some functionality and screens do not work well depending on the browser used. The integrations never had any problems or caused crashes in other systems.
Read full review Support Rating The ease of use, full functionality, reliability and excellent support.[N-able RMM (formerly Solarwinds RMM)] gives users a full suite of tools with a single installable file. Unlike standard tools, you don't have to install several different executables to be able to have fully protected end points.
Read full review I think there was only a couple times I had to open a support case for SAM and one time they got multiple engineers on the phone to get a better idea what I was trying to monitor and was able to point me in the best direction to monitor that system.
Read full review Online Training It was sufficient to read their documentation and watch videos.
Read full review Implementation Rating Make sure SNMP and WMI are configured ahead of time
Read full review Alternatives Considered SolarWinds definitely is the the most ready out of the box as far as getting is up and running and you can start using it where other system go from need ing a little setup like importing MIBS to completely needing to configure the system. As far a performance once things are up and working I feel they all do a good job at basic monitoring and management. The difference is that SolarWinds does a good job at having things templated but allows you to customize some attributes. If you are want to make major customization for alerts and monitoring and other things SolarWinds is not the best option. But, then again, you will not need a team just to manage the system.
Read full review It has been a while since we first purchased SolarWinds, but I looked over several other products that I can't remember now. Many other products tried to scan the network to find computers but given that our computers are located in various places across campus with other computers in our buildings that are not ours that type of network scanning was not what we needed. Other services have extra services that we had no need of and I liked the ability to add custom fields in SolarWinds so we can track the information on each computer that we need to know.
Connie Inman Senior IT Technologist II & Desktop Support Supervisor
Read full review Scalability It is hard to find the recommended SQL setup and convince others that is the way you should configure the server when you set it up
Read full review Return on Investment The ROI is immediate for us. The advanced alerting alone makes this product an ace in our bag. The confidence you have in your network is wonderful. Another big ROI we get from the advanced alerting is the peace of mind that our engineers feel. We are a 24/7 shop, so being on-call goes from being hectic to extremely manageable. The only negative I can honestly say is when the time comes to patch the product. Micro-patches are easy enough, but jumping versions can be a bit taxing. Read full review Less time spent investigating causes of issues. We are alerted straight away and can find the root cause of the issue in less time. We have been able to ditch all our previous individual monitoring solutions, none of which integrated with each other for a single solution which fully integrates with each of the different modules to provide a single portal for monitoring and alerting. Read full review ScreenShots N-able N-sight RMM Screenshots SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Screenshots