Item: SolarWinds ipMonitor
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We're using SolarWinds ipMonitor, in addition to other SolarWinds modules such as Application monitor and Network Performance monitor, since 2017 as our global solution for monitoring.
It's been used to monitor connectivity status (response to ping, usage, availability) of thousands of network equipment and servers from all our sites in more than 40 countries. It's also configured to alert the proper technicians/analysts/teams responsible for each equipment.

Pros and Cons

Monitoring/alerting.
Reporting/dashboards.
Ping and service monitor.
Equipment discovery.

Could have a more friendly user interface (SLW platform is very complex in general speaking).
Alerts could be more flexible and easy to configure.

Return on Investment

It gives you the ability to have a good overview on your network and servers in regards to connectivity and network performance.
It allows IT to find issues before the users start to call.

Alternatives Considered

Zabbix

We have run Zabbix in the past and while it is a great and very flexible tool (much more than SolarWinds), it is also an Open Source tool that depends heavily on the community. When it comes to more complex environments and global implementations with business critical applications, we could not rely on the community to support us.
SolarWinds is a leader on monitoring industry and has a great support.

Key Insights

Do you think SolarWinds ipMonitor delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with SolarWinds ipMonitor's feature set?

Yes

Did SolarWinds ipMonitor live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of SolarWinds ipMonitor go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy SolarWinds ipMonitor again?

Yes

Usability

It is a very good monitoring tool, but it has a very complex licensing model (for most part of SolarWinds suite, the licenses take into account the number of monitored services or even network interfaces) and it also has a very complex management console.
If they can improve these 2 main points, I will come back and change my rating to 10.

Support Rating

SolarWinds support does a great job.

Likelihood to Recommend

It does a pretty decent job when it comes to monitoring. It is able to monitor a wide range of protocols/services (ICMP, HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP) and it has a good set of configurations for alerting. Of course, there are some 'more-flexible' tools and easier to manage, but SolarWinds ipMon is also a good choice.

Good monitoring solution

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds ipMonitor