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Easy Installation and Configuration: Many users have found the installation, configuration, and use of Solarwinds Network Configuration …
Overview
What is SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)?
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is network diagnostics and troubleshooting technology, from Austin-based SolarWinds.
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- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
- FAQs
What is SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)?
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) can help save time and improve network
reliability and security by managing configurations, changes, and compliance for routers,
switches, and other network devices.
Network Configuration Manager enables IT Pros with:
Network Configuration Manager enables IT Pros with:
- Out-of-the-box support for major network device vendors, including Cisco®, Juniper®, HP®, Huawei®, F5®, Avaya®, Ruckus®, and more.
- Automated bulk deployment of standardized device configs.
- Automatic backups of device configurations, and rollback to the last-known good configurations, if necessary.
- Identifying IOS® devices with potential vulnerabilities, utilizing the NIST CVE repository service, and even provides the tools to manage the investigation, remediation, or waiver of each vulnerability.
- Auditing device configs for NIST FISMA, DISA STIG, and DSS PCI compliance.
- Built on the Orion® Platform, NCM provides the ability to purchase and fully integrate with additional network monitoring modules (network performance monitoring, NetFlow traffic analysis, WAN management, VoIP, device tracking, and IP address management), as well as systems, storage, and virtualization management, all in a single web console.
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Features
- Supported: Configuration Change Automation
- Supported: Configuration Backup and Restore
- Supported: Change Monitoring
- Supported: Change Management - Roles & Approval
- Supported: Baselines and Configuration Drift Monitoring
- Supported: IOS Vulnerability Scanning
- Supported: Compliance Assessment and Enforcement
- Supported: Network Insight for Cisco Nexus
- Supported: Network Insight for Cisco ASA
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Screenshots
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Video
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager Overview
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Integrations
- SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
- SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
- SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
- SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
- SolarWinds Web Performance Monitor (WPM)
- SolarWinds IP Address Manager (IPAM)
- SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager (VNQM)
- SolarWinds Virtualization Manager (VMAN)
- SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor (SRM)
- SolarWinds User Device Tracker
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Competitors
- ManageEngine OpManager
- Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
- DX Spectrum (formerly CA Spectrum)
- RANCID
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Windows Server |
| Mobile Application | No |
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Downloadables
Frequently Asked Questions
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is network diagnostics and troubleshooting technology, from Austin-based SolarWinds.
ManageEngine OpManager and Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued) are common alternatives for SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM).
Reviewers rate Solarwinds Premier Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.5.
The most common users of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
Comparisons
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Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Easy Installation and Configuration: Many users have found the installation, configuration, and use of Solarwinds Network Configuration Manager to be easy. They have mentioned that the product has a simple and intuitive setup process, allowing them to quickly get started with it.
User-Friendly Reporting: Users appreciate the simplicity and ease of reporting provided by Solarwinds Network Configuration Manager. They find generating reports to be a straightforward process, thanks to the product's user-friendly interface. This allows users to easily access and analyze the necessary data.
Seamless Integration with Other SolarWinds Products: Users highlight the compatibility of Solarwinds Network Configuration Manager with other products from the same company. It seamlessly integrates with other SolarWinds tools and can run on the same server instance. This unified experience provides users with a cohesive workflow and enhances their overall efficiency.
Confusing User Interface: Some users have expressed frustration with the user interface of the software, finding it confusing and difficult to navigate. This sentiment is shared by multiple reviewers who feel that the interface hinders their ability to quickly find information and perform tasks efficiently.
Slowness of Orion Platform: Several users have complained about the slowness of the Orion platform, particularly when additional modules and nodes are added. This issue has been raised by a significant number of reviewers, highlighting the need for improved performance optimization to enhance user experience.
Limited Vendor Support: Users have expressed a need for better support for multiple vendors in the software. They feel that currently, there is a lack of vendor-specific equipment profiles and features for non-Cisco devices. Multiple reviewers have suggested expanding the range of supported devices to make the software more versatile and suitable for diverse network environments.
Users of Solarwinds configuration manager have made several recommendations based on their experiences with the product. The three most common recommendations are as follows:
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Make it easier to access saved config comparisons - Users have suggested improving the accessibility of saved configuration comparisons. This would enable them to quickly refer to previous configurations and compare them with current ones, aiding in troubleshooting and auditing processes.
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Explore Thwack for inspiration from other users' experiences - Users recommend exploring Thwack, Solarwinds' online community platform, to learn from other users' experiences and gain insights into best practices for using the software. This can help users make the most of the features and functionality available in Solarwinds configuration manager.
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Add more support for different vendors - Users have noted that while Solarwinds configuration manager is a useful tool, they would appreciate additional support for a wider range of vendor devices. Expanding compatibility and incorporating more device types would enhance the software's usefulness for a broader user base.
These recommendations highlight areas where users find room for improvement or suggest ways to enhance their experience with Solarwinds configuration manager.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 141)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
We use Solarwinds Network Configuration Manager primarily for the network configuration backup use case. We have it pull configurations on a daily basis from our Cisco Catalyst/IOS/IOS-XE/Nexus/WLC and Fortinet devices, both running and startup configs. We also use it to send daily config change notifications showing a diff between the previous and the current versions. Finally, we use it to send us weekly emails whenever there is a difference between our running and startup Cisco configs, meaning the config was not saved to flash.
- Pulls down configurations of network devices
- Provides diff reports/emails, comparing previous and current configs
- Customizing isn't as straightforward as one would expect, could be made simpler
SolarWinds NCM is principally used to perform configuration backup but also to perform global configuration update like a password change or SNMP community update.
- Configuration backup
- Policy violations
- Execution script
- A more pre-defined script would be welcome.
- NCM jobs are quite slow to run.
- Chart designs are old school.
November 16, 2022
NCM - makes our lives easy.
We use SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager to manage and make changes to configured switches and other network devices. It saves us a lot of time in configuring new devices because the configurations are stored on SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager also makes reports and inventory a lot easier for us. Using SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager makes it a lot easier to manage our configurations over the network.
- Reports. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager allows us to generate config change reports
- Firmware upgrades. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager allows us to upgrade the firmware on all our networking devices
- Storing configurations. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is used as part of our disaster recovery strategy to store current configs of all devices
- Network Insight can be improved to support more vendors.
November 14, 2022
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager review
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is used to pull backups of network devices. We also try to use it to also push code to out of the box devices, which speeds up setup time. Additionally, we use it for mass code pushes to 40+ switches (VLAN additions, updates, etc.) I have saved countless hours of manual work by utilizing SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager in our environment.
- Backups
- Scripting
- Mass updates
- N/a
- N/a
November 12, 2022
You get what you pay for
We SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager in our environment to backup configs on all of our network devices, as well as alert whenever there are changes that have been made.
- config backup
- alert on config changes
- compare changes over time
- reduce the cost
- sales people are determined
September 24, 2022
Tool which is easy to implement and very well integrated with other SolarWinds products
[The] primary use of [SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)] is to backup configuration from various network devices (routers, switches, firewalls, access points, load-balancers). Great thing is that you can even change configurations which we used to setup devices once we migrated to new NTP servers and DHCP servers. One thing that we did not setup is monitoring EoL (End of Life, End of Support)- actually there is a space to improve [the] product to have some online database to automate that instead of manually fulfill dates. [It has a] great feature [which] is [a] report of differences between last and previous configurations which we use a lot to identify changes on [the] network.
- Difference between configurations
- Mass snippet deployment
- Scheduled backup of configurations
- Check configuration standards (policy reports)
- Automate network equipment lifecycle management (EoL, EoS)
- Simplify policy checkup setup
- Improve interface for diagnostic interaction between device and NCM
I manage the network by myself so NCM has made my job much easier simply by automating the downloads and triggering an event when the configuration has changed. I use the config compare to review changes that I have made to ensure that the change has been made correctly. It is almost like I have another employee helping me keep all the configurations in order AND keeping an eye on what changes I have made!
- Automated Download of every configuration per your schedule
- Notifies end user when baseline configuration does not match the current running configuration.
- Easily manage the baseline configurations so that you can keep all information up to date
- Beautiful dashboard red = bad green=good at a glance you can see if something is not quite right
- Odd Hardware that does not have a "startup-config or running-config" per definition; it would be nice to be able to edit the rules to be in compliance for startup-config matches running-config
- Policy violations are only targeted at Cisco equipment
- Firmware vulnerabilities only target Cisco equipment
We use the SolarWinds NCM to manage the configuration of all of our network appliances, specifically all the switchgear in all of our offices, using it to maintain configuration history.
- Easy to deploy
- Easy to configure
- Easy to manage post initial configuration
- The main frustration is the overall slowness of the Orion platform, especially as more modules and nodes are added.
April 15, 2022
Solarwinds NCM - filling the gap of automation
We used Solarwinds NCM for almost a decade before the unfortunate Solarwinds hack. Automation and scripting wasn't as prevalent during those years and Solarwinds NCM filled those needs. Making configuration changes to hundreds of devices using NCM saved countless hours which was a direct benefit to the our business's bottom line. The amount of changes needed throughout a year were in the dozens as our network was constantly changing. NCM also came in clutch in many device failures because of the automated backups. We were able to quickly pull the previous configurations and restore them onto the new replacement device within minutes.
- Configuration backups (incremental and timed)
- Pushing out configuration changes in mass
- Scheduled Firmware upgrades
- Storage hungry (needs lots of storage space)
- basic alerting (could benefit from triggering scripts if/then conditions)
- auto-discovery didn't always work (had to manually add nodes most of the time)
NCM is being used as our central device change tracking application. It is used to centralize and control our internal processes related to network device configuration change management. The application helps us know who can and does make changes to network devices. It also plays a central role with internal auditing of device configurations policies. The chief advantage of NCM is in the ability to schedule configuration backups jobs and track device configuration changes. Being able to execute a policy audit report related to DISA STIG, PCI, SOX, or other rule sets is also a huge time saver.
- Archiving of device configurations. This is the most basic of features for NCM and provides an easy way to maintain startup and running configurations for all network devices.
- NCM can execute scripts. Any task that is typically done by a technician from the command line is handled by NCM. This includes the ability to schedule script execution jobs against a single device or multiple devices.
- NCM provides several types of reports out of the box. These include configuration change reports and inventory reports as the best examples.
- One can easily perform a "stare and compare" of two device configurations so as to quickly and easily determine where changes have occurred.
- For those people who may not be proficient at using regular expressions, NCM needs to evolve to provide more direct contextual help in this regard.
- The job logs that NCM provides are very utilitarian and do not lend themselves to viewing and searching well at all.
March 08, 2022
NCM easy management of network configuration files
This is an outstanding tool for performing Network configuration management. Solarwinds natively support config management for most of the Cisco device types, as well as, a significant number of other Vendor types. The tool provides configuration comparison reports, vulnerability assessments, and provision to upload config back to the network nodes. The tool includes scripts that are useful in setting up and deploying nodes which is a significant time-saver during deployment. We needed to configure NCM to run inventory and compliance reports for all network assets for our auditors.
- Easy to install, configure and use
- Reporting is simple
- Works with other SolarWinds products and can run on the same server instance as other products
- Cost effective
- Hot fixes for bugs are released often
- Online interface can be confusing
- Difficult to track changes within the tool
January 28, 2022
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Review
Our organization uses SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) to take over configuration management duties and responsibilities for the networking systems, assets, and devices within our IT environment. Besides that, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) is being utilized within our organization for its configuration backup and restore capabilities. Also, NCM has the ability to conduct compliance reporting and vulnerability assessment of network resources.
- Network automation
- Vulnerability assessment
- Network Backups
- Comparable pricing
- License options
- 3rd Party Vendors
January 26, 2022
SolarWinds NCM good product
All the network components of our organization are part of our NCM environment. With [SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)] we can backup all configurations, see any changes, compare configurations against base line. Also the possibility to install firmware updates. For several brands there is even vulnerability management, in order to see firmware updates [that] could be used to 'close' the vulnerability.
- Automatic config backup
- Config comparison
- Config Baseline comparison
- No improvements required
January 26, 2022
SolarWinds NCM perfect tool to manage your whole Network devices
We use SolarWinds NCM to push configuration across our network Devices Routers/Switches/Firewalls on the easy way. It does more than resolve problems, we used it to automate the manual processes to save time or for quick reactions to emergency changes.
- Update ACL on 500 routers switches
- Updated Passwords on thousands of devices
- Performance Backups of thousands on Devices
- Definitely, some things that SolarWinds has to improve is get more script options for vendors different than Cisco.
January 25, 2022
Centrally manage all network devices using Solarwinds NCM
We use SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) to manage all of our network devices in data centers and branch offices. It has been used for devices configuration backup and version control. The scripts management tool is quite useful and we have been using it for configuration central deployment.
- Monitor the current status of network devices
- Devices configuration backup and change tracking
- Push out configuration automatically
- The configuration change template could be more user friendly
January 25, 2022
Review of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager
We have 13 sites and several hundred switches and routers combined of various models and firmware. Solarwinds Network Configuration Manager is integral to our disaster recovery planning as it is required to monitor the firmware version of each device as well as backup configurations of every device once a change is made.
- Solarwinds Network Configuration Manager monitors our firmware to ensure we are at risk of any vulnerability
- Solarwinds Network Configuration Manager back up device configs every time a change is made keeping out recovery documents up to date
- Solarwinds Network Configuration Manager allows us to push configs to multiple devices at once simplifying the process
- Network Insight can be improved to support more vendors.
January 24, 2022
SolarWinds's Well Rounded Network Configuration Manager
The main use of SolarWinds NCM in my use case is to have a repository of saved configurations of network devices to be retrieved and applied to replacement devices when a device fails.
- Back up of configurations
- Saving of configurations
- Retrieval of configurations
- Comparing new and old configurations
- Could be priced more attractively
January 24, 2022
A great time saver!
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager has treated us well. All our network equipment is backed up through the Network Configuration Manager module on a daily basis then spits out a report on what has changed day over day. When a device inevitably fails we are able to quickly restore the previous configuration to the replacement device, greatly minimizing downtime. Network Configuration Manager also makes it a breeze to keep configurations consistent across devices. Updating an access list on 100 switches goes from a tedious afternoon to a three minute automated job. The module is also capable of deploying firmware and probably much more but I have not dipped my toe into those waters just yet. Overall a great product for making automation simple!
- Automating configuration backups
- Preventing configuration drift
- Reporting on configuration changes day to day
- Module can be slow to load.
- The interface could use a facelift.
- I'd appreciate more out of the box jobs for common tasks.
January 20, 2022
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager review
I use it to manage the compliance of our network devices to configuration hardening standards. Our information security program requires that all our network devices, routers/switches/firewalls/etc, have a defined security hardening standard defined and implemented. As a member of the team, I had to come up with an easy way to measure and demonstrate device compliance to defined standards. I tried setting up regex checks against configs stored in ansible but that required all configs to be in ansible, which they weren't, and so I found myself working edge cases and relying on others who had better things to do than help a security guy. I tried a few config managers including the managing engine NCM, which I used for several years at a previous job, but then migrated to the SolarWinds NCM. I like the SolarWinds NCM interface better and since it is part of the Orion suite and our network team was using Orion I was able to add it to their deployment. If I'm being honest I prefer the management engine interface better but found the functionality to be identical between the two. Most valuable thing is having all the device configs available for testing without relying on other teams.
- Manage network device configurations
- allow for customization of network device hardening standards
- visualize the compliance status of your network device configurations
- The user interface could be more intuitive
- a stable Linux version would be great
- better and faster performance
January 20, 2022
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager: A Good Software
I mainly use SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager for switch backup and to validate security updates.
- Push back a configuration
- Scheduled job notification
- Compare configuration
- Check point capabilities
January 20, 2022
Network Configuration Management Made Easy with Solarwinds NCM
We use SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) at our core and distribution to track configuration changes, since it's a module for Orion it provides a single pane of glass for the team. We have real-time configuration change monitoring enabled for the equipment with SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) enabled so once a change has been made we have a record of the change and can easily revert changes from SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) or do a comparison if needed. Previously we had used other products but the setup was more difficult and not all equipment was easily supported whereas SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) has support for a majority of the devices we use out of the box without any additional configuration or customization, although that is an option if needed.
- Keeping previous configurations
- Tracking configuration changes
- Configuration reporting
- Real-time configuration change tracking via trap notifications
- 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.
January 20, 2022
Making Networks Better
SolarWinds products suite is our defacto systems and network management tool. We use NCM in particular, for Edge user device vulnerability detection, network auditing and inventory management. Operating in rural environments with lack of expert skills for network configuration changes, NCM provides us the ability to automate our configurations and changes across desperate user community networks. As a result, we have better visibility, superior control, and early vulnerability detection.
- Network Auditing.
- Network Inventory Management.
- Vulnerability Detection.
- Network Configuration Automotion.
- Threat Management.
- Edge Security Management.
- Cloud and Application Performance Acceleration.
- SD-WAN and Cloud Management.
- Agent less client device management.
January 20, 2022
Best NCM Tool
It is used to obtain switch backups and validate configuration changes. It has been of great help, referring to an erroneous configuration problem, if it had not been, chaos would have been generated in the plant. I use it for the administration of 280 switches backup and it works perfectly. SolarWinds [Network Configuration Manager] NCM is a great addition to the tool bag. Having the ability to scan configurations and make changes on the fly across multiple devices is an immense time saver. Another great future is version caching [which] allows you to see all the changes that have been made and revert if necessary.
- Network device configuration backup
- Change reporting
- Scan configurations
- Writing new configurations to devices
- Add recycle bin for deleted node.
- Needs to monitor the TMM memory out of the box.
We use SolarWinds Network Configurations Manager to download a nightly backup of all of our Cisco and HP/Aruba equipment as well as to provide compliance reporting for various network conditions. The NCM tool is also super helpful when comparing configurations and launching various remediation scripts on your Cisco or Aruba hardware. If your company needs daily backups, this is a must-have tool for any network administrator.
- Daily backups
- Compliance reporting
- Firmware Vulnerabilities Scores
- End of Support Device Alert
- To my knowledge (I apologize if I am incorrect) NCM is unable to download backups from Cisco Next Generations Firewalls such as the Firepower 2110 or similar. While the Cisco tool has a backup function of its own, it sits within the Cisco architecture and if that is corrupted it's hard to recover from. Having an external backup sitting in SolarWinds would allow us to have greater redundancies and store the data in multiple locations for high availability backups.
January 19, 2022
SolarWinds NCM Simplifies Compliance Reporting and Backups
We use [SolarWinds] NCM to backup network equipment configurations, monitor for changes, run compliance and best practices reports, and mass deploy [configuration] changes and updates.
- Backup of configurations
- Alerting to configuration changes
- Allows for mass updating of configurations
- Simpler deployment scripts/options