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SolarWinds NPM

SolarWinds NPM

Overview

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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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Users have found this product to be extremely versatile and useful in a variety of situations. One key use case is for professional …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 10 features
  • Alerts (228)
    8.8
    88%
  • Hardware health monitoring (215)
    8.7
    87%
  • Network monitoring (231)
    8.7
    87%
  • Customizable reports (212)
    7.9
    79%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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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…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

Why I Recommend SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)

YouTube
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Features

Network Performance Monitoring

A network performance monitoring system monitors the entire network for performance problems and collects performance data such as network traffic analysis performance bottlenecks, etc.

7.9
Avg 8.2
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Product Details

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

Screenshot of Network monitoring software used to reduce network outages and detect, diagnose, and resolve multi-vendor network performance issues.Screenshot of See relationships for routers, switches, interfaces, volumes, and groups, updated automatically without user intervention to maintain the network, not network maps.Screenshot of Reduce visibility gaps into critical network switches, firewalls, and load balancers with Network Insight for Cisco Nexus, Cisco ASA, and F5 BIG-IP.Screenshot of Reduce the flood of unnecessary network alerts. Create alerts based on simple or complex nested trigger conditions, defined parent/child dependencies, and network topology.Screenshot of Identify dead zones and improve wireless coverage. With its network monitoring tool, users can access out-of-the-box wireless reports, including wireless availability and rogue access points.Screenshot of Configure alerts by calculating dynamic baseline threshold data with network performance monitoring software.

SolarWinds NPM Video

Network Performance Monitor overview

SolarWinds NPM Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, Windows® Server 2016; SQL Server 2016 SQL Server 2016 SP1 SQL Server 2017 (including installations on Linux)
Mobile ApplicationNo

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.

Reviewers rate Alerts highest, with a score of 8.8.

The most common users of SolarWinds NPM are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(600)

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!

Users have found this product to be extremely versatile and useful in a variety of situations. One key use case is for professional presentations. Users have praised the product for its ability to create visually appealing and engaging slides that captivate audiences. The ease of use and intuitive interface allows users to quickly create polished presentations without the need for extensive design skills. Additionally, the product's extensive library of pre-designed templates and customizable options provide users with a wide range of choices to cater to their specific needs.

Another important use case for this product is for educational purposes. Teachers and students alike have found value in using this product to enhance their learning experience. With its interactive features such as animations, videos, and quizzes, it enables educators to create engaging lessons that capture students' attention and facilitate better understanding of complex concepts. Users appreciate the product's collaborative capabilities, allowing for seamless group projects and real-time feedback.

Furthermore, this product has proven to be a valuable tool for businesses in creating impactful marketing materials. Users have reported that the product's drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy to design eye-catching brochures, flyers, and social media graphics. The ability to seamlessly integrate images, text, and various graphic elements ensures that businesses can create visually appealing marketing materials that effectively communicate their brand identity.

Lastly, users have praised the product's ability to simplify personal projects such as photo albums or event invitations. The variety of customization options allows users to personalize their creations and add their own touch. Whether it's creating personalized greeting cards or designing stunning wedding invitations, this product has been a reliable choice for users seeking high-quality results without the need for extensive design knowledge.

Overall, this product has proven to be versatile and adaptable in various contexts, making it an indispensable tool for professionals, educators, businesses, and individuals alike. Its user-friendly interface combined with its extensive features and customization options allow users to unleash their creativity and achieve impressive results in a wide range of use cases.

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

(51-75 of 236)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
NPM does a great job of establishing baselines and creating reporting that I can show to my management to prove we are out of bandwidth. I like to think of NPM and NCM as one product because they essentially do all the functions you need together.
  • Graphing is fantastic. Trend lines and 95th percentile really make the grade when showing off what your network can do, or where it's limitations are.
  • Alerting works flawlessly.
  • The sales team is relentless and will never stop bothering you. Ever.
  • More vendor MIB's can be put into the standard offering.
NPM is well suited to get a baseline as to what's going on in your network via NetFlow/nbar2. This will not replace an extra hop, or other protocol analyzer products which do a much deeper dive. I really believe that NPM and NCM should be bundled as a single product because having one without the other is hard to work with.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is being used primarily by the Network Team to monitor for various alerts directly related to the network infrastructure. There is a limited number of other teams within our organization that use it mainly to monitor bandwidth and CPU utilization. We have a lot of infrastructure. Without NPM we could have extended outages. It allows us to see issues and address them right away.
  • Alerting is easy to set up and customize--without good alerting, why bother?
  • The custom charts can be a real lifesaver at times. Many times I have been asked to essentially prove that a particular network component or circuit was not to blame. Custom charts make it quick and easy to put a graphic together to share.
  • Easily customizable dashboard with widgets galore allows us to see the things we really care about at a glance.
  • I personally find the maps a little cumbersome to work with. Yeah, you can create one pretty quickly, but it's a bit of work to make it look nice.
  • The upgrade process hasn't gone as smoothly as we expected in the past. We haven't upgraded to 2020 yet, so maybe that will go better.
  • I wish I could provide more cons, but it really is a great product. If they can make the maps easier to deal with, and streamline the upgrade process, it will be nearly a perfect product.
Monitoring network infrastructure (routers, switches, LAN/WAN circuits) is where SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor really shines. I frequently use it to pull historical graphs to show other teams where specific network components were either behaving properly or poorly at times of observed issues.

NPM doesn't have a whole lot of drawbacks. I guess you could say that server type devices don't benefit from it as much as network infrastructure.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used across the whole organization. The product helps the IT department monitor systems and applications, which would allow IT to respond and address issues more timely and in a proactive manner.
  • System monitoring
  • Application monitoring
  • Update node properties
  • Certain query functions in reporting
It is good at monitoring computing systems and applications. I have not used very much, but I think it can improve with reporting and taking corrective actions when alerts occur.
Keith Gulledge | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use NPM for monitoring the up/down status of all of our Cisco switches/router (350 devices). We use it to monitor the bandwidth usage of all of the critical ports (server ports, uplinks, Internet links...). We also use it to monitor stack ports for stack switches. We get email notifications on all up/down statuses.
  • Great for reporting (email notification) up/down status of network devices.
  • Great to see status of stack ports in case 1 switch in a stack is down.
  • It is critical to see bandwidth usage and NPM does it well.
  • Not really anything. It does what we need.
NPM makes my team proactive instead of reactive. We have 30 locations that we monitor and could not live without NPM.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We utilize SolarWinds NPM to monitor our internal and client networks. It is currently only used by a single department (or business unit) but we supply regular reports to many other teams and clients. It directly addresses the needs of being able to monitor and troubleshoot a diverse range of hardware.
  • Detailed Statistics
  • Reporting
  • Configurability
  • Doing anything in bulk needs major improvement
  • Network mapping displays
  • Be more reactive to customer requests
  • Cover ALL technology vendors, not just a select few
This review is purely aimed at making others realize that SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is not a simple replacement tool for what you might already be using. It is extremely powerful, extremely configurable but the average likely user--a network or server admin--is ulikely to have the necessary coding and SQL skills needed to utilize that. This is something that SolarWinds haven't really talked about, and in my opinion, is a major flaw and is what makes me only give it a 6/10 rating.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Network Performance monitor is used within the IT department at our institution. The network and server managers have administrative rights within it and then the helpdesk has read only rights. This allows the helpdesk access to see if a ticket should be escalated due to a larger issue. This solution provides visibility for our team across the infrastructure and allows us to be more proactive.
  • The alert functionality from SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor has been very helpful over the years. It provides us with the real time information needed during critical issues that may occur.
  • The basic syslog and events features allows us to see in our main dashboard if there is something critical to address when we log in to the system.
  • Network atlas also provides an intuitive graphical way to see if our environment has any nodes down or with issues.
  • It would be nice for there to be a feature that would allow us to click one button to turn all alerting off during a maintenance window. It is required to either turn each type of alert off individually or all alerts on a per node basis.
I feel that this solution is well suited for a campus or enterprise network. It provides the visibility needed from end to end on a network and is very helpful for a small team. I'm not sure of a scenario where it would be less appropriate as I see the value in being able to get a full view of your nodes in a network.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, for us, is used for the monitoring of servers, networking equipment and other devices. The only department that uses it is information technology. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor helps us manage what's going on in the environment and also keeps an eye for any machines that go offline anytime during the day or night. Before SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor it was all hit and miss as to when we knew devices were in trouble.
  • The software is very in-depth. You will be able to get metrics and data on things you never thought possible.
  • SolarWinds has a vast array of products in its database so we have yet to add anything that wasn't already included.
  • The reporting is wonderful. It is in-depth and allows us to provide documents to business partners when asked.
  • Sometimes there are too many things to look at. It may be hard to find just what you are looking for. I would prefer a more dumbed down interface or even a guided wizard.
  • It may be our implementation but it seems a little sluggish at times.
  • Upgrading it can be a pain since there may be multiple updates needed to get current.
The software is powerful and does what its advertised to do. I think that Solarwinds is a perfect candidate for any administrator with at least 25 devices/servers to manage. One of the best things you can do during the selection process would be to get an estimate for the number of interfaces you will have. These can add up fast since everything can be monitored.
Mike Mozola | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use NPM in addition to other SolarWinds modules to manage all of the devices for the MDOT Intelligent Transportation Systems statewide. It is being used by our staff and other agencies to assist with construction projects, network planning and integration, and reporting to compare against systems utilizing the devices.
  • Ease of identifying network issues
  • Alerting and Notifications
  • Customizable Reporting
  • Cost
  • Hardware Requirements
  • Licensing Renewals
We have found SolarWinds NPM to be a good solution for our clients with mid to large sized networks with the budget to support managing their assets. We have used alternate (open-source) solutions for some of our clients with smaller networks but find there are a lot less features available compared to NPM.
Ted Sadler | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our company provides maintenance and break-fix services for outdoor, carrier-scale transportation technology networks. With SolarWinds, we are able to get in front of issues when devices fail or otherwise invisible network issues occur, before our clients even start to notice the problems. With over 500 outdoor locations statewide and thousands of devices to support, NPM allows us both a birds-eye view of network health and an on-the-ground, detailed perspective into individual devices, subnets, and segments of the network and how they perform.
  • Providing detailed and high-level views of network device and infrastructure performance
  • Providing an intuitive and informative user interface
  • Generating flexible, customizable reports for any combination of devices imaginable
  • Providing highly extensible device metadata categories and custom properties
  • SolarWinds is an expensive platform with steep initial and recurring costs (if maintenance/update services are purchased).
  • The amount of information in the Orion interface can be intimidating if you don't know what specific information you're looking for.
Network Performance Monitor is especially well-suited for:
  • Monitoring the uptime, latency, statistics, and other metrics for individual device performance
  • Reporting on device availability and metadata
  • Identifying problem areas of the network down to specific interfaces
but is less suited for things like:
  • Network/IT device asset management
  • Small-scale business operations
Overall, SolarWinds NPM is an enterprise-grade, state/national scale platform suited very well for analyzing the performance and problem areas of large networks, but is not really meant for the "IT helpdesk" kind of user device asset management that some other platforms also do. Orion has those kinds of features available in other products, however. Also, SolarWinds would not be very appropriate for small, single-building, single-network kinds of operations.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used on the IT department to scan, maintain and monitor all the systems, servers and devices in the whole organization. We had to add two extra pollers to loadbalance all the devices. Using only one poller is heavy for the system.
  • You can add other Solarwinds products in it.
  • Monitor network using SNMP, WMI. Getting health information and server useful information even for VMs environments.
  • They need better support team.
  • Some areas need to be more open to the user, more customization enabled by the user.
  • Pollers need a better improvement to support more heavier weights.
It is very useful for monitoring all the network devices, servers, VDIs, wireless devices. Easy to create alerts, reports, maps, topologies, etc.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds NPM is being used by several teams in our IT department including the networking team and various application support teams. It is used to proactively monitor the network, look for outages, and troubleshoot application performance issues for our end users.
  • Monitors and alerts on network device metrics
  • Adding a device is easy and device templates are accurate
  • The user interface is intuitive and packs information densely on the screen for easy use.
  • Configuring and monitoring at the port level can be confusing. Often level 1 technicians misconfigure what ports actually need to be monitored. More common on larger or more complex devices such as core switches.
  • The top-level menus in NPM (and all of SolarWinds Orion tools) are not always intuitive.
For any size network needing performance monitoring as well as up/down statistics and all types of network performance alerts, SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is a great tool.

If you need detailed measurements over very short time intervals, SolarWinds NPM is not the tool you need. It is best suited at a macro view over minutes/hours/days.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds NPM is used by our IT department to monitor network performance and track outages and network congestion. It is an essential part of our organization's network management system. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor allows me to see the network as a whole as well as look at specific parts to diagnose issues and troubleshoot outages.
  • Comprehensive alert system
  • Wide range of supported network gear
  • Ability so save and push configuration files
  • Can't turn off events
  • Hard to find accurate help
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is ideal for monitoring network performance. I know that seems obvious, but it does exactly what it is designed to do and that is a good thing (and unfortunately somewhat rare). The tools are fairly simple to use. The reports show good data in a useful way.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Solarwinds NPM at my currently company is only being evaluated and utilized by a small subset of our whole organization. We are currently deploying and utilizing NPM and NCM as a proof of concept to gain support for an eventual full migration to the remaining aspects of our team.
  • Building service groups based on multiple aspects and technologies allowing for monitoring of a full service as opposed to the individual aspects of it.
  • Ability to pull and organize information with custom snmp pullers means we are able to monitor and report on any event that occurs in our network.
  • The ability to create additional pages and gather custom information to create simple and easily accessible locations vast improves our ability to understand and react to network related events.
  • Custom page layout in NPM only allows for vertical columns of information, limiting your ability to display information in the best manner.
  • Universal Device Poller is a separate application that would be much more user friendly if it was incorporated directly into the NPM web interface.
  • High Availability failover solution requires additional licensing from third parties to utilize.
Solarwinds and NPMs graphic solution is rather limited in your ability to display information in the manner you prefer. I feel the graphing and reviewing historical performance graphs to be one of the least developed features of NPM. The network topology maps have recently made large improvements and is a great step forward from the old Atlas Map program.
Matthew A. Osmond | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds NPM for all server and network device monitoring. We have two instances; one for our corporate environment, and one for our "critical" network segments. NPM is managed by two members of the Enterprise Applications team, with input from a cross-functional monitoring team, which has members from all areas of IT operations (and a representative from InfoSec). NPM is used both for alerting and performance monitoring.
  • Very mature product, with lots of pre-built templates and features.
  • It's very flexible and easy to customize.
  • Fantastic support community (Thwack)
  • Licensing model is simple.
  • Upgrades can be tricky and time-consuming (especially if you have other Orion products installed along with NPM). It seems like SolarWinds is really focusing on improving this.
  • It's Windows-only (which may or may not be an issue for your organization).
  • Some menus don't take advantage of modern screen resolutions (e.g., on a 1080p or higher screen, a particular menu section will be locked at a very small size, wasting a lot of real estate).
I have run SolarWinds NPM at two organizations, and it worked very well in both cases. Both orgs were mid-sized (2,000 - 5,000 users), so I have not run it at significant scale, or at a small business. It does require some care and feeding for optimal performance, but I believe this is true of any monitoring product.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Solarwinds NPM has been a very helpful tool, we use it to monitor devices and network links and the performance and uptime of these and to be honest, without it I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. We utilize this from an IT departmental side as well as feed data to our development team.
  • Traffic monitoring.
  • Link performance.
  • Device uptime.
  • Detailed reporting.
  • Price.
  • More integration options.
  • User friendly interface for juniors.
Site to Site Link Monitoring
Monitoring the link between your branches is vital for your production systems and performance reporting.

Network Device Port Monitoring
Monitoring the ports on your switches for throughput and if they are up or down is very helpful.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds NPM has been very helpful for our org. Previously, we had no visual on our network. We often had to get alerted by users who only sometimes report a problem. We were essentially operating blind. Now that we have NPM we can be proactive. NPM offers alerts for not only when a site is down but when a site is experiencing bandwidth issues.
  • Bandwidth alerts. Lets you be proactive to problems.
  • Alerts that a device has rebooted. This lets you know that it was more than a normal internet outage. There may be power issues.
  • Machine learning. NPM listens to the devices over time and creates baselines automatically.
  • Too many alerts when a site goes down. Need to be able to fine tune better.
NPM is a great tool to get a visual on what is happening on your network. You can stay ahead of a problem and fix it before a user can even submit a ticket with the bandwidth alerts. Adding all of your network devices from firewalls to switches makes it a very handy tool for monitoring these devices.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds NPM to monitor our radio and fiber infrastructure. We have a wide range of equipment and have been impressed by the ease with which we have been able to add most of these to the NPM environment. We monitor interface status for connectivity and usage, with alarms being monitored by in-house engineers, who have been able to pick up on changes in trends and escalate as needed.
  • The clarity of the NPM interface is unparalleled in the level of information displayed. This is often a challenge on other monitors when there is such a variety of equipment being monitored.
  • Adding a node to be monitored is generally a stress-free process, with a lot of configuration available, but only the bare minimum being compulsory.
  • The graphing provided for nodes provides us with enough knowledge to prevent noticeable failures in many cases. No need to click too many buttons.
  • I have found the configuration of alerts to be somewhat confusing at times. I like to have as few required fields as possible to start with, and tailor the alert from that.
NPM gives a great overview of the goings-on in a network. The amount of information we want to see is easily found, and when we find we are missing some detail, that is also added with a minimal amount of effort. The mapping options are also great and allow us to see when different areas may be affected by localized power or other issues.
Lasha Jojua | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We implemented SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor about 2 years ago. The tool provides a good view of the network, managed by our company. It's used by the IT ops department, It helps to discover network bottlenecks in real-time. In case of failure, detailed info can be provided for the relevant team. With all this they are able to reduce MTTR.
  • Traffic measurement
  • Device hardware performance info
  • Smart alerts
  • 3rd-party integrations
  • Detailed info and visibility of routing protocols
  • A bit complicated
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor delivers everything that needs to be discovered before or during downtime. Alert integration with chatops software delivers comfortable environment for Ops team. 3rd-party integrations are available as well. Dashboards can be customized for different teams (network admin/monitoring). This is also a complicated tool that needs months for non-network admins to be able to understand and use it.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It’s is being used across the whole organization. We use it to monitor all of our devices. We added our servers, switch bridges, and access points. SolarWinds NPM helps us monitor our infrastructure and are able to fix an issue quickly if the device slows down. A really great product.
  • Great at monitoring devices.
  • Shows great statistics on your devices.
  • Check bandwidth on a switch port.
  • Able to check disk space easily.
  • Not sure.
  • It just works really well.
It is suited for a small organization or a much bigger organization.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We mainly use SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor to have a visibility on the load of our servers and network bandwidth. We use it to monitor all of our network devices and servers across all of our 4 sites. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor helps us to know if anything goes wrong within the environment. Also, the alerts feature adds a great value for us to handle the problem quickly. For example, when a critical server CPU utilization goes high, we get an immediate alert to check the issue. Another example is that when VPN connection is lost to a remote site, we instantly receive an alert that the remote router is down so we can act fast to get the service back.
  • Pre-stack live monitoring
  • EMA alerts feature
  • History timelines for each sensor
  • Web portal is sometimes slow
  • Reporting is difficult and not intuitive
I would like SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor to be easier and more intuitive to use, especially for reporting and customization. I also would like it if the portal pages are much faster to load.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Solarwinds NPM is being used in our department to monitor over 1000 network devices. They monitor all ports and routing statuses. The problems that it addresses is visibility into network device health and status. With other network add-ons such as Network Configuration Manager, configuration backup is also possible. What NPM has helped us with is identifying when devices become unresponsive or when certain routing adjacencies fail. This can help us identify issues in the network without relying on our customer to tell us they are having performance or reachability issues. We also rely on NPM to identify link errors in our environment. We were able to identify many links where CRC/input errors were occurring. Without NPM, it would have been a monumental task to identify that as a possible performance issue point.
  • Identifying down nodes in network.
  • Identifying neighbor adjacency changes.
  • Graphing feature to give a quick look at interface bandwidth trends.
  • "Network Top 10" to identify issues in the network.
  • Support is almost non-existent. Almost always solved by Googling for a solution.
  • Care and feeding sometimes requires direct database interaction. For example, when neighbor adjacencies are removed, they will show up on the alerts page. But deleting them from alerts won't work. Changing the auto delete timeout is not a workable solution as sometimes real links are down for extended periods of time. One needs to go into the database to delete the routing neighbors that are no longer valid to permanently remove them.
  • Upgrades almost always have unforeseen issues. Whether a package isn't installed/ configured correctly to additional polling engines not able to be simultaneously upgraded, etc.
  • No Linux version. Windows requires many patches that required reboots on a monthly basis.
Overall, I give NPM an 8. It is the best overall product that we have used and meets our requirements. Once it's configured, it is fairly stable. It does a good job of presenting data to our team for troubleshooting. It seems to work well in our large deployment. However, one has to pay attention to database server/disk performance. Unfortunately, no built-in load balancer to balance Orion web console traffic. No good documentation of how to balance web traffic with vendors like F5.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Using SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, we monitor our core network and all customer circuits and CPE equipment to proactively plan repair when links degrade or respond to service outages. We also create logins for our customers to monitor their circuit usage and performance. We use reports to upsell customers who are consistently saturating their bandwidth.
  • Good aesthetics in graph-rendering, etc.
  • Handles a large number of monitored elements
  • Fine-grained control of user permissions
  • Polling engine requires windows
  • Database only accepts MSSQL--requires license
  • No templating of user permissions
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is most appropriate for a large environment with a lot of network elements to monitor and where multiple users need a clean simple interface. For smaller networks, it would be difficult to justify all the required licensing, and free tools would be sufficient.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a network architect consultant, I manage the monitoring and SLAs of the CRIF group's network--a network of over 1000 multi-vendor nodes. SolarWinds Orion NPM allows me to monitor all network devices with proactive managed alarms. It also allows me to analyze traffic in case of network issues thanks to the Live performance feature. Configuration of a new device to monitor is very simple, and it's very easy to create custom detailed reports to help the management have a global view of the network and traffic status.
  • Simple discovery of multiple nodes to monitor
  • A lot of graphical snippets to represent data
  • Customization of dashboard
  • Missing the ability to create a partition to give separate customizable environments to different groups
  • Traps triggered alerts can be done only on the TrapTools, not in the web interface
  • Custom maps can be done only on the Atlas tool, not in the web interface
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is well suited in a multi-vendor network with at least 50 network devices and is less appropriate in an environment where network traffic is not very critical.
February 12, 2020

Helping You Know

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Something that can be measured can be managed. In addition, you can't manage something effectively if you aren't monitoring. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor allows us to monitor and measure out network infrastructure allowing more effectively. NPM often alerts us of issues before the end-user does, allowing us to resolve problems before they become problems.
  • Device and port availability.
  • Metrics of network port utilization.
  • Can be heavy on hardware requirements.
  • UI takes some getting used to.
NPM is great for monitoring network devices and port availability and utilization. All technicians in Information Technology can gather information to make good decisions. Network staff can monitor usage and prepare for up-sizing or replacement. Help Desk staff can see the status of the network and stop blaming the network. Management can get uptime reports that show the trend of network availability.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
NPM monitors all the organization's network assets and datacenter servers. We use it to have insight and real-time status of all the essential devices. It provides us a way to centralize network management and visualization. We also heavily rely on it to analyze traffic trends and traffic patterns. It is also the way we have to prevent issues or be proactively utilizing the advance alerting processes.
  • Alerting
  • Device health
  • Custom maps
  • Custom graphs
It is well suited for organizations with a mid to large network and servers infrastructure and less dedicated personnel. It is a great tool to focus more on the job more and less on maintenance. It also helps a lot by saving time and resources with after-hours processes and troubleshooting.
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