We performed a comparison between IBM Tivoli NetCool and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Network Management Applications solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"It's very easy to use."
"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."
"The feature I have found most valuable with NetCool is how it collaborates all the alarms, and then it does a predictive analysis, providing a consolidated alarm view and management."
"The scalability of monitoring, the breadth of supported network components, the scale of the number of monitoring events, and the flexibility in customization make this a well-rounded product."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
"The tool had many built-in automation capabilities."
"The scanning features have proven to be highly valuable, particularly due to the comprehensive information they provide."
"It's perfect for network configuration management. It's easy to use."
"The most valuable features the solution offers are compliance, reliability, and information about reliability."
"This solution has helped our organization by allowing us to store all the device configurations for the various network devices in NCM and making it easy for us to retrieve and look them over."
"Configuration refers to the specific settings and options that determine how a device or system behaves. It can include things, such as network settings, security settings, and other options that are specific to the device or system in question. One of the most valuable features of the solution was its ability to track and monitor changes to the configuration of devices on a network. This can be useful for troubleshooting and identifying potential issues. By keeping track of who made changes to the configuration and when it can be easier to determine the cause of any problems that may arise."
"The most valuable Real-time fault detection is beneficial as it enables the identification of changes made to a device's configuration through the SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. This makes it easy to pinpoint which configurations were added or removed, potentially causing network issues. Such changes are saved in logs for future reference."
"The configuration compliance aspect of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager allows for easy comparison of configuration settings across branches, ensuring adherence to security guidelines and best practices. Automation capabilities have greatly impacted workflows, enabling tasks such as configuration backups, template deployment, and firmware upgrades to be automated, thereby streamlining processes and saving time. Compliance reporting features provide valuable insights into network compliance, offering pre-built security audit reports and customizable options to meet specific requirements."
"Compared to other vendors, like NetBrain, managing the solution is easy. They made it very user-friendly."
"The solution is too expensive."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release. IBM develops new features for Power BI or Cognos Analytics, which is good. As of now, we use Cognos Analytics, we are not using Power BI. They have the Insight concept but we don't like that."
"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."
"Tivoli NetCool's has medium scalability - there are some problems with its replications not being mature."
"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."
"Tivoli NetCool is based on a Linux platform, it would be beneficial if they moved it to Windows because not everyone is acquainted with Linux."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"UI is outdated, very old legacy."
"Releasing a product compatible with operating systems other than Windows would be advantageous."
"We want to be able to store it in a data warehouse format and integrate it with Google single sign-on."
"For each device, when you open the network performance monitor, it will give you all of the information about the device, but many of the natural configuration management features are not on that page."
"When it comes to the way of managing the network devices, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager should provide the simplest way that devices can relate to the server. For example, when we want to get the devices on board, we go by SSH to make the SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager create the connectivity with the device. After that, we pull the configuration. It would be helpful if they could combine both so that everything will be done in one step."
"The network logs could be improved. When the error logs come across with those false positive alarms in the error logs."
"Improvements are needed in the automatic network mapping function."
"Our experience has shown that most of the problems we've had with SolarWinds NCM are related to software issues."
"It would be great if they include a network service manager, network performance manager, or a privileged assessment in the next release."
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IBM Tivoli NetCool is ranked 8th in Network Management Applications with 12 reviews while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is ranked 11th in Configuration Management with 22 reviews. IBM Tivoli NetCool is rated 7.6, while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of IBM Tivoli NetCool writes "Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager writes "Streamlines network configuration and compliance processes through its centralized dashboard, although its compatibility with multi-vendor devices may present limitations". IBM Tivoli NetCool is most compared with OpenText Network Node Manager i, HPE Intelligent Management Center, Cisco DNA Center and Moogsoft, whereas SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, Cisco Prime, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, OpenText Network Node Manager i and Fortinet FortiManager. See our IBM Tivoli NetCool vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager report.
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