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SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

Overview

What is SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor?

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers application and server monitoring capabilities. SAM allows for self-service for easy setup, 1200+ monitoring templates, and customization options, as well as integrate with other SolarWinds products.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is a versatile tool that has been widely used across various industries and departments for …
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True Insight

10 out of 10
January 27, 2022
Incentivized
I use SolarWinds Server Application Monitor to monitor my infrastructure as well as applications within that environment. It provides a …
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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 12 features
  • Server availability and performance monitoring (269)
    9.8
    98%
  • Threshold alerts (271)
    9.0
    90%
  • Application monitoring (266)
    9.0
    90%
  • Out-of-the box templates to monitor applications (256)
    8.0
    80%
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Pricing

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What is SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor?

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers application and server monitoring capabilities. SAM allows for self-service for easy setup, 1200+ monitoring templates, and customization options, as well as integrate with other SolarWinds products.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
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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Features

Application Performance Management

Application performance management software monitors software to ensure performance and availability

8.7
Avg 7.6
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Product Details

What is SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor?

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot issues faster. The vendor’s value proposition is that this solution prevents slow applications and downtime from impacting end-users and business services. Users can use this tool to pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack.

The vendor says SolarWinds SAM is affordable, easy to deploy, use and customize. Users can automatically discover their systems environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SAM is built on SolarWinds Orion® platform enabling native integration with Network Performance Monitor and other IT management software from SolarWinds.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Features

  • Supported: Single Web interface to monitor multi-vendor applications and server infrastructure.
  • Supported: Out-of-the-box monitoring templates for 200+ enterprise applications.
  • Supported: Easily extend monitoring to virtually any custom or home-grown applications.
  • Supported: Gain contextual visibility of relationships and dependencies between applications and physical and virtual servers.
  • Supported: Monitor server hardware health, perform capacity forecasting, and manage asset inventory. Remediate server issues remotely with built-in management actions.
  • Supported: Monitor VMware and Hyper-V environments to identify problems impacting application performance.
  • Supported: Centrally manage IT asset inventory and keep track of server hardware and software information.
  • Supported: Leverage the wealth of built-in alerts and reports, and easily customize them as needed.
  • Supported: SAM is an agentless monitoring software. Optional agent installation extends monitoring to the cloud.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Screenshots

Screenshot of Multi-vendor application performance monitoringScreenshot of Multi-vendor server monitoringScreenshot of Application dependency mapping with AppStackâ„¢ dashboardScreenshot of Microsoft Exchange performance monitoring with AppInsightâ„¢ templateScreenshot of Microsoft IIS performance monitoring with AppInsightâ„¢ templateScreenshot of Server hardware health monitoringScreenshot of Built-in virtualization monitoring for VMware and Hyper-V environmentsScreenshot of Easily extend monitoring to any custom or home-grown application

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Videos

An introduction to and a brief overview of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
In this video, the TrustRadius team is going to take a look at Solarwinds Server and Application Monitor, a powerful tool that can help you monitor your systems and identify issues early. We'll explore the overview, user sentiment, pricing, top features, and use-case, and help...
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Watch SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Training Videos

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Competitors

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers application and server monitoring capabilities. SAM allows for self-service for easy setup, 1200+ monitoring templates, and customization options, as well as integrate with other SolarWinds products.

Progress WhatsUp Gold, Nagios Core, and Tivoli Monitoring (legacy) are common alternatives for SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor.

Reviewers rate Server availability and performance monitoring highest, with a score of 9.8.

The most common users of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(653)

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!

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is a versatile tool that has been widely used across various industries and departments for monitoring and managing servers, applications, and network infrastructure. Users rely on the software to ensure that critical systems are up and running smoothly. With its ability to monitor servers, applications, and network nodes, customers appreciate the comprehensive insights it provides into their IT environments.

One of the key use cases of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is its role in proactive monitoring and alerting. Users have praised the software's capability to detect issues such as CPU utilization, memory usage, response time, and low disk space. By setting up corresponding alerts, users can address potential problems before they impact end-users. This proactive approach helps prevent system failures and ensures optimal performance.

Another important use case of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is its ability to provide detailed insights into server metrics and application performance. Users can monitor various elements such as CPU, memory, and disk usage on servers, as well as track the health of applications like Exchange, SQL, IIS, and SharePoint. The software's integration with other products in the SolarWinds Orion family enhances network management capabilities, allowing for a unified view of segmented networks.

Additionally, SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is valued for its flexibility in monitoring different types of systems and services. It supports Windows, Linux, Unix, and AIX servers both on-premises and in the cloud. Users have leveraged the software to monitor services, processes, URLs, IP addresses, MAC addresses, SMTP devices like networked cameras, and even Linux services such as IPTables. This broad range of monitoring capabilities makes it a valuable tool for organizations with diverse IT infrastructures.

Overall, SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor has proven to be instrumental in maintaining system stability by providing real-time alerts for potential issues and facilitating efficient troubleshooting. Its ease of use and customization options allow different departments and administrators to tailor monitoring and alerts to their specific needs. The software's comprehensive insights, proactive monitoring, and wide range of supported systems make it a valuable asset for organizations looking to ensure optimal performance and availability of their IT infrastructure.

Customizable Dashboard: Users appreciate the fully customizable dashboard in SolarWinds SAM, which allows them to tailor it to their specific requirements. This feature has been mentioned by several reviewers and enables users to easily access the information they need for effective monitoring.

Proactive Alerting: Reviewers have praised SAM's proactive alerting capabilities, with alerts being triggered for offline servers, low disk space, rebooted servers, and critical network device outages. This feature has been highly valued by users as it helps them stay on top of potential issues and address them promptly.

Reporting Capabilities: SAM's reporting capabilities have received positive feedback from users who find the detailed reports provided by the software helpful for meeting regulatory requirements and ensuring system stability and performance. The granularity in alerts and reporting has been mentioned by multiple reviewers as a valuable feature of SAM.

Confusing User Interface: Users have expressed frustration with the user interface of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor, stating that it is confusing and difficult to navigate. Some users feel that there is a steep learning curve and find it overwhelming, especially for first-time users.

Lack of Comprehensive Documentation: Several users have criticized the documentation provided for SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor, stating that it is spotty and lacking in examples. They believe that more comprehensive and detailed documentation would greatly aid in understanding and troubleshooting the software.

Poor Customer Support: There have been complaints about the customer support provided by SolarWinds. Multiple users have reported that customer support has worsened over time, causing frustration due to delays in reaching the correct support team and resolving issues in a timely manner.

Users have recommended several key actions for users considering SolarWinds based on their experiences. These include:

  • Recommending utilizing the software for internal use, specifically for monitoring servers and applications.
  • Suggesting taking advantage of the free trial to test the software before making a purchase decision.
  • Advising researching and planning before implementation to ensure the software is suitable for one's needs.
  • Encouraging careful design of the environment, especially when using the software in different locations.
  • Recommending purchasing a license that matches the number of components needed for monitoring.
  • Urging cautiousness when it comes to support and potential glitches with the software.
  • Suggesting working with a detail-oriented engineer for proper setup and configuration.
  • Promoting interaction with the user community site to learn from others' experiences and share knowledge.
  • Emphasizing the need to understand the licensing model before signing up and selecting appropriate licensing based on the number of nodes to be monitored.
  • Suggesting exploring other SolarWinds offerings and using them in conjunction with this software.

While users find SolarWinds to be a valuable tool, they also mention that it may not be suitable for beginners due to its learning curve. Overall, it is recommended to carefully consider setup, pricing, and requirements before implementing SolarWinds.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(176-200 of 278)
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Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) to monitor all of our applications to ensure availability and performance. Only the IT department utilizes it, but its impact detects outages across all aspects of the business. SAM addresses the need to know and react, and serves as our first line of defense against downtime, while also providing insight into how applications are performing.
  • HTTPS Monitoring.
  • SQL Server Insight.
  • IIS Monitoring.
  • Support has gotten worse.
  • Simplified UI.
  • Custom pollers are complicated to set up.
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is great if you want insight into the availability of your nodes or applications. It is great at detecting when a host or service is down, and the polling intervals are customizable.
January 23, 2019

SAM Review

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor to monitor critical applications and alerts on those monitors with NPM. It is used solely by the IT department but covers all applications across the organization.
  • We found AppInsight for exchange very useful. The level of detail on the inner workings is almost too much.
  • User experience monitors are also very useful. We use them to verify web form logins, SSH, and other processes are up and running.
  • Windows process monitors are great too! Very easy to set up and a quick way to monitor services.
  • AppInsight takes up 50 licenses: a bit steep. With a base 150 license count, we can't run AppInsight for SQL, Exchange, and IIS without running out of licenses.
  • We get a lot of timeouts monitoring external websites. Still, we haven't determined why this happens. We have dual 2gig pipes to the internet.
Great for putting eyes on up/down status of applications and monitoring windows services. Performance monitoring requires a little more effort unless you can afford to throw AppInsight at the application.
Dan Watson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our department (IT) primarily uses SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor to ensure key servers and services stay up and running. As a bonus, I use the performance monitoring tools to judge how servers are performing, determine where more (virtual) hardware is needed, and show executives and developers how the hardware is not bottlenecking the software.
  • Monitoring - I can easily use built-in templates for most things, but I can also easily create custom monitors for things that are more unique to my environment.
  • Alerting - It takes some work to get it exactly right, but you can tune your alerts to ensure you are not crying wolf.
  • Application insights - the templates for monitoring Exchange and SQL performance really allow you to quickly and easily pinpoint and attack problem areas in these critical applications.
  • Licensing - while the model is simple, it can be frustrating. New features, like AppInsight, use a ton of "monitors" so you will always need/want to upgrade to the next level. The difference in licenses/pricing can be startling. For example, if you need 301 you have to buy 700. Finding more flexibility here would make happier customers.
  • Sales - the sales team is unnecessarily aggressive in their tactics. They will call and email every listed contact they can find repeatedly offering account reviews, quarter end sales, etc.
Anywhere you have servers and applications, you should be monitoring them. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor provides so much peace-of-mind that I cannot recommend it enough.
Jennifer Aguilar | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor across the whole environment. I have triggered alerts notifying when applications are down or have exceeded custom defined thresholds. We monitor individual applications via real time process monitor. I would be dead in the water without this great tool running. We have done nothing but improve performance since the implementation of the SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor.
  • Triggered Alerts
  • Custom Thresholds
  • Integration with IIS, Exchange, Active Directory out of the box!
  • Top 10 Lists - Monitored,
  • Integrationg with Orion
  • I would like to see SolarWinds Server & Application monitor have 2 modes or themes available; day time or what you currently have available. I would like to see a second option available, a dark theme.
  • I would like to see SolarWinds Server & Application monitor to allow for unlimited nodes and applications to be monitored with a base license. The end user is responsible for resources!
  • I would like to see SolarWinds Server & Application monitor have additional configuration features available to the end user on the Settings page. For example, SMTP configuration specifically for SAM.
I can't think of a scenario where SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor would not be appropriate! You get so much out of this tool with very little effort. SAM is another set of eyes in my environment. I pair SAM with NetFlow and to get a great understanding of the data flows in my environment. I have set up custom application monitors for almost every component running, and are using the Windows Time Skew App monitor constructed by SolarWinds. There are so many great templates already created for the end user. When you get good enough, you can configure your own template and share with the THWACK community and other SolarWinds users. The greatest thing about SolarWinds in general; the end users drive the products!
January 22, 2019

AM Review

Zack Davis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We utilize SAM to monitor windows scheduled tasks that run many of our application. We also utilize its reporting to gauge elasticity.
  • Alerts on failed tasks.
  • Helps us plan for disk space growth.
  • Aid in analyzing over/under utilization of system resources.
  • Maintenance on keeping things clean is time consuming.
SAM is great for predicting disk space growth and planning for the future. We are able to analyze our growth over a period of time and make assessments for the future.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use SolarWinds to monitor mounted storage in our VMware environment.
  • Very powerful and configurable.
  • Very difficult to get alerts configured quite right
  • Very little troubleshooting options available if an alert doesn't fire as expected
With some extensive tweaking, it is quite useful at monitoring VMware and Windows services.
stephen schleeper | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds is used as an operations alerting center for our networks. We have 70 branches across 12 states. With SolarWinds, we can see the health of our network and know when a problem arrives and can quickly work on resolving the issues.
  • Monitor voice network and quality
  • Monitor exchange databases
  • Monitor network connectivity
  • Server uptime
  • The ability to remove modules without having to rebuild the whole system. The recent test of WPM has shown that when using the trial version it becomes embedded and difficult to remove all parts
  • The requirement for 3.5 dot net. The system is old and should be updated.
  • I like the SolarWinds help group, but sometimes you don’t get replies for weeks regarding some of the more obscure problems. Easier to open tickets than have to wait for help from others.
The phones are the number one priority in the company. We can get anything else done on paper so long as we can get the calls. I can monitor call volume and quickly search call failures with the SolarWinds applications. This is done in both real-time and call detail records. This ability, along with the network monitoring of all the routers and switches, makes this tool invaluable.
Valery Mezentsau | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The company I was working for had a fully virtual data center (DC) located in a third party cloud provider. Cloud hoster was providing full admin access to the SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor solution to control, monitor and analyze the state of our virtual data center. Application was used by the IT engineering team.
  • Huge variety of options for monitoring.
  • Flexible configuration.
  • infrastructure mapping.
  • Performance and storage monitoring.
  • Single console for virtualized assets management.
  • Alert management.
  • Integration with other solutions for better monitoring and control.
  • More details on monitoring Exchange, SQL, IIS, etc.
  • In most cases, the interface is overloaded with information that is not important for quick monitoring check and takes time to understand all the functions.
Very good solution. Tons of options and features. Very detailed monitoring of the infrastructure. But extremely expensive. We were using the solution just because our virtual DC provider had that solution implemented and provided access for free as part of services.
December 10, 2018

Love at first SAM

Khamsay Phimmasanh-Baig | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor at our Cranston, RI location only. I use it to monitor our exchange environment. I love the mailbox quota alerts.
  • Users By % Mailbox Quota Used is great for notifying users to archive.
  • Mailbox Database Size and Space Use is great for monitoring your DB size quickly and the alerts are a plus.
  • Critical Processes and Services is great because it shows the health status... I check it daily and have alerts set to notify me if there are any warnings.
  • I would like to add a widget for "Users By % Mailbox Quota Used" to my SolarWinds home page summary dashboard but this option is not available.
  • More widgets for alerts.
  • Cisco Jabber integration would be nice.
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is well suited when you need to quickly get health status of your critical applications.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is less appropriate for small environments because you can get out-of-the-box alerts from Exchange. Too expensive for small environments.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Server & Application Monitor to monitor our Windows, Linux, and VMWare environments. It helps us keep track of services that are critical, disk space, and even SSL Certificate renewals. Multiple departments use Server & Application Monitor because it helps address the need for immediate notification of issues on mission-critical systems for our company.
  • Track service uptime.
  • Track dependencies and control alerting accordingly.
  • Easy to configure and get a basic foundation working quickly.
  • Can take a while to get all facets of the program configured.
  • Needs multiple servers to be installed as recommended.
  • Can be complicated to integrate alert notifications into other ticketing systems.
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is a great monitoring tool that builds on SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor's great foundation. Server & Application Monitor will give insight into your server's reliability, uptime, and SLA metrics.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) is used across our entire environment - monitoring all servers and providing alerts and information to multiple departments. This addresses and confirms if issues are seen with systems and assists in the troubleshooting at various levels. We also use SAM to provide alerts to application owners and impacted parties to ensure issues are resolved in a timely manner.
  • Provides up/down/reboot notifications via customizable alerts to impacted parties
  • Provides insight on exchange, sql and other environments to assist with troubleshooting
  • Provides historical and forecasting data that can be used to assist with resource or server issues
  • Better seamless integration with vcenter, as in an api plugin
  • Better linkage for virtualization within the home page
  • Better details available for VMs
[Well suited] for customization for alerting; SAM is very versatile and allows very granular alerting and monitoring solutions. With the ability to provide app insight with our Exchange and SQL environments, we are able to drill down to issues and provide valuable data to resolve application problems as they are happening. We also like to use the forecasting ability to ensure that our end users are aware if there will be resource issues forthcoming.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) is used in a small group in our corporation. We use it to monitor servers and storage in the content production group.
  • Monitors on Prem and Cloud Assets
  • Easy to configure alerts
  • Wide variety of templates and applications it can monitor out of the box.
  • Deployment is pretty easy but could be simplified.
  • Integration with other SolarWinds products could improve.
SolarWinds SAM is a great tool to monitor large installations. It is especially nice if other SolarWinds tools are being used, the integration between the tools can really be helpful. At first during implementation you have to dedicate some time to the process to get everything configured correctly.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Monitor is one of our current tools that we have in place to monitor overall status and health in the environment. It allows us to have a clear picture on how our network infrastructure is performing. Through this web based application we can see up\down status and performance. It's a great tool to have in our network.
  • Ease of use and operability. User friendly and intuitive console.
  • Great dashboard capabilities.
  • Easy to manage. Add devices to monitor in a step by step process that's very easy to follow even for a not so technical person.
  • Reporting of critical issues through some type of notification other than email would be a great add-on.
  • Sometimes you need to remove a device from a console and re-add if its not reporting properly.
  • AI for monitoring would rule out human error. That could be a great future enhancement for this tool.
This tool provides a comprehensive network performance solution. The constant monitoring keeps your network healthy and it could be used at any type of network environment, no matter how complex. It allows you to see where your points of failure might be and improve overall network performance.
December 02, 2018

Enjoy SAM

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We leverage SAM to give business owners across our enterprise information about their specific applications in performance as alert handling. It helps my department assess responsibility and assignment in a proactive manner. SAM helps us distribute the weight of supporting applications among the business owners and holds them accountable for their own processes.
  • SAM templates allow me to customize components and thresholds on the fly.
  • SAM templates allow me to create dynamic and useful NOC pages for non-technical users.
  • SAM allows me to test without deployment and confirm settings before I deploy into production.
  • It allows me to tap into the Thwack community to pull in custom templates and choose components that may work for me without having to use all of them. I can pick and choose the items that work best for my needs.
  • I am not always familiar with the specifics of the components with scripting or usage and I sometimes find the documentation spotty in helping me achieve what I am attempting to do. I would likes to see more examples.
  • I would like better metrics provided to me on the performance of SAM and how it relates to poller performance.
It is well-suited and is easy to set up for process monitoring or component monitoring. The basic template and ease with which you can monitor core components is very nice. I can select multiple node targets and easily pick and choose what we require. Even after deployment, the ability to add or disable those components is simple and fast.
Kay Peek | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use SolarWinds as an uptime monitor as well as software configuration. It also serves as the main source of reporting on disk space and network utilization for our organization. We use it in combination with SCCM and ServiceNow to be able to prove the growing needs of our department and the current issues that our systems teams need to address.
  • Uptime reporting
  • Memory Utilization reporting
  • CPU Utilization reporting
  • Managing and sending alerts
  • Adding servers is not as intuitive as I'd like. It seems like there are multiple places to add, but only one method is correct.
  • There's a learning curve for new users to have to get past in understanding the administrative portions.
  • Sleeping email alerts for times during maintenance windows is not something we have gotten fully worked out.
SolarWinds has served us well for reporting and making sure those outside the IT domain have the information they need and want for assessing our situation but in a domain with untrusted subdomains, it does have issues with permissions. That is more of an issue with our particular setup than the tool as multiple tools we use have those issues, but an issue nonetheless.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Currently SolarWinds is being used at many of our subsidiaries. Our company has been through many mergers and acquisitions. We are planning on getting the whole company to use SolarWinds. This means getting rid of install bases of HP OpenView. When put head to head there really is no choice. SolarWinds wins hands down.
  • Asset discovery.
  • Custom MIBs
  • Interoperability
  • HA installations are hard to upgrade.
  • HA deployment has an active node that is plugged into the network and a standby node that is not. This makes patching the server much harder to do.
  • Upgrades in general can be very time consuming.

Like:

The ability to monitor scheduled tasks. Our company performs a lot of automation through windows scheduled tasks and cronjobs, monitoring those task for failures allows the IT department to not be caught off guard.

Dislike:

One thing that I feel is lacking in this product is the report building. I also wish the licensing was better.

Ashton Bellah | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use SAM to monitor servers for 10 offices nationwide. It has allowed me to have the best monitoring platform around, in addition to the ability to automate numerous tasks I would find myself doing in past roles. For instance we use it to automate the power down cycle of servers when a Battery Backup sends a 25% remaining power alert to ensure protection of our data in the event of a power outage.
  • Monitoring individual services.
  • AppInsight for applications.
  • Automation of tasks.
  • Better integration with mapping the network. We are not a fan of Network Topology Mapper.
  • Better insights for SQL without buying another add-on.
  • Seems the focus is on adding new applications to sell instead of improving the current lineup.
It's a phenomenal solution for small- and mid-sized firms with a smaller IT group due to it's ability to deploy so quickly and easily.
November 07, 2018

SolarWinds helps uptime

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds is being used to monitor the servers on our VMware system. It reports when a server is having problems and allows us to fix the problems quicker than waiting for the users to report an outage. SolarWinds will normally point to the server that is not working, whereas when the users report an outage we must hunt for what the problem really is.
  • If a server is down or not responding SolarWinds will tell us exactly which server needs attention.
  • When a switch goes down or loses connection SolarWinds will tell us so we can have the network group fix the problem.
  • SolarWinds does not provide much help with slow response problems.
If something is broken (network or server) it is very good at pointing to exactly what needs to be worked on. It is not as much help with slow response problems. Sometimes it can help with slow response but that is not its high point.
November 07, 2018

SAM Saves the Day!

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds SAM to monitor our business critical applications. Not only do we check for up/down status of each application, but we do a deep dive into the performance of individual components within applications. It is currently used only by our IT Operations - Systems team, but we hope to expand to our DevOps and other teams. With SAM, we are able to be deeply connected to the status of our running applications, and can be proactive when our applications start to malfunction.
  • SAM's included templates target the most commonly needed application monitors.
  • SAM links directly to a community lead custom application monitor repository, for those monitors that are not included out-of-the-box.
  • Custom SAM monitors are easy to build, and have virtually no limits. If it exists, it can be monitored.
  • Linux support is still pretty young. Most of the monitors are geared for MS Windows Server applications.
  • As with any customizable/powerful application, there can be a steep learning curve.
  • SAM seems to lack a discovery tool that helps you build your own custom monitors. You have to have a good understanding of the application you are monitoring before you can really get started.
SolarWinds SAM provides a deep look into core Windows Server applications, such as MS Active Directory, MS IIS, or MS SQL. Customizable monitors with script support make it easy to monitor anything imaginable. Unfortunately, the support for Linux applications is still pretty young, but growing.
November 07, 2018

Happy to Use the Tool

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The entire organization uses SolarWinds, from systems, development, and networking. It helps us monitor critical elements of the company and keep our uptime where we would like to see it.
  • Ability to keep an eye on key systems.
  • Ease of use by those who have limited experience with monitoring solutions.
  • Robust enough to be tuned to a specific use-case.
  • NCM helps us make sure we have backups of our configs should we lose a switch and need to RMA.
  • Sometimes the demand of additional pollers gets tiresome, and becomes very obvious when there are not adequate resources.
  • Bulk adding of nodes is a clunky and cumbersome process.
SolarWinds is good for monitoring many systems and ENTIRE systems. It is less than ideal for monitoring a specific process, like BGP status.
November 07, 2018

SolarWinds SAM Review

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Being able to look at all VMware ESXi Blade health is immensely valuable. The alerts allow us to be proactive, instead of reactive, when dealing with issues. Implementing our custom map (with real time weather) has been a boon for our facilities that work with grain. Adding endpoints to the map is easy.
  • Alerts
  • Monitoring CPU
  • Monitoring bandwidth
  • Ease of use
  • Menus are confusing
  • Needs a supercharged VM or else it runs slow.
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is a necessity for any business that has more than one location. The ability to check your organization's network health at a glance is extremely valuable. Checking to see if servers are oversubscribed before anything goes wrong is also extremely valuable, and makes you look good to management when you can meet uptime metrics.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
This is being used by the entire server team to manage and keep up on the needs of our 680+ virtualized servers, as well as our hard chassis servers. The automated scripts eliminate the need for us to write scripts to identified alerting thresholds. The selection is vast, so you can customize the platform to alert and monitor the most critical things, and not have useless alerts flooding your mailbox.
  • The broad based alerting is great! Our virtual environment alone is a full time job to monitor and this makes it easy using the alerting console.
  • the ability to fully customize your thresholds for alerts and the ability to turn off the functions you do not want to be alerted on is great.
  • We love the fact that it will monitor and alert on a huge array of functions on both our Linux servers and our Windows boxes is great. One multi-purpose tool...the Swiss Army knife of server and app monitoring.
  • Large environment polling frequency.
  • Hooks into more storage centric variables. (EMC)
  • Ability to hook into other management platforms to correct issues through the same interface.
in large enterprise environments it is a great tool to keep up with the daily needs of server farms. We have the ability to see what applications and servers are having issues and be proactive about mitigation (vs. being reactionary and only addressing issues after they truly become a problem.)
November 06, 2018

SolarWinds at a glance.

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[It] Maintains active monitoring of our servers to ensure system availability and the identification of hardware and access issues as they happen. This allows us to respond before our users are aware of the issue or at the very least as they are becoming aware of the issues. This reduces our response time to incidents thus increase operational up time for our users.
  • Identify hardware issues
  • Identify interface over utilization
  • Provide application service level monitoring.
  • Allow customization alert prioritization of importance. While an alert on node A may be very important for it an Alert for node B is larger scheme of things is more important when looking at a list of things with problems. May even be same type of service but B is more important and in large data centers if multiple things are going wrong have list of most to least important would allow quicker response time.
Remote sites that are not actively manned are good instances of where SolarWinds hardware monitoring really comes into play being as things like fans that are failing, temp levels, or one failed power supply on a system with redundant may not be noticed until too late.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SAM and I go way back. It's been used to monitor the health of MS Exchange 2013 and 2016. I've used it successfully to keep an eye on MS SQL servers and IIS applications. That's not all I've done with SAM. We use it to get daily disk space reports, trends, forecasts on usage, and to look at how system resources are affected by new application installs. Everything. It keeps us ahead of the curve.
  • Easy to configure over other solutions. Works with the built in MS SQL Express. Easy to migrate to SQL standard if needed.
  • Easy out of the box reports. Most of what you want to know is there from the get-go. Sometimes you need a different angle and the report writer is your friend.
  • Alerting isn't confusing. Other products sometimes don't make sense when they send an alert out. SolarWinds SAM can tell you exactly what is up, down, warned, and you can link the alert message right to the node with the problem. Get email. Click. There. Simple.
  • While it is generally easy to get going with SAM and the Orion platform, getting into the weeds can be difficult and overwhelming.
  • SAM opens the door to monitoring and reporting on a verity of things. I think Orion is designed to leave things out so you buy more.
  • Fine tuning thresholds can be confusing. SolarWinds defaults on somethings that don't make sense in a real environment. But not all environments are the same. They could give you more guidance.
Perfect for Windows and Microsoft environments. It can monitor Linux as well. It will definitely help ID where a problem is occurring or might occur. SAM gives visibility into the health and behavior of servers and applications where simply looking at logs and CPU isn't enough to get a full picture. SolarWinds is great at trending data.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds server and application monitor has allowed us to get a better look at our environment and quickly see if an application is performing up to expectations. It is used across the organization, depending on the department and their requirements. It is flexible enough to use in multiple situations across multiple departments and provides quick insight into status.
  • Setup and configuration is well documented and I don't remember any issues with install.
  • SAM allows us to catch an app in "normal" state and compare to current performance.
  • Flexible enough to be used in multiple situations with multiple applications.
  • More template like functionality to increase use cases for the product.
  • The ability to bring additional apps into the product that are supported out of the box.
  • Support calls can take a while to get routed to the correct team for the right support.
SolarWinds Server and App monitor provides a simple, single pane of glass, a destination to get information about critical applications. SAM is well suited for both custom application monitoring and out of the box software packages. We have used it in both scenarios and it has been helpful for the team in getting to the root cause of issues.
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