SAM Saves the Day!
November 07, 2018

SAM Saves the Day!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

We use SolarWinds SAM to monitor our business critical applications. Not only do we check for up/down status of each application, but we do a deep dive into the performance of individual components within applications. It is currently used only by our IT Operations - Systems team, but we hope to expand to our DevOps and other teams. With SAM, we are able to be deeply connected to the status of our running applications, and can be proactive when our applications start to malfunction.
  • SAM's included templates target the most commonly needed application monitors.
  • SAM links directly to a community lead custom application monitor repository, for those monitors that are not included out-of-the-box.
  • Custom SAM monitors are easy to build, and have virtually no limits. If it exists, it can be monitored.
  • Linux support is still pretty young. Most of the monitors are geared for MS Windows Server applications.
  • As with any customizable/powerful application, there can be a steep learning curve.
  • SAM seems to lack a discovery tool that helps you build your own custom monitors. You have to have a good understanding of the application you are monitoring before you can really get started.
  • SAM directly affects the overall uptime of systems, by quicker time-to-resolution during events.
  • SAM gives insight into application performance, which leads to better decision making when designing system.
  • SAM can automate so many manual processes, to save time for IT Technicians and businesses.
SolarWinds SAM dominates OpenSource solutions. It is straightforward and easy to understand. Built-in application templates make setting up monitors a snap!
SolarWinds SAM provides a deep look into core Windows Server applications, such as MS Active Directory, MS IIS, or MS SQL. Customizable monitors with script support make it easy to monitor anything imaginable. Unfortunately, the support for Linux applications is still pretty young, but growing.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Feature Ratings

Application monitoring
9
Database monitoring
6
Threshold alerts
10
Predictive capabilities
9
Application performance management console
8
Collaboration tools
7
Out-of-the box templates to monitor applications
7
Application dependency mapping and thresholding
8
Virtualization monitoring
7
Server availability and performance monitoring
10
Server usage monitoring and capacity forecasting
8
IT Asset Discovery
7