Likelihood to Recommend Netwrix [Auditor] is a great tool for any SysAdmin no matter the company size. Licensing is determined by users, not employee count, and that makes it a great product from a small business to an enterprise application. The time savings coupled with the increased productivity is a key factor is determining this tool over other products.
Read full review I am highly likely to recommend Rackspace Cloud Monitoring to a colleague. This is assuming they have a decent background in working on cloud servers. If you don't mind digging in yourself to solve problems, then this is a great resource. If you are just learning how to set up servers on your own, then I recommend at least hiring someone to help you use the service. With that being said, Rackspace makes it easy for people you may hire to seamlessly work within your account. They get their own separate developer account.
Read full review Pros Netwrix Auditor performs the audit collection process in a method that does not burden the systems it is auditing. It usually just pulls the log and event logs data from the machine it is auditing and then performs the extraction of the information in these files on the Netwrix Auditor server. This reducing the audit processes to only pulling log data from the server but does not keep the server busy processing the data. Once the log data has been pulled from a server being audited, Netwrix will store the log data in a compressed form in its Long Term Archive. This allows the database to be kept smaller than the all the data being kept in the Log Term Archive and therefore makes creating reports much faster since the database is not as big as it could be. Since Netwrix Auditor uses standard Microsoft SQL Server and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to perform reporting, working with the results of the audit is much easier. Anyone who knows SQL Server and SSRS can work with the data and create their own reports. The predefined reports that come with Netwrix Auditor cover most of the items required to properly report on the status of a system. They have many predefined reports for FedRamp, PCI, HIPPA, and other compliance regulations. Read full review Immediate email notifications: In case a service is down on our servers, we get immediate email notifications via rackspace cloud monitoring service. This helps us to know about the issues and we get in contact with support team to get it resolved. Configuration on specific services: We can configure this monitoring on specific services. So for example if i don't want to get notified if MySQL concurrent users limit reached, then I do not need to configure this monitoring for MySQL. I can just use it whenever needed for defined services. Group emails and technical contacts emails: The monitoring service can send email alerts to a number of email addresses. Primarily the ones who are added as a technical contact. It helps all people get notified about any issue. Auto ticket management: Rackspace automatically creates a support ticket when a service is down and is notified by their monitoring service. Read full review Cons There is a bit of a learning curve. The interface is fairly intuitive, but I think there is room for improvement. There is a LOT of functionality which can be quite overwhelming at first, but in and of itself, not a bad thing. I think this software would benefit from a "Simple" mode and "Advanced" mode. This would ease the learning curve a bit. Matt Rogers Information Technology and Web Support Specialist
Read full review It would be nice if there were more templates so that beginners could easily create complex monitors I seemed to stumble upon the cloud monitoring service after having Rackspace for a while Read full review Likelihood to Renew We have renewed already the licensing of the product minus SQL Server and Oracle Database because the organisation believes the modules are very expensive and have identified a different product for auditing Databases Other modules are very important like the User Activity monitor, AD queries that we can not get from the native AD itself or you have to run complicated powershell scripts! Easy to use interface Pre-defined Reports Easy way to subscribe to important alerts e.g Privilege account group membership changes
Read full review Usability The product has user friend pre-defined queries which takes off the stress and horrors of having to query Active Directory with complex Powershell scripts! You can subscribe to certain functions when they are done and you get an alert e.g privileged accounts actions and you don't need to have programming skills The product has a desktop version of the software and donot have to login to the server all the time you need to use it. You can see very fast the posture of your environment of the overview screen and deduce what exactly is wrong and what has to be done
Read full review Support Rating Customer support has always been fast and helpful when we run into any issues. The smaller issues are usually resolved within a day or two. It is great support and I feel like I am in good hands anytime an issue comes up. However, we don't run into many issues
Read full review Implementation Rating Make sure you trial the software and understand the fundamentals of each module that you are interested in Make sure you get the buy in from both Management and most importantly your team members (the product users) for a successful implementation Watch the webinars of the product from the product website
Read full review Alternatives Considered I can only compare it to SolarWinds. Their similar products have larger foot prints and seem a little clumsy in comparison. The Netwrix product turns on a lot of the auditing options that were required for the product to work properly where it seemed I had to do a lot of manual tweeking with the SolarWinds product.
Read full review I also used
Monitis as a monitoring service for our server.
Rackspace 'S monitoring sends immediate notifications while
Monitis might take a couple minutes to understand if a service is down. Since
Rackspace has their monitoring integrated with their support system, it helps us a lot and we don't need to call support all the time.
Read full review Return on Investment 2 men 4 four rule is eliminated. System administrators are on their toes now and very attentive before performing and change. Change management is followed properly. Compliance is implemented as it should be. Housekeeping of servers is done. AD users maintained well. Read full review I have overpaid in the past for services I didn't need The steepish learning curve might slow things down at first I have learned a lot using Rackspace Cloud Monitoring! Read full review ScreenShots Netwrix Auditor Screenshots