A cost-effective yet power-packed tool with great enterprise-level support.
August 26, 2020
A cost-effective yet power-packed tool with great enterprise-level support.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
There are different verticals (towers) within the organization that are heavily utilizing one or more modules of this product line. My vertical uses it as an MSP where we are selling and supporting these products for 200+ clients scattered in different geographies. Primarily, we are supporting various hosted environments (dedicated accounts as well in some cases depending on the deal type) involving NPM and NCM as the core products. We are in the process of accumulating more such modules and tools to take over complete tooling requirements for our clients. Until now, we have been successful in addressing our customer needs through our centralized tooling but with their growing demand and competitiveness, we have to extend our horizon.
- The UI is dashing, user-friendly, yet powerful enough to do almost all the administrative tasks with the click of a button.
- The deployment and configuration is made simple thanks to the step-by-step guiding wizards.
- Reporting and KPI have the flexibility to run both simple and complex queries to get the intended output.
- Sonar discovery is an easy and efficient method for on-boarding devices.
- Dashboards and maps efficiently exhibit the entire topology and metrics.
- Reporting needs to be improved as there are more misses than hits in obtaining the intended output. CA eHealth reporting was much better and robust in comparison.
- MIBS certification is one more challenge as every-time we have to request support for the addition of OIDs. The UNDP option is great but needs to be more flexible and robust.
- Bulk discoveries, especially subnet-based, choke up the entire CPU and memory processing on the virtual infra. The discovery Wizard stalls in between without showing any error message for a considerable amount of time.
- Having multiple APEs makes administration (Patch, Upgrade, etc.) more difficult and complex. Any change in permissions on Application Folders and AV exclusion takes time in diagnosing and isolating the APE.
- Rabbit MQ and Cortex services frequently get corrupt, and we are unable to find a permanent fix for that.
- The impact is largely on the positive side as ROI figures are on the rise.
- The licensing model is appropriately designed to meet every need. We have an XLS license and with the addition of an APE license, we can easily extend our scope.
- SolarWinds has helped in the creation of business use cases for network equipment or bandwidth investments. With capacity planning, we can accurately size our Infra.
I've used various tools in my carrier and each comes with its own pros and cons--CA Spectrum and eHealth being my favorites. However, SolarWinds NPM overshadows them as it alone comprises the benefits we get from the other two. Costing and support are other factors in favor of SolarWinds.