NetVizura NetFlow Analyzer vs. OpenNMS Meridian

The capacity planning was a big help in our company as we grew the number of connected locations. Grow or die is pretty much the business model of today but that growth is only as good as the network it travels on. Being able to recommend appropriate network requirements is a big deal in our line of business.

Incentivized

I would recommend all system administrators use some form of network monitoring if they are not already doing so, and I'd definitely recommend people consider OpenNMS if they're shopping around. Small businesses will benefit from the low-cost of entry (it's free!), whilst getting all the enterprise features. Larger businesses can benefit from paid support plans.

However, there's no getting around the fact that you will require some advanced networking and sysadmin knowledge to get the most out of OpenNMS, or at least, be prepared for a steep learning curve. If you don't have the resources to devote this time initially, you may struggle.

Incentivized

• Ease of use

• Report on SLA
• Group network areas
• Discovery of elements

Incentivized

• At this point, I don't have any suggestion for improvements.

Incentivized

• We've had a few issues with delayed alerting.
• I haven't quite figured out how to make topologies work yet, but I haven't spent a ton of time on it either.
• We've also had a bit of trouble importing some MIBs, but that usually boiled down to working with the vendor to make sure we had the right MIBs and dependencies.

Incentivized

Easier to use

OpenNMS's more attractive GUI and its price break were the main reasons our company chose to explore and use this product. However, it never managed to actually replace Nagios which had a much more established hold within the company. Perhaps we were over-monitoring, but our company claimed a $100k loss per hour of downtime.

Incentivized

• As I mentioned in a previous statement, the capacity planning was the big thing. In our line of business, speed is everything. Customers hate to be slowed down so having the appropriate network connections is a must.
• Anomaly Detection with the threshold based alerting has made our network team more proactive in stopping things before they can really affect the company.
• Productivity with the use of monitoring conversations and amount of used bandwidth has helped weed out the works versus the campers.

Incentivized

• Initial adoption required quite a lot of resources and time to get everything right. Totally worth it for us; just be prepared for a gradual process that will get better and better with time.
• Once setup and running smoothly, it provides us with all the reporting we could hope for, at near zero cost.
• With OpenNMS, we're able to offer a much more reliable service to our customers, and spend a lot less time dealing with issues.

Incentivized