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Easy Configuration Process: Many users have expressed their positive experiences with the configuration process of SolarWinds, noting that …
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Overview
What is SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)?
SolarWinds LEM is security information and event management (SIEM) software.
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Popular Features
- Centralized event and log data collection (17)8.585%
- Deployment flexibility (17)7.979%
- Event and log normalization/management (17)7.373%
- Custom dashboards and workspaces (16)4.949%
Pricing
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What is SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)?
SolarWinds LEM is security information and event management (SIEM) software.
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- No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.solarwinds.com/products/pri…
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- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Alternatives Pricing
What is Microsoft Sentinel?
Microsoft Sentinel (formerly Azure Sentinel) is designed as a birds-eye view across the enterprise. It is presented as a security information and event management (SIEM) solution for proactive threat detection, investigation, and response.
What is Sumo Logic?
Sumo Logic is a log management offering from the San Francisco based company of the same name.
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Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
- FAQs
What is SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)?
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (previously know as Log & Event Manager) is presented by the vendor as a powerful and award-winning SIEM. It is an on-prem deployed tool that collects, consolidates, and analyzes logs and events from firewalls, IDS/IPS devices
and applications, switches, routers, servers, operating system logs, and other applications.
The main applications are threat detection, automated incident analysis and response, and compliance reporting for IT infrastructure.
The main applications are threat detection, automated incident analysis and response, and compliance reporting for IT infrastructure.
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Features
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Features
- Supported: Centralized event and log data collection
- Supported: Correlation
- Supported: Event and log normalization/management
- Supported: Deployment flexibility
- Supported: Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools
- Supported: Custom dashboards and workspaces
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Screenshots
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Video
Security Event Manager - Overview
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Competitors
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows |
| Mobile Application | No |
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Downloadables
Frequently Asked Questions
SolarWinds LEM is security information and event management (SIEM) software.
Splunk Enterprise Security (ES), LogRhythm NextGen SIEM Platform, and ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer are common alternatives for SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM).
Reviewers rate Host and network-based intrusion detection highest, with a score of 10.
The most common users of SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(120)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Easy Configuration Process: Many users have expressed their positive experiences with the configuration process of SolarWinds, noting that it is easy and straightforward. This indicates that the product provides a user-friendly interface for making necessary adjustments, making it convenient for users to set up and customize according to their needs.
Excellent Customer Support: Several reviewers have praised the expertise and effectiveness of SolarWinds' customer support team in resolving issues. They have found the assistance provided by the support team to be valuable in addressing any concerns or difficulties they encountered while using the product.
Efficient Log Collection and Normalization: Users appreciate the centralized log collection and normalization feature offered by SolarWinds. This functionality streamlines the monitoring and analysis process by efficiently collecting logs from various sources and normalizing them into a consistent format. This allows for easier management and analysis of log data, saving users time and effort.
Confusing User Interface: Users have expressed dissatisfaction with the confusing user interface of SolarWinds SEM, which has made tasks difficult to accomplish. Many reviewers have specifically mentioned that they struggled to navigate and understand the UI.
Limited Reporting Capabilities: Users have found the reporting capabilities of SEM to be limited and not intuitive. They have suggested the need for a better report generation tool that offers more flexibility and customization options.
Poor Integration with Other Products: Several users desired better integration between SEM and other products in the SolarWinds line, such as NPM. They mentioned difficulties in achieving seamless integration, which hindered their ability to effectively manage their network infrastructure.
Users have provided several recommendations based on their experiences with SolarWinds Security Event Manager. The three most common recommendations are:
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It is important to have a detailed plan before deploying the tool. This will help meet expectations and ensure effective usage.
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Users highly recommend SolarWinds Security Event Manager as a reliable security solution. It provides comprehensive log monitoring and is particularly useful for tracking equipment, communication lines, and backup programming.
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Before making a decision, users suggest evaluating whether SolarWinds Security Event Manager meets the specific requirements of your company. Consider factors such as company size, data protection needs, scalability, user intuitiveness, ease of installation, and cost-effectiveness.
It's worth noting that while some users find the software easy to use and understand, others mention concerns about its pricing and suggest exploring alternative options like PRTG or OpManager.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
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Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use SEM to collect and analyze events from servers and routers. We can find the issues, like incorrect user logon and most port visit on router from SEM reports.
- quickly find top logon failure user, which is suspect of malware infection
- easily find most visited port on the routers to find possible attack
- SEM traffic type sort report is useful tool to control unnecessary network usage
- wish SEM could update by itself
I use SolarWinds Event Manager to provide visibility and insight into network activity/use. We use SEM to address regulatory needs such as knowledge f network events and monitoring of peripheral devices. SEM also tracks what devices are attached to the agency's network, making it possible to detect rogue devices that may pop up.
- Make sense of syslog entries from a variety of sources
- Tarck USB device usage
- Track login attempts, successes and failures
- Easier custom reporting
- Automate alerts when certain thresholds are met
- Easier rule writing
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) is our dedicated syslog for network devices, providing a higher set of features, search capabilities and filters than the basic syslog section in the Network Performance Module (npm). The built-in dashboards and ability to look at events in various categories prove particularly useful in troubleshooting scenarios.
- Categorizing of events in different buckets: Security, IT Operations, Change Management, Authentication, Endpoint Monitoring, Compliance.
- Intuitive configuration via Wizards, with meaningful examples and interactive help.
- The ability to create rules and set up actions for select events, using predefined templates.
- Better integration with npm, rather than being a standalone product.
March 28, 2022
SolarWinds SEM is easy to setup and (mostly) manageable
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use it as an internal SIEM tool and we also train others how to use it.
- Process Syslog/trap and event messages
- Provides an easily understood dashboard
- easily processes events from agent and non-agent devices
- Reporting uses Crystal Reports which is very limited and not intuitive
- Process for building custom filters needs more in-context help tools
This tool is very beneficial for securing our network environment and systems from any defects in our companies. This tool is our main SIEM solution. We are using SEM as a log collection and event generated on our server farms (local and DMZ). And also we are using real-time monitoring for some specific events defined by our security team.
- Log collection
- User-friendly and Easy dashboards
- Queries seeped (according to our size)
- log data parsing is good. if you upgrade some systems, most likely SEM will recognize it
- Agent installations are easy but there are some meaningless steps
- Can be add an advanced reporting process or module
March 13, 2022
S-Short E-Effective M-Monitoring Solution!!!
Utilize SEM for log aggregation purposes on network devices. The primary scope of your use case is to log, monitor, and investigate for technical problems.
- Log collection.
- Graphical representation of collected logs.
- Rules to trigger and send emails for quick identification and monitoring.
- File Integrity Monitoring
- Better UI to search and track logs
- Connectors compatibility issues
March 11, 2022
A boring review. It just works.
The windows installer had issues installing remotely, so we ended up using PowerShell to script the install, with no real reason from Support. At this point, we are just looking for excessive logins for the external-facing server.
- If any account is Enable/Disable, we get an email.
- If any account is locked out, we get an email.
- As nodes are decommissioned, to be able to export just that one server's data.
January 28, 2022
Log Police - The Best at Logging Events and Collection
At the university I work we use SolarWinds Security Event Manager. It is used to collect logs from firewalls, routers, switches, wireless controllers, NPS servers, and Domain Controllers. We then use this data to analyze and generate required reports on any incidents. Having all the info in one location makes analyzing events far simpler.
- Customizable event filters
- Awesome user interface
- Easy to configure connectors
- Needs better integration with SolarWinds NPM. This is the only Solarwinds product we use that isn't integrated.
- It needs a more lightweight client.
January 19, 2022
Review of SolarWinds Security Event Manager
I use SEM to Centralize log collection for my domain controllers, file servers, NPS servers, and Firewalls. Using SEM we are able to have all logs in one place and use that data to generate necessary reports. Products work great and once it was set up there was not any need to go back into the configuration.
- Collect logs.
- Generate reports.
- Great user interface.
- I would like the client to be more lightweight.
- I would like a mobile app.
July 26, 2021
Great for Continental Enterprises
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) was included in the short list of SIEM solutions for our SOC solution. SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) dashboard was comprehensive and the UI was intuitive and easy to customize. The 'out-of-the-box setup was easy and hit the floor running with minimal configuration when paired with SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor or Server and Application Monitor.
- SOC Dashboard
- Compliance Reporting
- Node Health
- User Logon Events Dashboard
- Poor Performance for 10,000+ elements
- Poor Performance for real-time dashboard when over 10K nodes
- Poor database performance for extra large global enterprise
December 09, 2020
SEM is a good product
We use SolarWinds security event manager to help provide insight to all of our logs across our organization. It provides a single pane of glass to this information. We’ve had great success and using the dashboards and some of the automated process is that we can put in place.
- Insight to suspicious events.
- Automated response to common issues.
- Reports.
- Interface.
- Reporting.
- Notifications.
December 08, 2020
The SolarWinds SEM: Cost effective centralized log management tool that helps your audit and security.
The Solarwinds SEM is used for our client for 24/7 incident monitoring and reporting. The primary use is for account events, such as lockouts, disablement, and enablement to both user and computer accounts. It really works well in correlation and helps to stick with the audit and compliance. With a user-friendly web interface and automation modules, SolarWinds is an overall excellent cost-effective SIEM product if the intention is just to monitor for security incidents by manually created correlation rules.
- Has a nice user-friendly interface. Some SIEM can be daunting to learn how to use and get acclimated to, but LEM has an intuitive layout and is very easy to pick up and use.
- The logging agent in the source device is really simple to deploy and integrate.
- Monitoring and reporting the account disablement with detail to whoever disabled an account for audit and compliance.
- Some logs are not parsed well, happen to depend on the external log parser tool.
- The update method needs to be made even simpler, auto update would be better.
- The email alert features with SolarWinds will send a large number of emails if the number of alerts email. The duplication of email alerting needs to be reduced.
November 11, 2020
SolaWinds SEM--Worth every penny!
SolarWinds Security Event Manager is used to collect, review, and analyze system logs from servers, workstations, and network devices. Used by one department, it solves the problem of having to go through long log files trying to find and make sense of an event. It also helps with reporting for compliance purposes.
- Graphs showing important events
- First-time setup and addition of new devices is easy and organized
- Performance is excellent
- Reporting could allow for more customization
- Better integration with other products of SolarWinds line
- More alert options
November 04, 2020
SEM - Good product, reasonable price point
We use Solar Winds Security Event Manager (SEM) across our entire organization. It enables our company to monitor and manage events and provide reporting required for PCI and ISO compliance initiatives.
- Brings together security events from multiple system sources.
- Allows IT to review and manage security related events.
- Provides convenient filters/views allowing us to narrow down the data we want to see.
- Some improvements in user documentation could be helpful.
October 23, 2020
SEM review of a SolarWinds fanboy at heart
We are currently using it within our Operations team to monitor events and alert others of security events and anomalies that it detects. I would like to recommend this product to any business needing to increase their security posture and get better alerts and more reliable data to look at to assist with the root cause and security monitoring.
- Automated threat detection
- Log collection
- Live filtering
- Custom rules
- Alerting can be confusing to configure
- The dashboards and widgets look a little old as with all SolarWinds products
- The initial setup can take a lot of time
October 02, 2020
Very good product, easy to install!
We are using SEM to get all logs from any devices to get an overview on what's going on the network. Also, this tool alerts us of suspicious activities.
- Ease of use.
- Good integration with others products.
- Default detection rules.
- Filter easy to understand.
- Better report generation tool could be made (last version is better, but still room for amelioration).
- Mobile app would be very useful (not web, real app).
September 11, 2020
SoalrWinds SEM - great value
It addresses the issue of audit requirement by utilizing log consolidation (syslog, traps, windows log). For windows, an agent needs to be deployed. SEM normalizes the data for several fields so that it is easier to locate the specific event from the 10 million events received per day. The GUI is split into two parts. The first part is part of the new GUI which has dashboard, monitor, nodes, rules, groups (limited). The second is the older GUI where the other functions are. I tend to stay in the older GUI unless the function has been moved over to the new GUI. There is a third interface which can be reached by SSHing to the SEM. This allows to us to diagnosis any issues with the SEM.
It is generally used by the security team, but read-only access has been given to the networking and windows team to enable them to search for specific log entries.
It is generally used by the security team, but read-only access has been given to the networking and windows team to enable them to search for specific log entries.
- Parses the logs into several comment fields to make the search easier
- Can scale up to 218 million per day
- For large amount of events, there is an unreasonable amount of CPUs and Memory needed
- Reporting function has not been updated in many years and is very difficult to write
August 17, 2020
Solarwinds working for you again!
It is being used across our Presort division. It allows us to monitor daily issues and hiccups so that we can address them from anywhere in the country. With it, I'm able to track my local facility while still traveling to the other facilities in the country. It is a lifesaver when I need to be flexible and have the ability to travel or even stay home.
- Centralized log collection and normalization.
- Automated threat detection and response.
- Integrated compliance reporting tools.
- Auto report sending alerting.
January 31, 2020
SolarWinds Security Event Manager: A "log" above everyone else
SolarWinds Security Event Manager is a log and event manager that we implemented to replace our Cisco MARS appliance. This system is used by our security team to monitor and log events throughout the entire organization. From an alerting point of view, SolarWinds Security Event Manager makes our monitoring simpler and more refined. By allowing us to create and set email alerts on important and critical events, SolarWinds Security Event Manager allows a hands-off approach, so that we don't have to review hundreds of lines of alerts to get the critical information, saving us time and effort.
- Allows log collecting from almost any source of data, using multiple types of authentication and collection (i.e. SNMP, WMI, etc.)
- Allows customization of dashboards per user, so that you can quickly find the information relevant to your position.
- The dashboard and reports use javascript, which can be slow to load.
- To get it up and running was fast, however, to correctly configure proper alerts, you have to spend a ton of time.
It is being used, at this time, only by my department. We use it to collect logs from all our network devices, servers, and other devices we use to support our services. It is useful for us to have all of our logs in a single place and searchable.
- SEM normalizes logs very well. It is simple to be able to compare fields in logs from say a Cisco router and a Windows server, especially timestamps.
- SEM has great flexibility in customizing its various aspects, especially its correlation rules and reports.
- SEM doesn't support out-of-the-box several device manufacturers that are used in my environment. For example, Peplink and Netonix.
- I have to purchase a separate log parser tool rather than having it included in SEM.
October 09, 2019
SolarWinds LEM: Useful and Low Cost SIEM Solution for SMBs
We initially started using SolarWinds Security Event Manager(previously Log and Event Manager) to meet a security compliance requirement. Once I spent some time with it, I realized that I could use it for alerting on specific events and activities that our users were interested in. For instance, we used the File Integrity Module on our HR file share to alert the HR manager when files were added or deleted, and then we sent a weekly report to that department with all read/write activity. We also used it to monitor AD changes, and the email alerts were really useful in producing historical information about what changes had been made recently.
- Compared to other SIEMs, it's relatively easy to get up and running. The virtual appliance is easy to maintain.
- Support was top notch. The support team really knows their stuff when you run into an issue.
- The email alert system is easy to use and attach to a fired rule.
- Compared to other SIEMs, there are features that are missing. Machine learning, automatic event correlation, ability to correlate multiple sources together.
- The UI is clunky, and the *New* event log analyzer page felt really disjointed from the rest of the product.
- In my experience, the dashboards were almost unusable. They persisted across login per device, and even then they sometimes would reset and go back to the ''Getting Started'' look.
March 15, 2019
SolarWinds Log & Event Manager: Exactly as Advertised
SolarWinds Log & Event Manager is used by our company's IT department to monitor events on domain controllers in locations across the globe. The primary use is for account events, such as lockouts, disablement, and enablement to both user and computer accounts. It is a more proactive way to give attention to user account management. While not an originally intended use, the node health section also lets us know if a domain controller is not acting properly.
- Monitors account lockouts and reports them with detail so that it is easier to solve this with end users.
- Monitors and reports account disablement with detail to whoever disabled an account, for audit and accountability.
- Also, monitors and reports account enablement with detail to whoever enabled an account, again for audit and accountability.
- Flash-based UI can lag, HTML5 would be preferred
- Availability for custom widgets, but you need a bit of training to get things done right unless you have time for trial and error.
- It only knows what it knows for account lockouts. If a source machine isn't available in the Event Viewer ID that triggers the alert, it does not have any extra tools to help it determine the issue.
February 28, 2019
LEM, your one stop shop for Security Event and Incident Management!
As a Network Monitoring Engineer and instructor, I see many Government and Military IT Organizations choose LEM as their primary Security Event and Incident Manager(SEIM) across all of their networks. LEM allows them to have a consolidated, normalized view of both their server and network environments. Having a consolidated view provides SolarWinds customers with the ability to correlate multiple security events across disparate systems and greatly reduces the amount of time and effort to detect and respond to potential security intrusions.
- One of the most valuable features of SolarWinds LEM is its ability to normalize logs from differing systems into one common format. LEM normalization saves time and effort in doing forensic analysis by letting security personnel see the "whole picture" of their network in one place.
- LEM's Active Response capability makes it easy to watch a security event happen in real time and to take immediate action. For example, LEM can very efficiently allow security personnel to logoff suspect users or even restart important Windows Server processes in real time, before further intrusion can happen.
- LEM has a lot of out of the box features that allow for the quick implementation of security policy across many industries. LEM can provide immediate compliance monitoring and management for standards such as PICA, HIPAA and DISA-STIG.
- The number one challenge for SolarWinds customers I see is LEM's reporting software. LEM Reporter, a standalone Windows Application, is not as intuitive as customers would like and they report some instability in the application itself. Customers tend to use LEM's search scheduling as a more effective way to report on security events.
- Performance has been an issue based on LEM's use of a Flash interface. This has been a limitation for a long time. However, with the transition of the LEM interface from Flash to HTML5, customers are reporting much better performance starting in LEM 6.5
- Every one of my customers makes some comment about LEM's very high learning curve. LEM is not very intuitive, requiring a lot of rote learning through repetition. Many LEM customers request some type of training to help them learn to use it.
We are currently using Solarwinds LEM to pull logs from about 150 servers. We have also worked to get logs pulled from some barracuda load balancers and also a barracuda message archiver. We have alerting set on account lockouts and some other security events. LEM has helped notify us of account attacks and has also been valuable to reviewing both application and security logging when we need to cross reference servers or look at historical data.
- LEM's console interface works well to narrow down all the logs into a view able format.
- You can customize alerting triggers off of any event conditions.
- the logging agent is relatively small and easy to deploy.
- In order to navigate the console smoothly and set alerting in place, you need to go through their training.
- All your configuration is done by hand. There are no built in analytics or alerting to help you.
- I've found the reporting, real time and otherwise, to be slow and unruly. There are some updates and work a rounds that we have applied to help optimize the process, but if you try to pull to many logs, or over too long a period of time it will often time out.
- The logging and reporting is dependent on the server automatically determining the type of server and logs it is getting. If it doesn't properly tag the logs, then they are essentially gone, lost, unsearchable. There is no good way to manually tell the server to classify the logs, which makes the process either difficult or impossible at times.
March 21, 2017
LEM pulls event data from across our network
Our IT department uses SolarWinds Log & Event Manager (LEM) to monitor events across our network. LEM consolidates security alerts from our firewalls as well as OS event alerts from servers. Application generated errors are passed on to our development team.
- LEM is able to pull from a variety of different information sources without requiring a lot of configuration changes to get the data flowing.
- LEM assists in limiting the amount of data required for the business need without requiring a full dump (ie SNMP from all sources).
- LEM does require tweaking in order to get each data source configured. The event data comes into LEM easily, but the kind of data needs to be identified or custom classifications set up to organize the resulting alerts meaningfully.