SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Review

We are a solution integrator, and this is one of the products that we implement for our clients. We also supply this as a service.

The primary use case for this solution is application monitoring, in an on-premises deployment model.

The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature.

The custom reporting needs to be improved.

Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included. The supported list of applications is very limited. For example, it supports the Windows version of JD Edwards, but not the Linux version of the same solution. Since it is the same application running on a different platform, it should work.

The price of scaling this solution needs to be improved.

I would like to have better support for Linux, and not be as dependent on Windows Servers. Even for non-Windows applications, it uses a Windows Server.

This solution is quite stable.

It is expensive to scale this solution, simply because of the cost of the polling engine. You can purchase unlimited IPs, but the price of an additional polling engine is $20,000 USD. That is quite a lot. We are looking into other solutions because it is just too expensive to keep scaling.

We have approximately eighty users and four hundred servers.

There is no in-country support for this solution. There are local numbers available but the call quality isn't great. I would rate technical support a five out of ten.

The initial setup of this solution is complex.

The deployment took four weeks.

We provide the consultants for integrating this solution.

The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each.

The high price of this solution has us looking into other solutions, rather than scale.

If you are looking for a single pane of glass to monitor Windows products then SolarWinds is your product. However, it is not best of breed. 

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.