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Our VMan
September 26, 2018

Our VMan

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

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Virtualization Manager

We are using Virtualization Manager to get a complete view of our virtualized environment, VMware and HyperV in a single pane. Its use is focused in out IT infrastructure area. One benefit is the integration with other SolarWinds products such as Server Application Monitoring (SAM). This allows us to monitor the entire virtualization structure from performance at the guest level and how it impacts hosts performance.
  • Integration with VMware Virtual Center and Hypervisor hosts. Since we have a mixed virtual infrastructure VMan allows the administrators to quickly identify potential issues and conflicts across our virtual environment, without relying on separate tools for each technology.
  • The integration with other Solarwinds products allows for the ability to drill down into the other modules for a clearer view of detail associated with a process or event.
  • There were some issues migrating from the previous version to the latest version. Screen displays didn't always function as expected.
  • Due to licensing constraints, the ability to easily filter which devices to monitor and which to skip over in order to stay within the license limits.
  • The ability to set thresholds based on the guest or host's role in the virtualized environment. Databases might have a different threshold requirement than web servers.
  • The cost of managing the mixed virtual environment is greatly reduced by presenting a single solution.
  • Using the features included with the other SolarWinds modules, such as reporting and issue alerting have had an impact on the management of the infrastructure
  • The self service capability of the VMan dashboard allows the information to be easily shared with other IT and management resources.

VMware vCenter Server accommodates only VMware hosts and guests. The dashboards are not customizable and require a lot of clicks to get the necessary information on a host or guest.

MS Configuration Manager and Virtual Machine Manager are cumbersome when compared to VMan. The ability to show a holistic view of the virtual environment is limited if at all available. All the System Center products require some amount of specialized training for the administration of the products. ** The learning curve for VMan was very short. ** Though there is integration between the System Center products the transition between those products is not smooth.

VMan is best suited in an integrated SolarWinds monitoring environment where its interaction with the other modules increases its versatility. For organizations that are using mixed virtualization solutions, VMan offers a single pane of glass approach to monitoring those environments. If an organization is utilizing a single solution virtualization approach to that vendor's solution, VCenter for example, might suffice.