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NPM watches our servers and switches so we don't have to
Updated January 16, 2020

NPM watches our servers and switches so we don't have to

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor

We use SolarWinds NPM to monitor performance statistics and status (up/down) of over 250 servers and hundreds of switch and router interfaces enterprise-wide. Custom alerts are used to notify application or server owners when a system is down or degraded.
  • Adding nodes is easy.
  • Status monitoring is efficient and timely (assuming your polling and alert settings are appropriate).
  • Dashboards are useful and highly customizeable.
  • It's a big animal and takes time and expertise to keep it running smoothly and maintain the monitored nodes. Don't assume some IT tech is going to use this in their spare time.
  • Because it is very complex, there can be a steep learning curve. Get some training from Loop1.
  • The web interface is slow. Probably can't be helped, but it is frustrating at times.
  • We regularly identify problems with servers (often low free disk space) long before they become critical service-interrupting events.
  • We are able to monitor hundreds of nodes and interfaces without additional staff.
  • It does take care and feeding. Don't implement this on a large scale without dedicating some staff time to maintaining it.
We used to have Nagios, which is free. Not really a fair comparison to a free product. Obviously, SolarWinds NPM blows Nagios out of the water, but it isn't cheap. We also tried IBMs management suite but requirement to install an agent turned us off.
Very useful for monitoring large numbers of nodes, and it has great forecasting ability (this server will run out of disk in x days). It does not have detailed application awareness; you will need additional modules for websites, network flow, application monitoring, and log aggregation. Alarm tuning is almost an art form; you will need to spend time tuning alarms or they will become noise and get ignored.

SolarWinds NPM Feature Ratings

Network Performance Monitoring
8.2
Automated network device discovery
2
Network monitoring
10
Baseline threshold calculation
8
Alerts
9
Network capacity planning
10
Customizable reports
Not Rated
Hardware health monitoring
10

SolarWinds NPM ROI Questions

Yes - We had a limited installation of Nagios. For us, Nagios was difficult to manage (Linux platform) and not very scalable. We were also using Cacti to monitor a few WAN links, now we monitor hundreds of network links with NPM and NTA.
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Third-party Reviews
Solar Winds has a very solid reputation and the demo went very well. For us, the usefulness and completeness of the product were most important.

Using SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor

2 - Both of us are in data center/server operations. Our primary function is to monitor and maintain the servers so they stay UP.
One person, in their spare time, maintains SW. We realize this is inadequate and are considering engaging a third-party to help. For a 300-server organization I would expect at least .5 full-time equivalent (FTE) of effort to keep it running and updated.
  • Integrated APC UPS management cards into the SW dashboard
  • Attempted to capture Liebert UPS traps for alerting (unsuccessfully)
  • Integrate environmental monitoring
  • Add Alert Central
At this point, we could not continue providing the service level we do without SW.
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor, SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer

Evaluating SolarWinds NPM and Competitors

It's easy to say we would just come to the same conclusion, being now biased toward a product we're comfortable with. To do it right, we would likely go back to Gartner and possibly engage a consultant to help with selection.

SolarWinds NPM Support

Sometimes support will just e-mail articles to follow. But they usually follow up and if the issue is complex, will analyze logs and diagnostic files.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
No - Standard support included with maintenance is adequate for our needs. We have not yet encountered a problem that was not resolved by standard support.
If the system is down and the ticket is put in a critical, they jump right on it. We've had database trouble that SW was able to resolve quickly.

Using SolarWinds NPM

ProsCons
Like to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Convenient
Feel confident using
Requires technical support
Slow to learn
Lots to learn
  • Adding a node is pretty easy once you get used to the dialogs.
  • Customizing the dashboard is pretty straightforward
  • Creating custom alerts takes a LOT of dialog screens and being consistent is difficult
  • Figuring out WHICH alert went off is hard. We've had to code that in the alert message
Yes - We've just toyed around with it, seems OK.