We performed a comparison between Cisco Prime 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."Has a good wireless heatmap and search management features."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is its excellent audio and video conferencing with clear quality and no interruptions."
"Cisco Prime can help customers fix their Wi-Fi issues with scientific and digital data."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is the heat map."
"The endpoint information Cisco Prime generates helps us troubleshoot, and it's also useful for compliance reporting and endpoint identification."
"As a large organization, it is difficult to individually monitor every device. Instead, we use Cisco Prime to keep an eye on the network and services. We do not use it as a node tool, as we have other tools for network operation centers. When services go down, it can cause issues, we rely on Cisco Prime to monitor and notify us of any service disruptions. We mainly use Cisco Prime Infrastructure for configuration-level tasks."
"The solution provides data that allows us to time travel through logs and perform remote operations or troubleshooting."
"The product's most valuable features are monitoring and configuration."
"The features we find most valuable is the configuration backup automation, the configuration compliance, the security vulnerability detection and upgrading devices."
"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."
"SolarWinds NCM provides updates on the status of your network infrastructure. If any issues arise, such as a link failure or a device going offline, you will receive notifications and alerts. Additionally, if someone unplugs a cable, SolarWinds NCM will detect it. It also features a Topology Mapper that displays the connectivity of your network devices, giving you a visual representation of the network's structure. With SolarWinds NCM, you have a clear understanding of what's happening within your network and can generate comprehensive reports."
"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."
"We push all our configurations to the servers with ease and the logs capture almost all the transactions needed for an internal audit."
"The most valuable features the solution offers are compliance, reliability, and information about reliability."
"It is pretty straightforward to set up."
"It is a stable solution."
"Cisco Prime could improve the graphical user interface."
"The onboarding process could be improved and developed to enhance compatibility for non-Cisco devices."
"They can also improve the management of more enterprise devices."
"The solution needs to include centralized management that aligns with the Greenfield network and its focus on real-time, scenario-based applications."
"This solution could be improved if it could monitor configuration changes."
"There is room for improvement in the Access layer."
"I would rate the scalability of Cisco Prime a six out of ten. To scale up from a hundred to a thousand devices, the platform needs to be rebuilt logically. This process might require a downtime window and may involve changing the hardware or upgrading to a larger appliance."
"If you look at some of the wireless site-survey tools that are available in the commercial space, Cisco should include similar solutions, which would help our on-plant engineers when they're doing a site survey."
"Improvements are needed in the automatic network mapping function."
"We want to be able to store it in a data warehouse format and integrate it with Google single sign-on."
"The network logs could be improved. When the error logs come across with those false positive alarms in the error logs."
"The interface of solar winds could be improved."
"The solution could improve by being more secure."
"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."
"The only thing that requires some experience, and training doesn't fix, is how to set up your custom policy-based reports to check compliance."
"On NCM, reporting could be a bit better. It's completely become just one report. When I try to create a custom report, the solution just commits old server data."
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Cisco Prime is ranked 2nd in Network Management Applications with 35 reviews while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is ranked 11th in Configuration Management with 22 reviews. Cisco Prime is rated 7.8, while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Prime writes "Robust, cost-effective, and provides good visibility, but the scalability could improve". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager writes "Network configuration is done well; great pricing". Cisco Prime is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, Aruba Airwave, Huawei eSight, HPE Intelligent Management Center and Fortinet FortiManager, whereas SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, OpenText Network Node Manager i, VMware NSX and IBM Tivoli NetCool. See our Cisco Prime vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager report.
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