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December 08, 2020
We use the Orion Summary page for all senior admins - we get alerts if things are coming down, if servers are running low on disk space, if memory is over utilized. Many different uses. I like the additions of NetPath services. I have also used reports and the network Atlas to create visual representations for our active links. Diving into a node is helpful to establish response time issues, trends and even capacity forecasts. I use this on servers, SANs, switches, Wireless controllers, and alert monitoring services.
- NetPath services are a godsend when you are trying to explain to ISPs, etc. about where traffic is congested or stopping. Sometimes seeing is believing for them.
- The other BIG deal is anticipating disk capacity - when volumes get to full, servers crash. With NPM, we can and create set thresholds for warning us before we run into issues, and then we can add storage, memory, and CPU, (especially on our Virtual environment.)
- Alerts are great - instead of hearing from our users that a server is offline, we are aware of it right away.
- We also like the alerts that le us know when there are upgrades available.
- It would be nice to be able to set up SNMP3 for some of our systems in an easier fashion. But it is not a show stopper.
- Sometimes the support refers us to the Knowledge base and Thwack. Not a huge deal, but I only end up putting in a ticket when I have spent a great deal of time searching for a solution.
- Email alerts sometimes go wonky after an upgrade.
We do use this feature. However, we do not use it as an "always on" feature - rather, when we need to know something, it is VERY helpful. We do run a consistent NetPath service when we have recurring issues - this helps us determine issues with some of our cloud services. We have multiple service providers and the ability to pinpoint where the failure occurs is great. Sending a screen shot usually lets them know that we are aware of exactly where the packet is dropped.
- no training
We use SolarWinds NPM to monitor all of our infrastructure including servers, switches, and applications. It allows us to get alerts when anything is going wrong with a critical system so we can proactively address the issue before it impacts the business. It also provides us a detailed view into the health of our systems via reporting and dashboards.
- Alerting with custom thresholds.
- Reporting capabilities to easily see historical data.
- Dashboards to give you a real time view into the health of your systems.
- Configuring thresholds for your alerts can be a little cumbersome.
- Getting additional details onto the alerts is not as easy as it could be.
- You need to have two servers to run SolarWinds NPM, one for the service and a separate one for the database.
We have not yet used the NetPath functionality but we have been evaluating it as we look to move to a larger datacenter off site and link our two sites together. We've also been moving more towards a remote workforce model so NetPath is something that may help us there, too.
SolarWinds NPM was introduced into my environment recently and exclusively for virtual machines, especially our two data centers located in different states with domains to troubleshoot network slowness, major bottlenecks, the average response time, and latency between the data access between two data centers. Currently, it is implemented in some of the data centers in the network which are critical to day to day life. It addresses the network latency, the response time between the data centers, memory usage, and the bandwidth. Our team generates reports based on data collected from the logs.
- In the organization, our team basically monitors the data centers response time, the nodes in the cluster environment, and how they are performing from time to time.
- These are production environments and very critical about data flow across the network and we also collect performance statistics from time to time and the data latency between two data centers and create reports.
- Our VM wares placed across different data centers located in different states. Network communication is very critical to transfer data in no time. For this, we need a powerful network monitoring tool to pinpoint all the networking issues and troubleshoot various devices connected between the data centers. For achieving this, SolarWinds NPM is critical to give such information.
- In our organization, we need information such as how much data is transferred/sec, data latency, total transactions time in a given period. Because of such environments and timelines sometimes we have a very extreme volume transferred between clustered nodes in data centers and the total number of logins increases in certain working hours. We need to track it down and generate custom reports to enhance productivity, hence this tool is critical.
- Sometimes it gives more verbose information if some of the VM cluster's installed SQL server has performance bottlenecks and it is hard to troubleshoot of them.
- We have issues in terms of data latency especially on SQL installed VM ware across datacenters which are working on dynamics which are hard to point exact hardware or SQL issues with the performance tool.
- SolarWinds NPM can be improved if networking devices or servers connected more than four datacenters.
My organization uses Netpath to find how much network traffic enters into the specific node in the clustered environment and how much it reaches to the destination. We have production machines and reporting machines which each cluster to 8 nodes across the data centers. With Netpath, we can pinpoint network traffic at each node and the data latency if it exists in one of the nodes, possible causes, and how to eliminate them. It gives accurate information and possible resolutions in a graphical method which is easy to understand in large environments where a large number of nodes bind in a cluster environment.
September 02, 2020
We use SolarWinds NPM to monitor a relatively small airborne platform to ground network with routers, WAPs, firewalls, encryption devices (TACLANES), and servers. It addresses management of network nodes and mapping of the network. Overall, it is a good tool that is very comprehensive with network management on Layers 2 and 3. The map editor could use some work, especially regarding selection of entities as the selector rectangle can be hard to resize.
- Effective analysis of nodes
- Comprehensive dashboard that is easy to tailor
- Map editor is relatively easy to use
- The map editor select rectangle needs to be improved on as when you drag it it can get out of control.
- Need a more intuitive way to configure interfaces between nodes in map editor.
- Acknowledging and erasing node warnings should be more intuitive.
I've had no problem utilizing these capabilities using Network Sonar Discovery and the Network Mapping tool. I have a limited number of end-users at this point as we are a small team but so far they are satisfied with the problem alerts that are part of the NPM application.
December 18, 2020
We use SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM), NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, and Network Configuration Manager to monitor and manage our global network infrastructure. It is primarily used by network engineers, although we are starting to make some inroads with stats for other department managers. It is proving very useful for them to correctly size their Internet bandwidth needs. Views are made for each site and used by the local teams as needed.
- Perfstack is a feature we have started using heavily and our resident programmer/script expert is working on a script to pick out a FLOW conversation, get all the switch ports between the two endpoints and generate a perfstack of them. This is looking like it could be very useful for troubleshooting.
- The modern dashboards have real potential and I like how they auto-refresh each widget independently.
- SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager and Netflow Traffic Analyzer are great as always. NCM in particular makes my life so much easier.
- Please work on the Universal Device Poller to get it on the web.
- Consistent sorting would be really nice. There are places where things are sorted alphabetically and other places where they're sorted by creation date (which makes no sense).
- Live maps. I like the direction you're going, but it still needs a lot of work just to get it on par with Network Atlas, and I hope you're aiming higher than that because Network Atlas is just not that great.
We use NetPath in two scenarios.
- A few permanent checks between hub sites to keep an eye on WAN health
- Temporary monitors as needed for troubleshooting
December 10, 2020
We are using SolarWinds for all our networks as well as all client network infrastructures in the organization.
This will help us to provide real-time monitoring and IP flow top talkers instantly in a live scenario.
This will help us to provide real-time monitoring and IP flow top talkers instantly in a live scenario.
- Real-time monitoring
- Instant up/down of network devices across all networks
- Top talkers in different ways (IP, application, and others)
- Auto-discovery is very easy for devices.
- inbuilt scanner from LAN network to get auto network discovery.
- This should work with minimal hardware and work with any server OS.
- This should not depend on latest SQL Version. Clients have to arrange latest licence which is additional cost for client.
- During installation, the application crashed in many scenarios. This should have rolled back instead of crashed.
- Please include a device backup option and live monitoring of any change in device configuration.
- One tool for all network devices--monitor, manage, backup, utilization, and change all in one
Yes, of course, this is very beneficial while our MPLS or Internet links are highly utilized at that time we can identify the top talkers in different categories. This is very useful to know which IP, which application, which port, which location is in the top talkers of your organization. You can differentiate NPM futures by multiple categories.
My company currently uses SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor to monitor the entire organization's network hardware both physical and virtual. We have multiple regions across the Pacific Northwest. It has been very supportive of all of our processing that ties into third party vendors' SaaS processes and appropriately triages any and all issues within the internal network and external tunnels.
- Network Mapping. The Network map is an absolute must for any multi regional organization that requires a holistic view of how the networking SLAs are being met.
- Network Atlas should be a process added to the console instead of having to access it to build the maps on the servers.
Recently, my org as started using NetPath to help us understand how our users are interacting with our systems and applications. More importantly showing us just what specific services have been impacted based on priority.
We have recently implemented SolarWinds NPM in TeraGo's data centre where our organization data is kept. Most of our regression testing load goes to this datacentre. We had lots of network and firewall issues before the SolarWinds implementation. After the implementation, our network outage was reduced.
- It basically visualizes everything about our network
- Great UI
- Reporting is good
- Lacks lot of advanced things
- Just does very basic functionality
- Not all devices are supported
October 09, 2020
It is used to monitor all network components in use at Rabobank with the exception of a few territories.
- Provides very detailed insight into Node performance and troubles.
- Features a VERY useful API that is able to drive all of the application.
- Event and alter management is easy to use.
- Offers many extra modules that are very well integrated.
- It does not support hardware inventory for H3C/Comware based devices.
- It does not really understand aggregate links.
We have experimented with it and see the potential, but are not actually using it in production. But it is very promising.
We use NPM mainly in our IT department. We manage all of our servers and networking equipment with Solarwinds. NPM comes into play because it allows us to poll these devices periodically for information. It is a very helpful tool and has become essential to our business.
- NPM is a great tool for alerting us when servers have a high CPU or memory utilization.
- NPM monitors our firewalls to make sure they are not being over utilized.
- NPM alerts us if any of our equipment happens to go down which is extremely beneficial.
- When we had Cisco ASAs, NPM was able to gather information on those. We now have Cisco FTDs and wish we could do the same.
We have not utilized NetPath in our organization.
September 04, 2020
Our organization uses SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor as our main monitoring software suite used throughout our whole company. We have it broken out for various departments for their appropriate uses. By consolidating down to the single monitoring system it has made the overall management and implementation of the tools throughout the company much easier and takes fewer people taking care of the system.
- Nice single pane of glass view of whole network
- The ability to tailor each department with their own tools to use
- Lots of out of the box features that just work
- Quickly and easily run down issues with lots of different scenarios throughout the network
- The ability to create custom pollers for unique situations
- Some of the tools are a little cumbersome to get the hang of
- The need to learn to use the SWQL language for advanced monitoring and reporting
- The cost compared to other companies out there
We have only used NetPath for a few links that we need to know if the path gets altered. I can't give an honest review, since I haven't used it enough.
SolarWinds is used at our company for monitoring several different sites for our clients. When we get a notification it sends us an email that will auto-generate a ticket for us to investigate. Therefore, it streamlines our process and notifies our team much faster than constantly checking mailboxes. Drilling down is simple as well and all the metrics are easy to find a quick to understand.
- Ticket Auto-creation
- Very detailed without clutter
- Simple for a new user
- A local application so that logging in constantly isn't an issue
We do not use NetPath within SolarWinds.
August 17, 2020
We are using SolarWinds tool to manage our PwC infrastructure. Along with other Orion modules we are using Network Performance Monitor to manage and monitor our 10000+ devices. It helps us manage our infrastructure efficiently without affecting our business requirements.
- Easy and efficient to monitor network devices.
- We can deploy large number of devices for monitoring in a short duration.
- Has very good additional modules like Perfstack and Netpath.
- Syslog viewer was more useful and easy to use tool. But it has been depreciated in the newer versions and Log viewer has some bugs and cannot be used effectively.
- Trap viewer was more useful and easy to use tool. But it has been depreciated in the newer versions and Log viewer has some bugs and cannot be used effectively.
- It would be great if we get a feature to monitor nodes for SNMP availability, currently we cannot monitor this parameter through polling.
September 04, 2020
We currently use SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor to monitor our server and network devices for uptime status, memory, CPU, and disk space utilization. It quickly helps us address down nodes, drive space issues, or other critical performance issues. We can reduce troubleshooting by receiving alerts to react quicker.
- CPU
- Memory
- Drive Space
- Network Availability
- MIB
- Environmental Controls
We are currently not using this in the capacity it should be used but are building it into our needs.
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is used only by the IT team for monitoring core infrastructure services. This resolves our problem of proactively monitoring and alerting us for any issues before they happen. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is highly customizable with their alerts, including automated tasks to resolve issues depending on the alert itself. Also has useful features, such as NetPath.
- Ease of use
- Highly customizable
- Works well
- Learning curve
- Confusing UI
- Expensive
NetPath is a very useful tool. Also allows creation of another netapath agent at another site so you can see the behaviour from different office locations. This actually came in very handy during implementation of one of our projects, where it assisted in determining the root cause of packet loss and intermittent network activity.
December 14, 2020
We are supporting SolarWinds Environment for multiple customers. I have worked on other Monitoring tools as well like Zenoss, CA Nimsoft, but the features SolarWinds provides is what makes it different from other Monitoring Solutions. It provides such great features and we have all the control over these, we can customize this to our own needs. If something is not supported out of the box we can use its feature to create our own solution, we don't have to wait for them to release their support like we have to do with other products. For NPM, [a] major part of monitoring is done using SNMP and SolarWinds provides the great MIB database and the thing we can build our own custom pollers is pretty great. Additionally, the Orion Platform on which NPM runs provide such great dashboard, reports and alerts that should meet the requirement for all the organizations.
- Out of the Monitoring of almost all Network Devices.
- Build custom pollers to monitor which is not supported out of the box.
- Further you can alert on these custom metrics and Out of the box metrics.
- It provides you great dashboards, Reports features.
- You can integrate it with any MoM layer tools either using its API or sending out traps.
- Out of the box Integration with Service Now ITSM Tool.
- Limitation on no of elements we can poll from one poller.
- Complicated API - There is not much doc around API, and it could be hard for a beginner to work around the automation.
Netpath is a great utility, we have created several Netpaths for our customers and it works great. We have configured alerts for these paths, so that whenever there is some issue on the path we get an alert and we can go and look for that path on the console, if there is something wrong. If you have the NCM as part of your SolarWinds, it can even correlate if any configuration change has caused the issue.
November 26, 2020
SolarWinds [Network Performance Monitor (NPM)] takes care of our monitoring needs for the entire network. As a 24x7 environment, monitoring the resources, not only helps us to prevent any downtime but also, helps to identify our needs and planning better for future expansion.
- Flexible and dynamic monitoring
- Customizable
- Easy to Deploy
- Industry standard
- Add features such as logging in addition to SNMP
- Better pricing
NetPath is one of the coolest features of SolarWinds [Network Performance Monitor (NPM)]. By using NetPath, we are able to identify the exact location of the problem in most cases, especially in the hybrid and complex environment that we have.
August 26, 2020
There are different verticals (towers) within the organization that are heavily utilizing one or more modules of this product line. My vertical uses it as an MSP where we are selling and supporting these products for 200+ clients scattered in different geographies. Primarily, we are supporting various hosted environments (dedicated accounts as well in some cases depending on the deal type) involving NPM and NCM as the core products. We are in the process of accumulating more such modules and tools to take over complete tooling requirements for our clients. Until now, we have been successful in addressing our customer needs through our centralized tooling but with their growing demand and competitiveness, we have to extend our horizon.
- The UI is dashing, user-friendly, yet powerful enough to do almost all the administrative tasks with the click of a button.
- The deployment and configuration is made simple thanks to the step-by-step guiding wizards.
- Reporting and KPI have the flexibility to run both simple and complex queries to get the intended output.
- Sonar discovery is an easy and efficient method for on-boarding devices.
- Dashboards and maps efficiently exhibit the entire topology and metrics.
- Reporting needs to be improved as there are more misses than hits in obtaining the intended output. CA eHealth reporting was much better and robust in comparison.
- MIBS certification is one more challenge as every-time we have to request support for the addition of OIDs. The UNDP option is great but needs to be more flexible and robust.
- Bulk discoveries, especially subnet-based, choke up the entire CPU and memory processing on the virtual infra. The discovery Wizard stalls in between without showing any error message for a considerable amount of time.
- Having multiple APEs makes administration (Patch, Upgrade, etc.) more difficult and complex. Any change in permissions on Application Folders and AV exclusion takes time in diagnosing and isolating the APE.
- Rabbit MQ and Cortex services frequently get corrupt, and we are unable to find a permanent fix for that.
Though it's a great feature that provides a holistic view of the end-to-end connectivity for the Infrastructure. As an MSP, deployment for all shared clients is neither cost-effective nor simple. In some dedicated accounts, we have set up this functionality and we are reaping its benefits. The best part is that it offers historical data that you can view, allowing you to take a look back in
time and see where some type of network anomaly took place.
time and see where some type of network anomaly took place.
December 09, 2020
We use SolarWinds NPM to monitor our whole borough (200+ sites). We use it on a daily basis to manage, monitor, and audit our entire network infrastructure. It keeps us one step ahead on most days and helps us with great insight into our network. If you're looking to get more visibility, better alerting, or help with general monitoring, SolarWinds NPM will help you 'see' your network; we highly recommend SolarWinds NPM.
- Alerting
- Auditing and Search
- General Monitoring
- SNMP Montioring
- Reporting
- Less resource hungry
- Writing reports could be a little simpler
- Can get on the expensive side
NetPath can often give you a nice visual traceroute and can help you visually see where there is a bottle kneck. It also offers live insight or historic, which can help you see where your network is going slow and often why. It's simple to set up and doesn't require too much extra config, so it's worth looking into for a quick oversight.
September 30, 2020
We use SolarWinds to monitor the health of our LAN and WAN and to get early warnings when servers are having trouble. The email alerts have been very reliable. Additionally, I have found that the major components (switch stacks, etc.) are easier to see using NPM. The Syslog feature is also very useful as it is much easier than going to the switch to get the syslogs.
- Clean and logical layout means you get in and out quickly
- Easy to set up the status monitoring (SNMP, pings, etc.)
- Easy to make a graphical presentation of the network
- It takes a long time to load when I ask for the monitoring UI.
- It would be nice to have links to tutorial videos within the UI.
- I wonder if Atlas could be cloud-based so we don't need to host it.
September 02, 2020
We are using it strictly for our IT department to address issues before they arise. We are able to monitor multiple locations with different resources in every location. We are notified of issues beforehand so we can minimize any downtime. It's amazing to have everything under a single console and get a snapshot view of the big picture of what's going on.
- It has amazing alerting that you can customize based on every need.
- It has detailed dashboards that give a very nice overview of what's going on.
- The SNMP capabilities are off the charts.
- User management allows every tech to see what they need to see.
- Ease of setting up alerts
- Better map views
- More hardware information without needing to use the MIB Database
I have not used NetPath because it is over our budget. It is a very good tool for monitoring actual network traffic. It might be complicated OOB but the payoff is huge. Also, the OOB config that SolarWinds supplies is sufficient to have basic NetPath monitoring. It works well with Cisco, Aruba, etc.
September 02, 2020
It is being used by Telstra for offering monitoring solutions to other customers.
- Modern Dashboards
- Interface details
- Node details
- CPU, MEM & VOL capacity forecast
- Audit log
- Errors dashboard
- API integration with Meraki, Velocloud, Viptella
- Orion DB tables dedicated to Meraki, Velocloud, Viptella data fields
- UML flows for NPM
- Documentation of SD-WAN integration
- Feature requests are very slow to be implemented.
Our customers have not opened up cloud environments to be monitored with hybrid environments. On-premises networks have always been part of the suite. Cloud environments are more tightly coupled to customer business requirements. The use cases and monitoring of on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments need to be defined much more clearly. The customer benefit due to these use cases need to be articulated and value needs to be demonstrated.
August 19, 2020
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is being used effectively throughout our organization. It's being used across different regions of the world with multiple instances setup. It's able to manage and monitor our entire customer infrastructure proactively.
- Easy to implement
- Easy to navigate
- User friendly
- Nothing as of now.
We haven't used this feature as of now, but going further we should, because these kinds of features from NPM will help us to monitor the network proactively.
We use SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor to monitor all of our infrastructure including servers, switches, and applications. It allows us to get alerts when anything is going wrong with a critical system so we can proactively address the issue before it impacts the business. It also provides us a detailed view into the health of our systems via reporting and dashboards.
- Alerting with custom thresholds
- Dashboards to give you a real-time view into the health of your systems
- Reporting capabilities are well sorted
- Need a more intuitive way to configure interfaces between nodes in map editor
- I would also like to see an improved method for auto-provisioning of server monitoring tools
- Cost
We have experimented with it and see the potential, but are not actually using it in production. But it is very promising.
It's being used across our whole organization. It allows us to use one pane of glass to see both Network and Server issues across our organization. This is important to allow our NOC to watch many systems/interdependencies without watching multiple systems. It also allows us to keep recent configurations of our network gear, for survivability.
- It pulls SNMP data well, in particular it allows us to capture port level information with a decent amount of historical data. This is true for user ports or trunk ports.
- It does a good job of keeping an up-to-date stable of configurations. This is invaluable for recovery operations.
- Syslog collector is also very useful to again correlate performance data against what errors the box itself is processing.
- I would like to see the robustness of the database and pollers improved. It seems like we often need to do system upkeep or the application seems to grind along very slowly.
- I would also like to see an improved method for auto-provisioning of server monitoring tools.
- I would also like to be able to update maps/drawings directly from the web interface without having to use a separate Windows client.
We haven't used NetPath. We purchased NPM a very long time ago, before NetPath was implemented/integrated. Because of that we have never understood how NetPath can help us, nor had the impetus to do so.
SolarWinds NPM Scorecard Summary
Feature Scorecard Summary
What is SolarWinds NPM?
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) delivers comprehensive network fault monitoring and performance management that scales and expands with a company's network monitoring needs. Users can collect and view availability, real-time and historical statistics from routers, switches, firewalls, servers, and any other SNMP-, ICMP-, or WMI-enabled devices directly from a web browser.
The vendor states that SolarWinds users can get a full NPM installation up and running the same day they download, and that implementation does not require a team of consultants. NPM provides visibility into the health of network devices and servers on the network, ensuring that users have needed real-time information to keep their network running at peak performance.
Network Performance Monitor helps IT Pros:
- Quickly detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance issues and avoid downtime
- Respond to multiple condition checks, correlated events, and device dependencies
- Automatically calculate capacity exhaustion dates using customizable thresholds based on peak and average usage
- Streamline network troubleshooting with an easy-to-use Web interface
- View paths to critical business services hop-by-hop, even into the cloud, with the NetPath™ feature
- Get deeper visibility into complex network devices with Network Insight™ features for Cisco ASA firewalls, Cisco Nexus switches, and F5 BIG-IP load balancers
SolarWinds NPM Screenshots
SolarWinds NPM Video
Network Performance Monitor overview
SolarWinds NPM Downloadables
SolarWinds NPM Integrations
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor, SolarWinds Web Performance Monitor (WPM), SolarWinds IP Address Manager (IPAM), SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA), SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM), SolarWinds Virtualization Manager (VMAN), SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor (SRM), SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD), SolarWinds User Device Tracker, SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager
SolarWinds NPM Competitors
ManageEngine OpManager, Progress WhatsUp Gold (formerly Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold), Nagios Core, DX Infrastructure Manager (formerly CA Unified Infrastructure Management), Micro Focus Network Node Manager i (formerly HP Network Node Manager), Paessler PRTG
SolarWinds NPM Pricing
- Has featureFree Trial Available?Yes
- Does not have featureFree or Freemium Version Available?No
- Does not have featurePremium Consulting/Integration Services Available?No
- Entry-level set up fee?Optional
SolarWinds NPM Support Options
| Free Version | Paid Version | |
|---|---|---|
| Phone | ||
| Forum/Community | ||
| FAQ/Knowledgebase | ||
| Video Tutorials / Webinar |
SolarWinds NPM Technical Details
| Deployment Types: | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems: | Windows, Windows® Server 2016; SQL Server 2016 SQL Server 2016 SP1 SQL Server 2017 (including installations on Linux) |
| Mobile Application: | No |