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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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TrustRadius Insights
TrustRadius Insights

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%
  • 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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SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

N/A
Unavailable

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 Integrations

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Competitors

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported LanguagesEnglish

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Downloadables

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

(649)

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

(151-175 of 278)
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May 01, 2019

While I don't hate Server & Application Monitor, it is my least favorite SolarWinds product.

Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Banking Company, 201-500 employees
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is a useful tool, but only if you can afford to purchase all of the licenses that you need. Many of the licenses are used when monitoring Windows services. While the renewal price is only 20% of the initial purchase price, it can be difficult to get approval for the initial purchase.
May 01, 2019

SolarWinds creates another stellar product! Works flawlessly!

Verified User
Employee in Information Technology
Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Company, 201-500 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
If you have an environment with a mix of physical and virtual servers, this product is a must-have! However, if you only have a few servers to monitor, you could probably find an easier or cheaper option.
April 30, 2019

Solid offering that is at a great price-point.

Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Government Administration Company, 51-200 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds SAM is well suited to provide statistics on resource utilization by a particular application or various Windows performance counters. Having the history helps IT make decisions about future needs of an application or server. SAM does lack the ability to dig into an application and help identify a source of contention.
April 30, 2019

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is my one point of looking across my environment.

Francisco Manuel Marrero | TrustRadius Reviewer
Francisco Manuel Marrero
Sr. Systems Administrator
Infogroup (Information Services, 1001-5000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
One of the best things I value about SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is that monitors and alerts are two different things, yet can be combined in any way one could imagine. One can even create alert templates and user alerting templates over and over across different monitors.
April 27, 2019

Quick Review of SolarWinds SAM

Verified User
Technician in Information Technology
Insurance Company, 51-200 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
SAM is good for uptime, services and application monitoring on Windows and Linux VMs. It can also monitor uptime and resources for networking, storage, ESXi hosts and so on. Its a good all in one package for an IT person looking for a complete monitoring solution for your infrastructure. The negative thing is it may take a while to set it up to the way you like it due to the learning curve.
April 27, 2019

Easy, yet informative, server and application monitoring

John Reeve | TrustRadius Reviewer
John Reeve
Co-founder, lead developer
Intervals (Internet, 1-10 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
It's great for SaaS companies who need to monitor multiple servers because all of the metrics and alerts can be managed in one place. The plugins are great too because it gives us more detailed monitoring of specific software, such as database servers.
April 25, 2019

IT Infrastructure Monitoring that is Easy to Manage

Lee Anderson II | TrustRadius Reviewer
Lee Anderson II
Vice President, Chief Information Officer
Kinetic Credit Union (Banking, 51-200 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
From personal experience, I would not say that SolarWinds SAM is suited for small environments, mainly due to the cost. When I first started with my current employer 17 years ago, we implemented SolarWinds. Eventually we needed additional products like NPM and others to fully manage the environment, and discovered that it was very cost prohibitive at the time, so we ended up moving away from SAM and implementing an open source solution which could handle just about everything we needed. However, that solution was not easy to set up and maintain in the long run. Jump ahead 12 years, and at that point our environment had grown 10x and the open source solution was not ideal for that growth. At this point we were in a position that we could afford SolarWinds SAM and all the other licensing needed to fully manage it. If your company can afford it, SolarWinds is, in my opinion, the best at what it does. If cost is a concern, it may not be the ideal solution.
April 24, 2019

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor perfect for monitoring applications and servers for issues

Ryhlen Schoeberl | TrustRadius Reviewer
Ryhlen Schoeberl
System Administrator
Vast Broadband (Telecommunications, 201-500 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
We use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor to monitor our Lync servers (Edge Frontend and Proxy Server) SharePoint servers, our auto dialer systems, Exchange servers for application issues and alert us if there is a possible issue. We also monitor our certificates for expiration, as well as we get notified when a user is locked out via a custom monitor I set up. We also monitor for low disk space as well as CPU usage and ram usage to alert us if we need to increase resources on a server.
April 22, 2019

Tools for proactive maintenance rather than reactive maintenance

Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Active online monitoring by keeping up with the status of your servers and watching the network traffic generated by the applications running on them. Critical network applications such as DHCP, Active Directory, DNS functions, etc., can be monitored in real time. Extensive WAN activity monitoring capabilities of this system make it particularly useful to large businesses with complicated, distributed IT operations.
April 21, 2019

All that your infrastructure needs

Cristian Bodnarasec | TrustRadius Reviewer
Cristian Bodnarasec
Senior Software Development Manager
eSilicon (Semiconductors, 501-1000 employees)
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
This solution may be more suitable when you have a small datacenter(maybe under 100 servers); the User Interface may be snappier and you may find your answer more quickly regarding the issues you face on some machines. But with thousands of servers, we are seeing slowness. It has many features that you need to monitor your infrastructure and have great visibility into the details, whether you are the IT responsible for it, or you are just a user that needs to make sure his team has the servers they need to work in proper shape.
April 20, 2019

SolarWinds delivers the monitoring we need both on premise and in the cloud.

Eric Broz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Eric Broz
System Administrator
Turning Technologies (Computer Software, 51-200 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
If you have a smaller IT team, you will spend less time physically checking devices by using the Server & Application Monitor. The alerts are a quick read, and you can track down the issue and starting point of the failure using the visual dashboard and notification. It saves us a ton of time finding where the issue started.
April 20, 2019

Server and Application total visibility

Josh Haberman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Josh Haberman
Network Engineer
Veolia North America (Environmental Services, 5001-10,000 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds SAM is well suited for Mid-large enterprises or MSPs. Smaller companies may not be able to rationalize SAM from a cost/benefit aspect. The SolarWinds onboarding team is very helpful in introducing new customers to its products, and its user community, THWACK, is unparalleled in the depth of knowledge it contains.
April 18, 2019

SAM Review: good product but great when combined with others.

Alan Kok ITIL v3 | TrustRadius Reviewer
Alan Kok ITIL v3
Application and Monitoring Tools Manager
City University of New York (Higher Education, 10,001+ employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are looking for specific application monitoring as well as simple up/down on servers(cpu.memory. HD). If you are looking for URL, network, or DB monitoring there are other tools, specifically by SolarWinds that can integrate well. This helps with a single pane of glass dashboard look.
March 25, 2019

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor, it's like a baby monitor for Servers and Applications.

Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Civil Engineering Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
For medium to large applications it or one of its competitors are a necessity. The size and complexity of these require some sort of tool to be able to quickly make sense out of what is happening. Smaller organizations can get by without it. SAM als has the ability to work with cloud environments. Being able to see what those resources are doing in the cloud is huge.
March 15, 2019

I've got my eye on you, services.

Cody McNeill | TrustRadius Reviewer
Cody McNeill
Network and Systems Administrator II
Armour Transportation Systems (Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 1001-5000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is great for businesses that have critical processes or many servers as the single pane of glass is a great tool for any small IT department. You do not want your users to tell you when something is wrong, so having an alert to pinpoint the issue and let you know first is worth so much!
February 19, 2019

Great product, core functionality is very strong!

Verified User
Project Manager in Information Technology
Banking Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Orion is a great tool for monitoring your devices and network. It is extremely reliable and provides power information and metrics regarding availability. It also has a nice alerting engine that can be set up based on the customer's needs. Overall the tool is powerful and very flexible when configured correctly.
February 02, 2019

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor -- come out of the dark and see the light!

Verified User
Technician in Information Technology
Government Administration Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is well suited to monitoring your server infrastructure as well as your applications. It seems well suited to small and enterprise level businesses. However, very small companies may be able to use some other tools which are less expensive or free and be able to get all that they need. That being said, if you're enterprise-class, then you need the enterprise-class monitoring SAM provides. There is a reason SolarWinds is #1.
February 02, 2019

Best Server and Application Monitoring Tool

Sudhakar B | TrustRadius Reviewer
Sudhakar B
Lead Network Engineer
ZeOmega (Computer Software, 201-500 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
This is the best server and application monitoring system. This is very robust as well. We use additional SolarWinds modules, such as Network Performance Monitor and Netflow Traffic Analyzer, which actually add more value to our monitoring system. We depend on this monitoring system to monitor our critical production servers on a day-to-day basis. This has helped us to keep the "Lights ON."
January 28, 2019

SolarWinds SAM to the rescue!

Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Hospitality Company, 1001-5000 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) is suited for monitoring mission-critical services and servers that must stay up and running. It helps that it's pretty painless to deploy and the help and support personnel are rock-stars.
January 25, 2019

Easy to use product at a reasonable price!!

Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Aviation & Aerospace Company, 201-500 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
We wanted to be able to monitor all systems and applications from a single source using a solution that was easy to maintain and manage for all users. Since implementing SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM), we have added onto it with the suite of SolarWinds products that have enhanced the monitoring of our network and provided more insight into issues. As well as help us discover issues before they impact our end-users. Our uptime is better than our previous solutions due to the fact that SAM can monitor applications and provide historical data to make alerting decisions.
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