Item: SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Rating: 1
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are mostly using it to track logs from our Windows Server. We do also have some networking equipment sending syslog to it as well. Primarily we use it to help track down password lockouts. Its terrible UI doesn't allow for much more than that. It would be nice if there were some nice looking always on dashboard type screens we could use.

Pros and Cons

I honestly don't have too many good things to say about it. It was cheap compared to other products like Splunk and that's why we bought it.

Even though this is like 90X cheaper than other products like Splunk, etc. - It's still overpriced because it's terrible.
Flash, Java, Really? Who still uses this? Also, why is this not integrated with Orion and useable from the same Solarwinds dashboard as all our other Solarwinds products?

Return on Investment

Hasn't helped us accomplish any business objectives. Negative ROI.

Alternatives Considered

Splunk is amazing. It's intuitive, it's pretty, and it's easy to use. They have pre-canned dashboards you can plug in for all kinds of different products that you are logging and it will pull up pretty looking usable charts, graphs, and tables that are very helpful. Also, it's all HTML5 so I don't have to jack around with trying to get Flash to run in a browser in 2019.

Support Rating

I don't think we've ever actually called support for this specific product. We've called Solarwinds support for several of the other Solarwinds products we own and they are usually pretty helpful.

Key Insights

Do you think SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) delivers good value for the price?

Are you happy with SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)'s feature set?

Did SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) go as expected?

Would you buy SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) again?

Other Software Used

VMware vCenter Server, Check Point 21000 Appliances, Pure Storage FlashArray, Windows Server, Microsoft Office 365

Likelihood to Recommend

I'd give it a 0 if that was an option. Sometimes, on the rare occasion that the SSO isn't broken, we can actually log in to this and click around for 30 minutes and finally find some logs that point us in the right direction for tracking down what's locking out an AD account. Other than that, it's useless.

SolarWinds SEM Review

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Security Event Manager