Likelihood to Recommend If your IT team isn't proficient in automation and scripting, Solarwinds NCM can fill that gap (assuming your company's security team signs off on approving SW in your environment given the hack.) Basic device configuration, pushing mass changes reliably and backups are NCM's strong suites. If you have a complex scenario where if/then cases are needed, NCM is a bit lack luster. Auto discovery isn't as easy either as certain parameters need to be met for that feature to work 100% of the time
Read full review SysKit (formerly Acceleratio)
The product is second to none in providing an accurate and detailed view of a SharePoint farm, its composition, and its configuration. It is an essential tool for discovery purposes, and it should be used anytime business continuity and disaster recover plans/documentations are being prepared. Since SharePoint doesn't include a "farm clone" method, SPDocKit provides the next best thing in attempts to replicate configuration. It can also be used as a Q&A checkpoint through the use of farm snapshots to highlight differences that exist between two or more environments.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review SysKit (formerly Acceleratio)
Discovery. When trying to learn the ins and outs of an unfamiliar SharePoint farm configuration, SPDocKit creates a complete and accurate picture. Documentation. Documenting farm configurations manually is a very time and labor intensive process, so I turn to SPDocKit to automate the process for me. Change Tracking. SPDocKit can take a series of farm snapshots over time, and it can highlight and track differences in configuration and settings from snapshot to snapshot. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review SysKit (formerly Acceleratio)
Cloud Readiness. Unfortunately, SPDocKit cannot run against SharePoint Online (SPO) environments due to its reliance on server APIs that aren't exposed in the cloud. Variations. SPDocKit exists in a number of forms for licensing purposes, and not all versions are equivalent. It's sometimes difficult to know what version of the product houses the feature that I want to use, as well as whether or not I'm licensed for it. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review SysKit (formerly Acceleratio)
Usability 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.
Read full review SysKit (formerly Acceleratio)
Support Rating 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.
Read full review SysKit (formerly Acceleratio)
SysKit support is second to none. On occasions where I've had questions about any aspect of SPDocKit, I've reached out to SysKit through available channels and usually gotten back a detailed and helpful answer within 24 hours of my request submission. They're also very friendly and supply more information that may be related to my inquiry or problem. I never feel like customer support is an afterthought with SysKit.
Read full review Online Training 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
Read full review SysKit (formerly Acceleratio)
Implementation Rating 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
Read full review SysKit (formerly Acceleratio)
Alternatives Considered 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 already being our monitoring tool made the decision easy. Time is at a premium in small teams and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is very easy to use right out of the box without all the tweaking required by powerful command line driven tools like
Ansible .
Read full review SysKit (formerly Acceleratio)
I am unaware of any other product on the market that does what SysKit SPDocKit does. SPDocKit has certainly been doing it the longest, and it offers a unique value proposition and set of capabilities.
Read full review Return on Investment The time savings from automatic daily backups is significant The compare configuration tool is super helpful at spotting errors when small changes occur that are hard to detect otherwise. The compliance check tool saves countless hours going through configurations for errors. Read full review SysKit (formerly Acceleratio)
The product cost may appear large, but when you compare the cost and reuse of the product to what it would cost in time and effort to carry out its functions manually, the cost is truly a drop in the bucket. Since I operate as a consultant, I consider the SysKit SPDocKit tool essential to the work I do. It allows me to go into new environments, generate a farm report, and use that report as something I provide to the client - as well as for my own purposes. Read full review ScreenShots SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Screenshots