SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) is worth the money
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) to automatically backup up configurations of all our network devices comprised of Cisco Routers and Switches. We can then look at and compare configs if we need them to build a new switch or router or for troubleshooting. I also use it to push out commands to multiple devices at once which is very handy.
Pros
- Automatically backs up devices on a schedule
- Allows you to compare configs side by side and illustrates differences
- Allows you to push out scripts to multiple devices at once
- shows where you have policy violations with regard to Cisco's best practices
Cons
- Doesn't seem to be accurate with end of life, end of support information.
- The user interface can be complicated and takes time to figure out
- It's not cheap and prices just went up so we were looking at other options, but I've been using it for years and am accustomed to it
- Support can be hard to reach and hard to understand
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
