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What is SolarWinds NPM?
SolarWinds NPM is a monitoring and performance management platform. It provides performance troubleshooting support, auto network discovery, customizable thresholds, and can be rapidly deployed.
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Popular Features
- Alerts (228)8.989%
- Hardware health monitoring (215)8.888%
- Network monitoring (231)8.787%
- Customizable reports (212)7.979%
Pricing
NPM
$1,638
On Premise
per year
Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.solarwinds.com/products/pric…
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Why I Recommend SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
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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:
- 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 a 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 Features
Network Performance Monitoring Features
- Supported: Automated network device discovery
- Supported: Network monitoring
- Supported: Baseline threshold calculation
- Supported: Alerts
- Supported: Network capacity planning
- Supported: Packet capture analysis
- Supported: Network mapping
- Supported: Customizable reports
- Supported: Wireless infrastructure monitoring
- Supported: Hardware health monitoring
Additional Features
- Supported: Seamless conversion upgrade to AIOps-powered Hybrid Cloud Observability
- Supported: Multi-vendor device support for any router, switch, firewall, VPN concentrator, wireless access point and other devices that support standard protocols
- Supported: Intelligent alerts for correlated events, sustained conditions, and complex combinations of device states
- Supported: Insight on hardware health by monitoring, alerting, and reporting on the state of key device sensors
- Supported: NetPath for hop-by-hop monitoring of critical business services, on-premises or into the cloud
- Supported: Network Insight for Cisco Nexus switches, F5 BIG-IP load balancers, Cisco ASA firewalls
SolarWinds NPM Screenshots
SolarWinds NPM Video
Network Performance Monitor overview
SolarWinds NPM Integrations
- SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability
- SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
- 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 Web Performance Monitor (WPM)
SolarWinds NPM Competitors
- LogicMonitor
- OpenText Network Node Manager i (NNMi)
- Broadcom DX Unified Infrastructure Management
- Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
- ManageEngine OpManager
- Nagios Core
- Progress WhatsUp Gold
- DX Infrastructure Manager (formerly CA Unified Infrastructure Management)
- Paessler PRTG
SolarWinds NPM Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Windows® Server 2016; SQL Server 2016 SQL Server 2016 SP1 SQL Server 2017 (including installations on Linux) |
| Mobile Application | No |
SolarWinds NPM Downloadables
Frequently Asked Questions
SolarWinds NPM is a monitoring and performance management platform. It provides performance troubleshooting support, auto network discovery, customizable thresholds, and can be rapidly deployed.
LogicMonitor, OpenText Network Node Manager i (NNMi), and Broadcom DX Unified Infrastructure Management are common alternatives for SolarWinds NPM.
Reviewers rate Alerts highest, with a score of 8.9.
The most common users of SolarWinds NPM are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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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!
- Business Problems Solved
- Recommendations
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Users recommend considering the whole stack of Network Modules on the SolarWinds platform instead of NPM as a standalone product. They believe the other modules are valuable additions for monitoring, managing, and analyzing the network. SolarWinds NPM is considered the best network performance monitoring solution on the market. Users suggest using it for network monitoring and exploring other modules for specific infrastructure monitoring. While NPM is a good tool for network monitoring, users advise looking into alternative options for advanced monitoring needs. Some users suggest improving the navigation to make it more fluid and user-friendly. Overall, users recommend SolarWinds NPM for managing and monitoring network infrastructures due to its reliability and cost-effectiveness. They also recommend trying the live action feature and Meraki for enhanced network analytics. Users suggest considering other products with better UI and capabilities. SolarWinds NPM is worth the price if affordable, especially with sponsorship. Working with third-party services or SolarWinds to properly set up the tool is recommended. Using multiple tools in conjunction with NPM provides more visibility. Users recommend signing up for Thwack and utilizing their resources for assistance with SolarWinds products. Trying the demo first before purchasing is advisable. NPM is considered a core module in every company that chooses SolarWinds as their monitoring tool. It is important to ensure that the server can handle the software. Experienced staff maximizes the benefits of the platform. Users suggest downloading a trial copy of NPM to test it out. NPM outperforms other tools according to user opinions. More theme options and additional ways to export data are requested. Other modules from SolarWinds that work well with NPM, such as Server & Application Manager, should be explored. Support team and Thwack community are highly praised by users. Users should not be overwhelmed by features and take advantage of free trial resources. SolarWinds is recommended for enterprise-level monitoring, but Loop1 consulting is advised for complex environments. Initial setup can be time-consuming. The 30-day evaluation of the full product is excellent. Becoming a Thwack member provides access to extensive resources and support. SolarWinds may have a higher cost but is considered worth it. Proper provisioning of hardware, software, and infrastructure is crucial before deploying SolarWinds. Users recommend setting up the trial version first and getting familiar with the product. SolarWinds NPM receives high recommendations from users and is praised for its great dashboards.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 114)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
SolarWinds Network Performance (NPM) is used to monitor the health of our switches and other network devices, from several brands including Cisco, Aruba, and HPE and (I) OT devices. We use it to monitor when devices are offline, when interfaces have status changes, and also interface bandwidth on devices to identify potential issues.
- Alerting network device status down/up
- Monitor devices for hardware status
- Monitor bandwidth usage
- No improvements needed
September 08, 2022
SolarWinds NPM brings all your Network Tools into a single Toolbox
We use SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) to monitor the availability and performance of our networks across 15 geographically dispersed sites. This includes network devices, Servers, Virtual Machines and even our bandwidth consumption. SolarWinds NPM is a powerful and yet user-friendly solution with a variety of very useful tools and performance monitors allowing you to proactively manage your network and be alerted to potential issues using proactive monitoring and threshold management. The system is able to manage a wide variety of devices regardless of manufacturer and brand. There are also a host of very useful reports which can be customized to the organization's needs and automated according to run as needed.
- Excellent Network Reporting
- Great performance monitoring with various KPIs
- Proactive alerting with alerts when approaching set thresholds
- It would be great to have Root Cause Analysis built into the platform
- The Network mapping feature could use a friendlier interface
- The Network Monitoring Platform does not include the Topology Mapper.
April 26, 2022
An honest review of SolarWinds NPM from a Network Operations Manager at a major US Airline
Our corporation uses SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor to monitor all of our networks/endpoints for outages that may affect connectivity. With the use of NPM, we can easily view uptime graphs, receive alerts, and even SNMP traps or Syslogs. In addition to SolarWinds NPM, we also complement it with SolarWinds NTA and NCM where we can view all network traffic and download nightly backups to our configurations.
- Monitor uptime and create alerts for nodes which are down.
- Collecting Syslogs and Traps
- NPM is very slow at drawing charts and historical data from the SQL database.
We essentially use it to monitor our network devices - switches, routers, firewalls, ETC. We have our uplink interfaces monitored as well so that we can see usage and report on them as needed for things like bandwidth bottlenecks both internally and externally.
- Notify us when a network device goes down and comes back online.
- Reports for network interfaces.
- Fairly simple to add or remove a network device.
- The software upgrade process is a little hairy and has caused me trouble on occasion.
- The server that it needs to run is a bit of a resource hog along with the SQL server.
- Some additional features like the network map are a bit clunky compared to some other products that we use.
We utilize SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) to monitor device health at all layers of our network (switches, routers, wireless controllers, etc.). The dashboard allows us to quickly identify problems such as down devices, bandwidth spikes, dropped packets, and high CPU utilization. Particularly useful is the notification system that alerts our network team when a device is not reachable.
- Easy identification of network issues
- Notification when critical systems are offline
- The "Network Top 10" dashboard is all-around great
- Upgrading the software can be tedious
- Managing/creating reports could be faster
- Overall, no major complaints
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor provides advanced features to monitor network devices, firewalls, access points. It becomes easy to track such issues and resolve them within business objective timelines through the use of email alerts. The tool allows you to create custom dashboards and organize our data in ways that benefit our organization. The SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor also allows our staff to identify network bottleneck issues quickly which in turn results in faster problem resolution times.
- Provides real-time network performance data
- Customized reporting
- Easily create WiFi heat maps
- Cost when scaling can get expensive
- Would like to see tighter integration between SolarWinds products
- GUI could be streamlined more
January 31, 2022
Not impressed but not disappointed either.
It is used to monitor the availability of critical systems of the infrastructure such as Active Directory, DHCP, and servers in remote sites. It's also used to get NetFlow stats on Cisco Routers to get a time slice view of network traffic and bandwidth.
- Aggregate date
- All in one interface
- Supports SNMP and NetFlow
- Can see route of packet across the internet to destination server
- Simplify interface
- Simplify installation
- Price
Someone knew. But no one knew who. NPM let us regain control of the who knew and turn it into a measured responsibility. Our Company now has knowledge of what our network resources include and how those resources are utilized daily. We demonstrate processes and services which are hyperextended and leverage available resources for use in our production environment by monitoring the trends and use of our business assets. NPM tools have helped us free up monetary resources for additional pressing projects which provide business growth. The payoff?? Minimizing monetary bleed and maximizing resource utilization. We will renew our NPM licensing allowing us to continuously monitor our IT infrastructure, connect to upstream providers, and monitor many production processes and services. This will continue to maximize our planning capabilities for resources and scalability for continued Membership and Subscriber growth.
- Identifies IP addresses, hostnames, packet loss, and latency
- Displays top talkers per each monitored interface
- Path offers device details and detects configuration changes
- Detailed (potentially multi-path) map between Windows node and a specified destination
- Customizing the NPM interface is capable of a multitude of instructions in the Virtual Classroom via the SW website.
- Customizing the threshold values and which interfaces to monitor are configurable by many videos in the Virtual Classroom on the SW website.
- Customizing the active alerts' values are configurable by following directions and video instruction guides in the SW Virtual Classroom on the SW website.
January 27, 2022
Best Network Monitoring Tool out there
We are a University with 13 locations with 2 employees monitoring all locations inclusive of over 300 Switches and 200 Servers that host various apps. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor allows us to monitor
all devices from one console including switches, routers, servers, and even printers.
It
allows us to monitor for hardware errors and bandwidth issues which
is a major help in troubleshooting errors and planning for the future. I use it to view all of the switches and apps and ensure everything is up and functioning at just a glance.
- Monitors all the switches
- Alert when a network device is down
- Monitor bandwidth usage across the network
- Monitor Hardware health on devices
- Bandwidth monitoring could be improved, when creating a map we need to either show bandwidth usage or interface speed. I would like to see both
- Wireless heat maps could be improved. It only works with certain vendors
I have been using SolarWinds NPM for well over a decade. We have setup up hundreds of alerts and notifications that will email us when network notes ranging from servers, storage systems, VMware ESXi hosts, to all kinds of networking switches and gear encounter issues, are down, reset. We quickly are notified when a system is down or has rebooted and or has not come up in a timely manner.
- monitor up/down status of network nodes
- sends alerts immediately by email
- good graphs and widgets to view at a quick glance status of nodes
- maybe a little easier way to add new network nodes
January 25, 2022
solarwinds npm
We are using the solarwinds npm to monitor the network availability of our networking devices like routers, switches and servers. We are monitoring the link utilization and device performance and availability uptime and downtime of the devices and their links. We are also monitoring the physical and virtual storage of our devices along with reporting and alerting.
- Resource performance monitoring.
- Link monitoring.
- Alerting.
- Reporting.
- New devices are not supported.
- IPSec VPN tunnel monitoring of the FortiGate firewall is not supported.
- Creating custom pollers does not provide the required information.
January 21, 2022
All in One Network Performance Tool
I use Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) for network visibility, uptime, and troubleshooting. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) verifies issues with network devices such as bandwidth allocation, network devices up/down state, and many other things to assist me in troubleshooting to keep the most uptime for my business.
- Alerts
- Performance
- Inventory
- Free netflow statistics
- Difficult threshold changes
January 20, 2022
Robust Network Performance Monitoring Solution
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is our primary enterprise monitoring tool used for monitoring the entire infrastructure. This includes servers, N/W devices, storage, databases, firewall, UPS, etc., to list a few of the device types which we monitor. It supports multi-vendor network monitoring and insights for deeper visibility. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) includes intelligent alerting, intuitive dashboards, and reporting features. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is part of the SolarWinds Orion Platform and is the main monitoring component and integrates seamlessly with other SolarWinds modules. It supports SNMP, WMI, and agent/agentless monitoring.
- Very scalable for large environments
- Agent and agentless monitoring available
- Robust SNMP monitoring, realtime MIB updates by the vendor
- Integrates seamlessly with other SolarWinds products
- Support more vendors, checkpoint and storage vendors
January 19, 2022
Great one stop shop for Network Monitoring
SolarWinds allowed us to consolidate Network Performance monitoring into one tool. It has allowed us to spot issues we would have otherwise missed.
- Network Maps, Live Maps.
- Custom Dashboards.
- Ease of adding new elements.
- Support for Juniper/Arista devices.
- Sluggishness and need for a modern UI.
- Limitation to Windows.
December 15, 2020
SolarWinds NPM
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
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.
November 26, 2020
A must have monitoring tool for infrastructure
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
November 11, 2020
Value for Money
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
November 11, 2020
An EKG for your servers
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
October 02, 2020
Monitoring at its finest
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.
September 30, 2020
Level 1 user who appreciates the power of NPM more every day.
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 04, 2020
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor
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
September 04, 2020
SolarWinds NPM: ease of use and single pane of glass
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
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
September 03, 2020
Why I spend my day with SolarWinds
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
August 26, 2020
Works great!
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