Solarwinds Review
February 22, 2016
Solarwinds Review
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
We use SolarWinds on a day to day basis. It's important to monitor all our WMI, SNMP servers, router switches and AP's. Whether it's drives, CPU, ports or applications NPM, NCM and SAM are essential for monitoring and reporting for our entire network.
- Good interface and and user friendly for setting up alerts.
- Fairly easy to navigate and set up groups.
- Vast variety of alerts and custom alerts to create.
- SAM leaves something to be desired.
- No way of drilling into your node and seeing what apps are currently being monitored by that node.
- NPM, NCM and SAM are almost completely separate from each other.
- POS - thresholds for drive capacity are critical. Whether it's a terminal server or database server or exchange server, if a drive fills up and stops over a weekend much time and money is lost.
- POS - Prompt alerts and escalation levels to make sure the right person knows about the issue or downtime.
- Neg - SolarWinds sometimes is a little shaky with custom scripting.
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Feature Ratings
Using SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
5 - Applications Engineering, Desktop Engineering, Network Engineering
2 - It doesn't take rocket science to set up or use SolarWinds. You definitely need to know and understand how networks work and function with servers, vlans and switches. I would say learning some of the powershell to really get your alerts going is key when setting up the alerts and monitoring.
- Drive Monitoring
- Down nodes
- Crucial applications
Evaluating SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor and Competitors
- Prior Experience with the Product
I had used SolarWinds previously. When I went to another company I used another monitoring product that just was not as good as Orion. Setting up your nodes, alerts and thresholds were much easier to manage using SolarWinds.
I wouldn't
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Not sure - n/a
- Deciding [what] we wanted to alert on
- Try to set up custom monitors
- Trying to minimize the amount of alerting that can come out of SolarWinds
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Kept well informed Support cares about my success | Escalation required Difficult to get immediate help Slow Initial Response |
No - Most of the issues we face we are able to fix ourselves or find on Thwack.
Using SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Feel confident using Familiar | Inconsistent |
- Setting up of the main interface home page
- Setting nodes up for alerting
- Applying app monitors
- Scripting for alerts
- Trying to view app monitors while drilling into the node
Upgrading SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Yes - and I have never had an issue while upgrading SolarWinds.
- Bug Fixes
- Interface upgrades
- Incorporated tool sets
Yes - You get a better product and support with paid service