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SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)

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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Learn from top reviewers

Easy to install and easy to use

Rating: 10 out of 10
May 2, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We use SEM (formally LEM) to log changes that are made in our switching environment and who made them. SEM also logs all changes in our active directory environment. We log ...
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Verified user
Engineer
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)5 years of experience

SolarWinds SEM helps system administrator analyze issues on network and server

Rating: 8 out of 10
April 19, 2022
Vetted ReviewVerified 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.
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Verified user
Administrator
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)3 years of experience

Set-and-Forget with as needed functionality

Rating: 7 out of 10
March 30, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We use SEM on a daily basis in our environment as per our built-out rules. We are notified of certain security events as they happen. Aside from that, we access SEM to run que...
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Kendal Goodrich
Engineer - Information Technology
System Engineer II
South Central Regional Medical Center
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)5 years of experience

SEM - a great product that's even better if you can dedicate the time to learn it.

Rating: 8 out of 10
March 30, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
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 monit...
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Verified user
Director
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)3 years of experience

SEM - Powerful and Affordable

Rating: 9 out of 10
March 29, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We use SEM as our primary logging solution for all network infrastructure devices (switches, routers, WLCs, etc). The software allows us to track changes, identify issues, and...
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Verified user
Employee
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)3 years of experience

Security Event Manager (SEM) - An intuitive and inexpensive product if you need a reliable Syslog manager in a classical network deployment

Rating: 9 out of 10
March 28, 2022
Vetted ReviewVerified 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 ...
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Verified user
Employee
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)1 year of experience

SEM provides easy, affordable SIEM appliance

Rating: 8 out of 10
March 28, 2022
Vetted ReviewVerified User
Main SIEM All feeds to this
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Verified user
Professional
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)8 years of experience

SolarWinds SEM is easy to setup and (mostly) manageable

Rating: 8 out of 10
March 28, 2022
Vetted ReviewVerified User
We use it as an internal SIEM tool and we also train others how to use it.
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Verified user
Consultant
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)2 years of experience

Superior Product, Easy to Implement and Very Reliable!

Rating: 10 out of 10
March 26, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We have a group of servers that reside in Microsoft Azure as well as on-premise. SEM allows us to centrally manage these servers for both security risks as well as general eve...
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Verified user
Engineer
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)3 years of experience

Easy product for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

Rating: 8 out of 10
March 19, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
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...
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Verified user
Supervisor
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)4 years of experience

S-Short E-Effective M-Monitoring Solution!!!

Rating: 6 out of 10
March 13, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
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.
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Verified user
Employee
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)2 years of experience

A boring review. It just works.

Rating: 8 out of 10
March 11, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
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 looki...
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Verified user
Administrator
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)1 year of experience

Log Police - The Best at Logging Events and Collection

Rating: 10 out of 10
January 28, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
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 ...
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Verified user
Engineer
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)8 years of experience

Review of SolarWinds Security Event Manager

Rating: 10 out of 10
January 19, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
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 da...
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Verified user
Engineer
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)10 years of experience

Great for Continental Enterprises

Rating: 10 out of 10
July 26, 2021
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
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 comprehens...
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Verified user
Engineer
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)1 year of experience
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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

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Pricing

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SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)

SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)

N/A
Unavailable

What is SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)?

SolarWinds LEM is security information and event management (SIEM) software.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.solarwinds.com/products/pri…

Offerings

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

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Features

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

Security Information and Event Management is a category of security software that allows security analysts to look at a more comprehensive view of security logs and events than would be possible by looking at the log files of individual, point security tools

7.7
Avg 7.7
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Product Details

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.

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

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Video

Security Event Manager - Overview

SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Competitors

SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationNo

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).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(119)

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!

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:

  1. It is important to have a detailed plan before deploying the tool. This will help meet expectations and ensure effective usage.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

Reviews

(1-25 of 45)
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Easy to install and easy to use

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
May 02, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
5 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
SEM is well suited for smaller companies looking to log events and usage. We really use it a lot to see what network accounts are changed and who changed them and who is logging into what servers and when they are doing it. We watch these things for suspicious logins and suspicious activity on servers. SEM helps us to see what switches have had changes made to them and who made the change as well as the time/date.

SolarWinds SEM helps system administrator analyze issues on network and server

Rating: 8 out of 10
April 19, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
3 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
SEM is a good software to collect all the events and be a platform to have a view of the whole network status, instead of connecting to each server, find a clue from thousands of events. SEM also keeps a history of events and save space on each server, avoiding server defective while free space is consumed by huge event log files.

Set-and-Forget with as needed functionality

Rating: 7 out of 10
Incentivized
March 30, 2022
KG
Kendal Goodrich
System Engineer II
South Central Regional Medical Center (Hospital & Health Care, 1001-5000 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
5 years of experience
View profile
Likelihood to Recommend
We have had scenarios in the past where a user account gets locked out continuously. As it turned out they recently changed their password but were apparently logged in elsewhere under their old password. The problem came in trying to determine where they were logged in from. With LEM we were able to query for the lockout event to determine where the failed login attempts were coming from. Once known, the account was logged out of the machine and the lockout events quit occurring.

SEM - a great product that's even better if you can dedicate the time to learn it.

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
March 30, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
3 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
SEM does exactly what it's supposed to do, and then some. I'm using it to aggregate logs from a number of disparate devices, and it does this very well. I also take advantage of the USB monitoring agent. In general, it's competent and relatively easy to set up and maintain. I wish I had more time to delve into customizing both the dashboards and the reports/alerts that come from it.

SEM - Powerful and Affordable

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
March 29, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
3 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
There are numerous SIEM solutions out there, all of which offer similar features. SEM does have a slight learning curve to get set up and working but is not unreasonable. For us, SolarWinds SEM strikes the perfect balance between cost and functionality. We re-evaluate our logging needs every year and SEM continues to meet the requirements of our business.

Security Event Manager (SEM) - An intuitive and inexpensive product if you need a reliable Syslog manager in a classical network deployment

Rating: 9 out of 10
March 28, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
1 year of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) would definitely prove itself as a valuable tool in any network administrator's portfolio, surpassing the syslog capabilities built into the SolarWinds Performance Manager. The ability to check both historical and live logs and have the events categorized, as well as the option to apply multiple filters to narrow down searches to the relevant information are of great use in troubleshooting scenarios or forensic tasks.

SolarWinds SEM is easy to setup and (mostly) manageable

Rating: 8 out of 10
March 28, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
2 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
PCI and DISA STIG monitoring and compliance are a strong point for SEM. There are a fair number of out-of-the-box filters for both. Developing a monitoring approach which is entirely custom and not bound to a particular regulatory framework is cumbersome due to the limited assistance with filter and rule construction.

Easy product for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
March 19, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
4 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
Solar winds can be installed quickly in the production environment and can collect data. Log data collection is the first and most important step for cyber-security and forensic investigation. The tool gives the best services for monitoring our whole network environment with great features.

S-Short E-Effective M-Monitoring Solution!!!

Rating: 6 out of 10
Incentivized
March 13, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
2 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
We have been actively tracking repeated logins on VPN connections and other organization-critical systems to meet compliance and mitigate false positives. Significantly reduces time to identify root cause and troubleshoot problems.

Log Police - The Best at Logging Events and Collection

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
January 28, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
Solarwinds SEM is great for generating reports for investigation purposes. Once you set up the connectors you can walk away and the product runs without needing maintenance. It was however pretty difficult to create the reports and alerts when now starting out and it can be very intimidating for new users.

Review of SolarWinds Security Event Manager

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
January 19, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
10 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds Security Event Manager is well suited to generate reports on a user so that the user can be audited. We also use LEM to determine who made changes to Active Directory when needed. SEM also sends alert emails when certain accounts are used as well as failed logon attempts for administrative accounts.

Great for Continental Enterprises

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
July 26, 2021
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
1 year of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds SEM is well suited for a medium to large enterprise with continental datacenters or a few datacenters peppered around the globe. SolarWinds is a thorough and complete IT Operations Monitoring, Alerting, and Capacity planning solution with excellent ROI and arguably the fastest tool to get up and running with a great ROI usually within the first year. SolarWinds modules allow for the deployment of a specific IT Domain solution or a complete end-to-end IT Operations center tool for Application, Server, Network, Security, etc.

Solarwinds (SEM) experience

Rating: 1 out of 10
Incentivized
April 01, 2021
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
The SEM tool [seems] very difficult to use due to lack of support from SolarWinds customer support. No up-to-date documentation on how to onboard, no videos on best practices, no use case videos[, and] bad customer service.

SolarWinds Security Event Manager Review

Rating: 7 out of 10
Incentivized
December 09, 2020
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
1 year of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
The SolarWinds Security Event Manager is great for people who want to be able to either view logs or set up emails for certain actionable events. However, it would be less helpful in a situation where you want your SEM to be taking action on specific items. There are some actions that can be taken by the SEM, but they constitute a rather short list in comparison to other SEM tools.

SEM is a good product

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
December 09, 2020
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
2 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
The tool provides a single pane of glass to all of our products. It is nice to have the logs parse together in a single place. The interface itself has a lot to be desired. The product has been built over the top of other products and you can tell.

The SolarWinds SEM: Cost effective centralized log management tool that helps your audit and security.

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
December 08, 2020
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
1 year of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
The Solarwinds SEM will get your logs collected and analyzable, especially for Windows servers or workstations, it can be a good solution. Alerting and reporting need to be done manually, but once you have it set up the way you want, it will work solidly. If you are looking at a log collection solution that has any of its own smarts and analytics, Solarwind doesn't have such machine learning features, maybe in the future. If you want out of the box reporting and alerting, that won't happen. They need to create and fine-tune the rules more.

SEM easy to afford, easy to install, easy to use

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
November 12, 2020
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
SEM is appropriate for all but the absolute largest networks. It works great for smaller, medium, and even some decent sized networks. Having options for all kinds of data to easily be ingested and have the events normalized out of the box is great. The price is really right when compared to other products. Some competitors are priced by number of events and in a locked down environment; this means millions of events so price climbs fast on these other products. Agents are easily deployed and can be used in images. The number of event connectors for ingesting data is large and built into the product and constantly updated. Updates are easy.

SolaWinds SEM--Worth every penny!

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
November 11, 2020
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
3 years of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds Security Event Manager is best suited for environments with many devices that need to be secured and are high availability, where any down time needs to be resolved quickly and the cause of a failure needs to be investigated and determined with good degree of precision. It's also suited for environments that need to be kept in compliance according to several standards. Many standards and policies require the keeping and review of logs for several years back.

SEM - Good product, reasonable price point

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
November 04, 2020
KS
Kim Schroeder
CTO (Chief Technical Officer)
Education at Work (Information Technology & Services, 1001-5000 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
1 year of experience
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) works well for a company our size, and we think it will enable us to grow without having to change out the system. We've also implemented Solar Winds Service Desk.
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