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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 …
Continue reading
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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%
  • Application monitoring (266)
    9.0
    90%
  • Threshold alerts (271)
    8.9
    89%
  • Out-of-the box templates to monitor applications (256)
    7.9
    79%
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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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Alternatives Pricing

What is Azure Monitor?

Microsoft's Azure Monitor is designed to analyze and optimize the performance of web applications and infrastructure, including virtual machines (VMs), Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Storage, and databases. Monitor Linux and Windows VMs and their health and dependencies—all on a single map.

What is SolarWinds Pingdom?

SolarWinds Pingdom is a website uptime monitoring and alert tool, with additional reporting and Real User Monitoring capabilities. Pingdom is part of SolarWinds’s DevOps package, enabling full-stack monitoring as a service.

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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 Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(648)

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

(1-25 of 172)
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September 14, 2022

Big, but effective

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We monitor servers and network gear to track uptime, and to alert when certain resource metrics are reached on a system (e.g., low disk space). My team does not use configuration management abilities. We're also working to integrate SNMP monitoring of data center power gear and PDUs, in order to get away from the vendor's proprietary client and to have our monitoring more standardized.
  • Server uptime monitoring
  • SNMP monitoring
  • Reporting
  • Network device monitoring
  • The web interface reloads when certain options are chosen from pop-up menus, which interrupts quick page navigation.
  • Configuring custom SNMP alerting is onerous.
  • I wish custom reporting was easier to use.
For monitoring applications that run on Windows hosts on VMware or HyperV virtualization, SolarWindows offers a nice, vertical view of both the loads and the resources. In such an environment, this makes life really good! But if you have something else -- for example, Linux hosts -- you're on your own to some extent. That is, the things it does well, it does very well -- but everything else is much less polished.
Connie Inman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use SolarWinds as our inventory management tool and it is an invaluable resource that allows us to keep track of all of the computers and the software installed on our computers. This helps us keep track of who has what device(s), when it was purchased, and if the user needs more room on their hard drive when it comes time to replace their computer.
  • Inventory management
  • Software management
  • Computer age and refresh scheduling
  • Would like a Linux agent
  • Would love to be able to see when a device was first added to the database
If you have a large number of users and computers and need a reliable database that will aggregate all of the computers and users into a single database. This allows us to keep track of who has logged into a computer, and log where that computer is located. SolarWinds is a fantastic resource that lets us keep better track of all the devices we have. Even after the device is disposed of we still have a record that this device was once ours so if there is an inventory question we can confirm that the device was ours but it has been disposed of.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) is part of my company's monitoring toolset which enhances the overall value proposition of our SolarWinds Orion investment. Being a global company, we currently utilize four Orion instances across multiple data centers and public cloud providers. SAM is currently monitoring on-prem and public cloud Windows and Linux-based applications in addition to providing latency metrics for RDS endpoints in AWS. SAM provides historic metrics in addition to being part of an overall toolset to troubleshoot issues in real-time.
  • Realtime monitoring of common OS and application metrics.
  • Visibility of past performance issues for server application events/issues.
  • Fast, out-of-the-box setup.
  • Provides basic monitoring/visibility. Visibility into detailed/fine-grained issues best suited for more specialized/expensive solutions.
  • Licensing per monitored application rapidly uses up purchased license count.
  • More out-of-the-box templates or easier setup of monitoring less-common applications would make the solution more appealing given the target audience of the product.
A company that has already invested in the SolarWinds ecosystem can drive additional value by adding Server & Application Monitor. Installing and configuring the additional functionality of SAM can prove to be a very worthwhile investment in most situations. Templates for canned software make the setup quick and efficient. Companies that leverage multi-tiered/in-house applications or require precise details of performance across an entire stack will want to look at solutions from other vendors.
January 27, 2022

True Insight

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use SolarWinds Server Application Monitor to monitor my infrastructure as well as applications within that environment. It provides a thorough insight into the health and availability of my infrastructure through an easy-to-read and customizable dashboard. Without SolarWinds Server Application Monitor, it would feel like I'm trying to navigate through a wildfire without visibility. Receiving alerts to issues as they are happening is a lifesaver. We have critical processes that would otherwise go unmonitored without SolarWinds Server Application Monitor. We use it for our entire virtual environment.
  • Discovers servers in our environment
  • Monitors both servers and applications in our environment
  • Monitors hardware health
  • Allow more granular control of application templates
  • Provide suggestions based on trends
  • provide a dark theme option
SolarWinds Server Application Monitor is well suited for any environment where you care about health and uptime. If you are at all concerned about your infrastructure, SolarWinds Sensor Application Monitor is your best friend. I have yet to work in an environment without SolarWinds Server Application Monitor and I can't imagine being successful at a company that doesn't have it.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Solarwinds Server & Application Monitor is a great comprehensive monitoring solution. It covers all aspects of your infrastructure via a modular approach. Server and Application Monitor module deals specifically with that: monitoring any server - physical or virtual, applications and services. It covers pretty much everything you want to monitor including hardware, performance, and system services. In addition to basic monitoring, it provides application monitoring via supplied templates for known applications such as SQL, Exchange, IIS, and Active Directory and allows to build custom monitoring templates for other applications.
  • Monitoring Windows servers
  • Monitoring applications and services
  • Alerts and reports
  • Real-time stats and status updates
  • Monitoring non-Microsoft OS
  • Database engine requires a lot of tuning and maintenance
  • Frequent updates and security vulnerabilities require immediate attention
Solarwinds Server & Application Monitor is well suited for monitoring any server - physical or virtual, applications and services. It excels in monitoring Microsoft OS and some of the major applications. It does a great job generating alerts, although that requires some time and effort investment. It also has an impressive library of canned reports that can be run manually or be scheduled. It does require additional effort and set up to monitor non-Microsoft servers, storage, and other devices
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) provides our organization visibility into the performance and availability of our servers and applications. It also provides email notifications so that we are able to troubleshoot any issues as they occur. It also proactively provides threshold data so that we can optimize our servers and applications before an issue occurs. We also use SolarWinds SAM for monitoring our own Windows services.
  • Application performance
  • Application reporting
  • Application insight info
  • SolarWinds SAM configuration
We can monitor all our servers - virtual and hardware servers at one time, group them by OS, and determine instantly if the servers are operational. Templates are available for used applications, for example, Windows Active Directory and DNS services.
January 20, 2022

SolarWinds SAM review

Nick Darnell | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SAM is used to monitor all of our existing production environment.
  • Hardware Monitoring
  • Alerting for down systems
  • Statistical information
  • None really, I just use what it provides.
Large companies or users who work remotely will find SAM useful for monitoring issues with servers in their production environment. It is much easier to have one application monitoring their systems then to manually monitor their systems one by one.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor (SAM) is used for monitoring servers, applications, and databases in our environment. We have many [SolarWinds] SAM templates defined to monitor applications (JMX, Tomcat, AD, etc). We use [SolarWinds] SAM to monitor event logs, custom logs, and run Database Queries. The [SolarWinds] SAM templates also support running custom PowerShell, Perl, and Python scripts to monitor your environment. Additional Templates are available to monitor Database, SQL Server, Oracle, MYSQL, [and] Storage Monitoring. There are over hundreds of [SolarWinds] SAM Templates available to address your monitoring needs.
  • Custom Script (Windows, Powershell, Python, Perl, [etc.])
  • Performance Stacks (Dashboards) based on data collected from [SolarWinds] SAM Templates
  • Application dependency Mapping for some [SolarWinds] SAM Templates
  • Additional Templates for monitoring applications (JBoss, JMX, etc.)
  • Dependency Mapping for these applications
  • More Application Performance Management features
SolarWinds SAM is suited to configure custom monitoring. This includes monitoring log files, error messages in logs, running database queries, and executing custom scripts. This data can be displayed in [an] intuitive dashboard for the NOC team. The [SolarWinds] SAM templates can also be used to manage application availability and uptime for all critical applications. Alerts can be defined for monitoring the [SolarWinds] SAM templates.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[My organization] installed SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor for complete Infrastructure on both physical, virtual, and cloud environments [for] monitoring of system resources utilization [on] over 50+ devices. [It] worked great with Windows and Linux servers and an additional advantage on monitoring some custom-made services with ease. Alerting services helped to a [greater extent] to act in [a] timely fashion. A great and fantastic product to use and recommend to anyone without [needing a] second opinion.
  • [Provides] detailed monitoring [on] Windows server
  • Virtual Infrastructure monitoring capabilities
  • Linux environment and custom services monitoring
  • Alerting services
  • Grouping applications
  • Assigning services to individual systems for monitoring
  • MAPs creation
A great product for monitoring systems on [a] Windows platform of any version, easy to use and configure. [The] user-friendly discovery services [for] Linux monitoring is made really easy. Custom applications and custom devices monitoring is good but needs to improve a bit in configuration of applications grouping and assigning services to the systems. MAPs need to be enhanced for creation and built-in icons.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
[SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM)] is a good friend for administrators of the Orion. The extensive WAN activity monitoring needs of my customer are met for and exceeded by SAM. It is especially useful when you have a large infra with complicated, very distributed infra operations. It is used to monitor critical network applications like DHCP, AD, DNS, etc [...]
  • WAN activity monitoring
  • Critical network applications monitoring
  • Seamless integration with the Orion platform
  • Software App monitoring would be good.
  • Scaled down versions would be good.
  • Budget friendly for SME use version would be good.
The auto discover feature is a good starting point to discover all the servers and applications in the network. This is then followed by an overview of the dependencies which will show the gaps and spots of poor performance.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We utilize SAM to monitor our Windows servers and Linux servers for CPU Load and Physical Memory usage and drive capacity. We also utilize SAM to monitor the custom applications on our Linux server environment to make sure that the applications are up and that they are functioning properly.
  • Monitor CPU and Memory.
  • Monitor drive capacity.
  • Monitor hardware.
  • I would like the ability to modify custom application groups.
SAM is well suited for monitoring applications, Component response time, monitoring process and the CPU load that they are using, and monitoring the processes by the physical memory that they are using.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As the IT Operations teams, we use SW for our daily monitoring and checks. We also created dedicated consoles for our local IT teams and other teams (MES, SAP, etc...). SW has become the source for knowing at any time how each and every service/server is doing. We have a dedicated team managing it and through the agile process, we continuously adjust the thresholds, the alerts, and the reports/KPI.
  • live alerting in a timely manner
  • nice customization for various sets of users with different expectations
  • simple and fast discovery and implementation on servers
  • KPI aggregation and high level reporting (for non technical people)
Fit for purpose for server, VMware esx, and virtual servers
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use it to monitor our AD environment along with a few other Azure resources such as IaaS and PaaS, with response time monitoring.
  • AD monitoring
  • IaaS monitoring
  • PaaS monitoring
  • User interface
  • simplified management console
SolarWinds Server and App monitor are a good solution if you need something affordable and have a hybrid infrastructure in place. Being able to hook into AWS, Azure for IaaS and PaaS is a huge plus.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We make use of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor throughout the whole organization. It has solved many issues for us, from quickly monitoring our infrastructure and alerting when systems are down, when resources (eg disk space) are running low to giving us a single view into our virtualization, network, as well as server environment. It is our number one tool for monitoring of the environment and allows us to not only be proactive when it comes to potential outages, but also allows us to quickly diagnose faults and incidents and resolve the outage quickly so that staff are able to carry on working.
  • The layout and feel of the product first and foremost. You can have a product which can do everything under the sun, however if it's lacking visually or hard to navigate, it's not very useful.
  • Seamless integration of assets between the various modules of SolarWinds, makes it a breeze to monitor or report on the environment.
  • Customisation - All aspects of the software is customisable, whether its reporting or when it comes monitoring configuration, SolarWinds SAM allows you to customise it fully to your environment so you achieve the best outcomes when it comes to monitoring and alerting.
  • The get the best out of it requires a decent amount of knowledge of the product. In saying that, you could absolutely get the basics up and running using their how-to's and built in wizards, and with continual use find your way around and customise it further to your environment to best serve your organisation/objectives.
Absolutely I would recommend the product. If you want a single product to monitor and manage your whole environment, whether it's hardware, servers (physical or virtualised), networking and all from a single "portal" Solarwinds SAM is what you want to use. You could quite easily start off with SAM, and then decide you wish to monitor the networking side of things, you can obtain the NTA/MPM module, if you wish to monitor IP address usage, or IP conflicts, DHCP etc., you can install the IPAM module. It all neatly integrates into the same portal, meaning you go to one address and all the information is there at your fingertips.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is currently used and administered in the IT department.
It is very useful to be able to detect any type of problem, from very small to [large] problems that can cause severity in any department of the entire company.
  • Logs and Event monitor
  • Sql user experience
  • Oracle User exprience
  • TCP port monitor
  • Multiple Statistic
  • Sybase integration
  • None
I can only mention positive scenarios. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is used for many types of monitoring and to be able to act quickly on the problems that are detected, for example monitoring a transactional table of some product and through SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor to be validating that there are no errors or denials.
April 10, 2021

Monitor Expert

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is used to monitor and manage the information technology infrastructure of our organization. Therefore, it is actually installed as an agent on all server layers.

The biggest business problem it helps us is that it enables us to continuously run our system with the data coming from SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor.
  • Easily view everything you want with templates.
  • Installing agents is very easy.
  • Easy to generate reports.
  • Automatically discover systems environment and after start monitoring instantly.
  • Sometimes it gets slow when I want to login.
  • Sometimes you can make it difficult to configure.
Our servers and applications must work continuously, according to the 24/7 rule. Depending on the size of our information systems infrastructure, the number of our experienced personnel in this field is not sufficient. For this reason, we take advantage of the experience SolarWinds has developed over the years, and we benefit from the workload from time to time by being informed through alerts only when there is a problem.
Joe Parlett | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used to identify poor performing SQL servers and SQL processes.
  • High wait time.
  • Long running queries.
  • Poorly designed SQL tables and code
  • It is not simple to navigate.
  • The user interface takes a while to get familiar with.
For SQL monitoring it does a good job but I am an experienced SQL developer and you need that experience to understand what it finds.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor] is our go to Monitoring Solution, spanned across the entire company that might have any sort of monitoring needs.
  • Volume Monitoring is absolutely Essential
  • WPM synthetics are cheap and efficient
  • Design is Clunky
  • Features are burried
  • Regular Users do not like it
  • Need to spend a lot of time in it to really understand anything going on.
[SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor] does almost everything well. How many people log into their 90 web servers to check if the Volumes are almost full every day? Pretty much zero so this is something [SolarWinds] is essential for. Also [SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor] has so many features its hard not to use it for almost everything.
Mike Narumiya | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds brings our uptime up by allowing fewer people to monitor applications and servers in a single application with a great notification system. Previously, I had been using a variety of programs that this new one suite can do. It is easy to use. In addition, the option to prioritize notifications allows for better and more accurate resource allocations.
  • Ease of use, simple and easy to set-up and issue.
  • Priced right for our organization.
  • Having so many modules, can take some doing to understand what you need or want.
  • Additional mobile app/device monitoring.
If you have a wide variety of systems, and perhaps some rarely used or interacted systems, this is a great tool for monitoring servers and applications. In addition, if your staff is small, can greatly empower those that you have to keep an eye on more. Easy to use and train to newer staff. Notifications are easy to set-up and modify.
Curt Sminkey | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SAM to monitor all of our servers (across 4 different sites in North America) as well as our store registers (Over 350 stores). We report and get alerts on disk space, high CPU/Memory usage, running processes and just implemented AppInsight for Exchange (which is awesome).
  • AppInsight for Exchange gives us stats on DB sizes, mailbox sizes, errors, ETC.
  • Email alerts let people in our organization who don't normally log into Solarwinds, get notified of any possible problems
  • Historical reporting lets us see trends over time for CPU, memory, repsonse times, disk space, ETC.
  • I, personally, had a hard time figuring out how to add AppInsight for Exchange and had a tough time finding any documentation on it. When I figured it out, it was easy, but took me quite a while (and numerous attempts) to get there.
  • The new web reporting is difficult to use. In the end, I love how the reports look, but i have to spend a lot of time to get there.
  • We get a lot of alerts that we aren't sure what they really mean. A better explanation of why an alert occurred or what it means could be useful in finding the root cause.
We use it to monitor all of our servers (over 500) and over 750 Windows XP machines in our retail stores. We find that we get a lot of false-positive alerts on the more in-depth component monitors so we have shy'd away from using them - mostly because I am unsure what they actually mean.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is currently being used to monitor services, process, URLs, and various other things on Windows and Unix servers. It is also used to monitor network devices through traps and certain script monitors. It is a cheaper way to monitor these items throughout the system. It allows for easy and quick access, and even incite to the environment. It offers a wide range of usage just by being able to configure and run scripts as monitors. One of the key features that allowed Regions to choose to use it, is the option to not have to install an agent on a server. You can use WMI or SNMP to app monitoring.
  • Application Monitoring
  • Easy of Use
  • Versatile
  • Could use more in-depth functions with APIs
  • There are more options for Windows than Linux/Unix
I would 100% recommend SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor to a colleague. It's a cheaper, [more] versatile, easy to use product. It has a fantastic user support base. (Thwack.com) SolarWinds offers live online training sessions for free if you have purchased the product, where you can ask questions and learn how to use or even get pointers on best practices.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are leveraging SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor to monitor all of our servers and networking equipment, as well as creating customized alerts that will notify the help desk team when things are less than ideal. We are using it across our entire department, but not necessarily the entire organization. The business problem it is solving is creating that single pane of glass that we can see green/yellow/red how our network/infrastructure is currently doing.
  • Alerting- You have the ability to alert on many different things and get pretty granular.
  • Dashboard-You can create customized dashboards for different people/groups that can see what they need to see.
  • Monitoring- You can also get pretty granular as far as what you want to see, and if they don't have something built-in, things can always be added.
  • Some things are kind of hard to find unless you know exactly what you're looking for and where to find it.
  • It's a lot to manage for just one or two people.
  • Some of the graphs/charts can't be customized in all the ways we want to.
It's great to monitor environments of all sizes (provided you have the licensing for all of the nodes you would like to add). I think it's a little less appropriate if you're not a huge IT shop. There are probably other, cheaper, better-suited products out there at that point.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds Server and application monitor to monitor our production servers, networking equipment, and critical applications across the entire organization. We are able to see details about specific applications, insight into response times, uptime, and server performance in near real time. We are able to see issues before our end users, and proactively communicate what we are doing to address the issues.
  • Gives me the information I need in a dashboard web interface that is easy to read and share with non-IT people.
  • It's easy to setup and add new devices to SolarWinds.
  • The application is easy to administer and easily installed on virtual servers.
  • Needs to be a little easier to set up and manage alerts.
  • Mobile viewing could be improved upon
  • make it easier to drill down into TCPIP packets from top level views
It is well suited for someone who needs application and server monitoring in a small to medium environment. Solar winds can handle multiple operating systems and applications. It's also good for monitoring networking infrastructure and conjunction with the server modules to provide a more complete picture of information technology environment performance. It gives insight into the entire traffic flow from server to application.
Adam Gadsby | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Server and Application Monitor has been deployed to all servers within our client's organization, and it has enabled our support team and the client's staff to identify potential issues before they become critical saving time and money. The application monitor elements allow us to keep tabs on the health of key business applications such as email, SQL, and identify and resolve issues quickly.
  • Quickly identify potential issues with applications and their root causes.
  • Server resource usage can be kept on top of, with additional resources, added before its needed.
  • Its simple and intuitive to use.
  • Easy to drill down to get the detail behind the headline information.
  • Could have more application insights.
SAM module is well suited to organizations with multiple servers in one or more sites, as it takes care of the mundane monitoring tasks, allowing your staff to focus on more pressing matters. Business-critical applications, such as Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and SQL databases, can all be monitored out of the box, and other applications can easily be added in and monitored using the template creation features.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used by the whole company. It helps us monitor any issues that arise. It helps us in trouble shooting and saves us a lot of time. I would strongly recommend SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor for any IT needs. Their support is also great they will spend time in resolving your issue.
  • Drills down to source
  • Notification of issues
  • Easy management
  • Easier navigation
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