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SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is network diagnostics and troubleshooting technology, from Austin-based SolarWinds.N/A
    Pricing
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Free Trial
    Yes
    Free/Freemium Version
    No
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    No
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptional
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Considered Both Products
    SolarWinds
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Auvik has some similar features but it is very expensive. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) has gone up in price but it is much more affordable than Auvik. Auvik has no way of sending a script to more than one device at a time so that is a downside of Auvik versus …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We evaluated PRTG Network Monitor which was similar to SolarWinds but was very resource-intensive and the server kept crashing when we got close to 100 devices whereas on SolarWinds we were able to add several thousand devices. We also evaluated Nagios Core as a free …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Solarwinds Network Configuration Manager is extremely powerful in allowing our organization to automate specific tasks. It is extremely simple to use and offers a Graphical User Interface for performing tasks. I am a very curious person, which has led me to use Ansible simply …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    All of the SolarWinds solutions stack up against their competition. The customer support is excellent, KB articles are details, and the community (Thwack) is the best when it comes to working through complex configurations/monitors. These are the things that make them the right …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    At the time SolarWinds was the biggest player in the space and their whole portfolio was very comprehensive. As time progressed and newer technologies came about (i.e. SDWAN) their products couldn't keep up with the consumer demands and changing market. Security became such a …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    The product is easy to use, has great support, and is more cost-effective than the other products on the market. I would recommend this to anyone who asked for my opinion.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    I have not evaluated other products similar in scope to SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM).
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Deployment is much easier than others like Cisco DNA, also because is a multivendor platform
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Solarwinds is more user friendly and easier to use.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    The templates and master configuration features together with the compare feature make SolarWinds NCM a no-brainer.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    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 …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    I actually prefer the ManageEngine Network Configuration Management engine product but switched to SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager to standardize to our Orion deployment.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is more efficient when it comes to setting up recurring tasks and different reports.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We had previously used cattools and rancid for configuration management. Cattools is another Solarwinds product but one that we outgrew and doesn't integrate with the Orion platform like SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) does. Rancid it seems a lot of engineers are …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    The SolarWinds NCM product stacks up well compared to just about any other product on the market. The NCM tool is super easy to use and will complement every Cisco or Aruba product that you may have.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    If it has been used and it has been functional since it reduces the work time by more than half, making the process faster, safer, and more precise, carrying out not so complex and functional processes referring to configurations of multiple devices at the same time in an agile …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Easy to use and does the job.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    SolarWinds NCM solution is more flexible and GUI is from my point of view more intuitive, from the other hand Manage Engine solution is [a] cheaper solution which has almost [the] same functionality but suffers of luck of deeper integration with other Manage Engine modules.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    LogicMonitor is very basic when it comes to config management, with support for a limited number of devices (though sufficient for us) and minimal frills/features. While we could have used it for the BC/DR portion of our solution, we wanted the better config diffs, compliance …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) automates our Network Configuration task and provides reliable Configuration backup option. Integrates with the SolarWinds Network Performance platform for alerting and reporting. Provides meaningful dashboards to manage network …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Needs several updates and better documentation on how to create deployment templates
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    I have not had the opportunity to evaluate any of them, NCM has been the only software that has been used in recent years, and due to its good design, I have not had the need to look for additional software it meets my expectations and those of the manager.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) was by far the easiest to implement and it just started working right out of the box. Within a few hours were we populating our config backup repository and soon after that, we were writing scripts to audit our configurations. …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We are looking at puppet just to keep our options open. This is more my area because I don't have to rely on windows. Sure there's some learning you need to do, but it runs on a solid system. Not much else we are looking at for comparison. Now if NCM moves to another OS, well …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We did not evaluate any other similar products. When the need for a config manager arose, we already had a heavy investment in SolarWinds, so using another SolarWinds module made the most sense for us.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    User Ratings
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (142 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (9 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    SolarWinds
    Network Configuration Manager is well suited for backing up configurations of all your devices. It also has a great comparison tool for seeing only the differences in config. Another great feature is it's ability to push a script to any number of devices. This is very handy for pushing changes to one, 10 or multiple devices. There are also some great reports that you can run against the devices in inventory
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    SolarWinds
    • Integrates with Network Performance Management for Alerting and Reporting.
    • NetPath and detects issues due to Configuration Change.
    • Keeps a record of which user made the change.
    • Which devices are not being backed up, devices where backups are failing, dashboard and alerting available.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    SolarWinds
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    SolarWinds
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    SolarWinds
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    SolarWinds
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    SolarWinds
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    SolarWinds
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    SolarWinds
    At the time SolarWinds was the biggest player in the space and their whole portfolio was very comprehensive. As time progressed and newer technologies came about (i.e. SDWAN) their products couldn't keep up with the consumer demands and changing market. Security became such a big focus that once Solarwinds got hacked we had to remove all their products from our environment
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    SolarWinds
    • Saves 100s of hours a year in man hours over manual configuration.
    • Saved easily 50k in lost revenue when a switch rebooted with months old unsaved configuration. NCM let us quickly restore a snapshot of the running config from the previous day.
    • Saves us several man hours per week of config auditing by reducing all changes to a summary email.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Screenshots

    Screenshot of Network Automation -  manage rapid change across complex and multi-vendor networks, reduce time needed to complete repetitive tasks, and maintain standards and service levels for uninterrupted ITScreenshot of Config Backup - rest easy knowing you can locate the most current configuration and quickly apply it to a replacement spare, or to roll back a blown configuration.Screenshot of Vulnerability Scanning - Take the hassle out of vulnerability scanning using NCM's integration with the National Vulnerability Database and access to the most current CVE’s to identify vulnerabilities in your Cisco devices.Screenshot of Inventory Management - Be able to know what devices are connected to your network, their hardware and software configurations, and when they approach end-of-service and end-of-life, with NCM device configuration management tool.Screenshot of User Management - Use NCM's integrated console to lock down devices from unauthorized access, delegate who can view device details and make configuration changes, and determine when network changes can occur.Screenshot of Baselines and Diffs - IT professionals can get a more comprehensive view by leveraging baselines across multiple nodes. Diff view in NCM’s network configuration management tool is designed to highlight only those lines that changed.