Item: SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Rating: 8
Author: stephen schleeper

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The NPM module is used by the Entire IT department to monitor the entire company. We have over 60 location across 12 states. With NPM we can detect problems across the circuit so we can quickly troubleshoot and repair. Alerts are set up that help isolate the problems and give a clearer picture of the network at all times.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Quick view of system health through NOC board on a monitor in IT bullpen area.
Easy to set up unique alerts that can be applied across the whole company. There are over 100 standard alerts - we have modified 8 to meet our company needs.
Easy to set up and manage nodes in the network.
Product upgrades have greatly improved over the years. Use to have to upgrade incrementally in a particular order or the upgrade would crash. Now it is more streamlined and user-friendly.
The system is stable when set up. Don't have issues when running for months at a time.

Cons

Hard to find some answers with the SolarWinds thwack (users group). When I have experienced issues after an upgrade it was easier and more timely to just create a ticket and resolve rather than drill down into the support community to find answers. Some answers were for similar results but the wrong version fix would not help with current version causing frustration and time wasted.
The system is typically stable. Only after an upgrade do some new additions cause problems. The number one issue I have experienced is after an upgrade of the modules I have had to open unique company alerts and re-select them to run or they will cause errors. It is annoying but a predictable problem.

Return on Investment

By identifying problems quickly we have had a tremendous up-time of the network.
The system is stable and easy to update as we grow. Less time spent on modifying the monitoring tools means more time on core functions like customer setup and assistance.

Alternatives Considered

Most of my experience has been with a different version of SolarWinds.

Likelihood to Recommend

SolarWinds is a great monitoring tool but has no ability to monitor itself unless in a cluster. We use a single VM and when it has problems we just stop getting alerts. We have found that having 2 monitoring systems is best so they can alert you of each other when they have problems.

SolarWinds NPM Feature Ratings

Comments

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Solarwinds is good monitoring tool to view network.