PathSolutions TotalView vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)

TotalView is well suited for an infrastructure where you are looking for a cost-effective, additive network management tool for in-depth device diagnostic information. This will not be a one-stop shop application, but it does what is advertised very well. SNMP is required for configuration and adding additional devices is quick and simple. This product also works well with Shoretel VoIP systems and allows for a full overview of connected phones along with being able to view calls on an extension/IP basis.

We use and depend on it for status state of our network gear, switches and routers. It does an excellent job of getting you the details you need to confirm all devices and products are working at the level needed. At times, it does tend to flag network switch ports and/or switches themselves as exceeding their rated capacity when frequently it was a quick blip of high traffic due to downloads, or uploads causing the max'ing of the device. Again, you can adjust the settings but then you adjust it too high and miss real activity. It can become nuisance alerting when you tend to then ignore

Incentivized

• The setup is fast and easy - 500 devices in 20 minutes.
• The ability to go back a day or a week in time allows us to more easily troubleshoot the "what happened at 3 a.m. yesterday" question.
• It gives us easily accessible stats for checks and balances like device types, counts, models, serial number etc.

• The level of customization possible with Network Bandwidth Analyzer is very valuable. Rather than being stuck with a "one-size-fits-all" presentation, an administrator can easily create customized views, reports, and alerts so that users can have a more tailored view of the data provided by Network Bandwidth Analyzer. This has the effect of making the tool more attractive to the end user.
• The NetFlow Traffic Analyzer piece of Network Bandwidth Analyzer provides the details on bandwidth usage on the network. More than knowing how much bandwidth is being used, one is provided with detailed information on how that bandwidth is being used. This provides invaluable information for capacity planning and even certain forensic tasks faced by the network engineer.
• The ability to produce network maps provides an easy way to create an attractive and functional NOC/SOC view of the entire network. Both technician and the occasional passerby can quickly determine if there are issues to be addressed. The ability to customize a map with background images and custom icons and stencils can make these maps really pop.

Incentivized

• If you have some complexities in your network addressing, the network diagram tool will lay everything out automatically, but it will be confusing to look at. There is a way to edit the diagram so it looks more intuitive, but it may require some time to edit everything the right way.
• TotalView will count virtual interfaces such as voice dial-peers and service modules as "ports," which counts against your license count. However, there is a way to edit each device to remove these "false positives" so it doesn't suck up licenses, but it can take some time to clean those up.

• The ability to intuitively and quickly serve up specified information up to a dashboard for general “public” consumption, that cycles through several pages of information.
• The ability to intuitively set up alerting on bandwidth levels, instead of having to dig through all types of alerts available to find the one needed.
• Provide a pricing model based on different support levels: if I want only available update installations, don’t make me pay the same amount as those wanting full support.

Incentivized

As far as rating for usability is concerned I would give 10/10 as NTA is very easy to use. All you need to do is install that module and ask network Team to configure the Netflow towards Server IP. [The] rest is pre-configured and reports are pre-built. Moment you receive the flows from Network all you will have is information about traffic.

Incentivized

I know we could probably pay for it, but it would be nice if we could get to a tier 2 technician faster. Spending a couple of hours on the phone with the level 1 technician, when we have already tried the troubleshooting they are walking us through, is just a waste of time.

Incentivized

The training offered by SolarWinds is some of the best out there. They have several different videos that go into great detail from initial setup to advanced configurations. In addition to the view at your own pace video, they also have live training for customers that focus on a single product and you can ask questions with the folks who develop the software. I have had good success with their live sessions and getting questions answered.

Incentivized

The three tools listed do different things with some similarities. For us the biggest need was data analysis, semi-automatic troubleshooting, and data gathering and topology mapping. TotalView hit the most of these in the price point we were looking for. Each tool has "extras," but we felt that the extras provided by TotalView were good enough and that the other tools didn't justify the cost.

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer compared to Wireshark and PRTG Network Monitor beats it by just the simple interface. Though all are manual setup, NTA takes it a step further with graphs and reports that analyze the data for you. In comparing to Extrahop from a bandwidth comparison, Extrahop wins but Extrahop is a lot more than just a bandwidth monitoring and cost.

Incentivized

• Wuite possibly the best spent money i have recommended in my 20+ year IT career.

• Be prepared to answer lots of questions. When people see the data in NTA they are going to want to know why App A is talking to App B. Be ready to explain!
• Hand the keys to the NTA kingdom to the network team. They will thank you. Everyone wants to have friends on the network team, right?
• Be prepared to invest in some significant compute and storage performance to keep up with your NTA monitoring
• Running the latest firmware for your network gear is (often) required to take advantage of all the flow-monitoring. You upgrade regularly, right??

Incentivized