Item: SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Rating: 6
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilize SolarWinds NPM to monitor our internal and client networks. It is currently only used by a single department (or business unit) but we supply regular reports to many other teams and clients. It directly addresses the needs of being able to monitor and troubleshoot a diverse range of hardware.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Detailed Statistics
Reporting
Configurability

Cons

Doing anything in bulk needs major improvement
Network mapping displays
Be more reactive to customer requests
Cover ALL technology vendors, not just a select few

Alternatives Considered

Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold and PRTG Network Monitor

We have been using a mish-mash of toolsets to be able to do reports, backups, monitoring, alerting, etc. Each individual tool has its strengths, but each has a major downside in that they don't play nice (AKA do not integrate) with other tools.

Likelihood to Recommend

This review is purely aimed at making others realize that SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is not a simple replacement tool for what you might already be using. It is extremely powerful, extremely configurable but the average likely user--a network or server admin--is ulikely to have the necessary coding and SQL skills needed to utilize that. This is something that SolarWinds haven't really talked about, and in my opinion, is a major flaw and is what makes me only give it a 6/10 rating.

SolarWinds NPM Feature Ratings

SolarWinds NPM Premier Support

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor Review