We performed a comparison between ServiceNow Discovery and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Server Monitoring solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The biggest advantage of ServiceNow is the value that it brings."
"The process involving the original setup of the solution is excellent."
"We mostly use the solution's ITSM and ITOM capabilities in most workflows."
"It's a single system of record and it captures the relationships."
"The service management and operations management modules are valuable."
"I like ServiceNow Discovery's overall structure and the way data comes in without creating a different dashboard or interface."
"ServiceNow's Discovery feature is quite significant because it allows for service mapping and integrates with VIN management. It involves adding a business context to servers, routers, switches, and data centers. This means understanding not only what's installed on these systems and how they function together but also recognizing their significance in terms of business applications from the business's perspective and how they impact business processes and capabilities. So when we delve into these aspects and connect them to the essential components, it can help you engage in more meaningful discussions to enhance capacity management practices. In essence, it contributes to the overall IT portfolio, almost functioning as a business platform. This platform is accessible to users who leverage the data to initiate incidents, implement changes, and resolve problems. Consequently, consolidating all configuration items or assets into a unified platform makes sense, especially considering you already have Discovery in place. If the cost is reasonable, the other two components might not provide much value, except for their user-friendliness, which is often less important to leaders compared to the desired outcomes."
"One of the most valuable features of ServiceNow Discovery is the automated discovery that helps identify dependencies and generates reports."
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"The application dependency feature identifies issues between applications and servers or within the network where the application is hosted. It highlights related problems, whether related to packet processing or other issues, enabling the creation of alerts and reports accordingly."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
"Solarwinds has an open database that allows you to do serious integrations. It doesn't matter which service desk you have, you can implement and integrate it with SolarWinds."
"I find it valuable to enhance IP address management. I've been in this field since around 2011, and my experience since then has revolved around automation, deployment, distribution, and comprehensive inventory management, all crucial for deploying various components, including patches. When we talk about patch management or vulnerability management, it's more complex than just applying patches; sometimes, you need to undergo significant upgrades or phase out old components for new ones, and this can turn into a substantial project, explaining why vulnerabilities persist. Now, the role of ServiceNow Discovery and security operations, or at one point, looking at vulnerability management in ServiceNow Discovery, is crucial. It allows you to identify vulnerabilities on assets and, with the addition of discovery, service mapping, and event management, you gain a business context for these vulnerabilities. It's not merely about knowing they exist on a server; it's about understanding which services are responsible for critical business processes or transactions, like payroll. This knowledge changes the approach and execution of vulnerability remediation."
"On the Software Asset Management part of it, I expect additional reconciliation and Discovery features there."
"Discovery, while a bit pricey, integrates well with other tools and offers a centralized discovery solution. These aspects could be enhanced in the new release."
"The current limitation requires having mid servers or discovery servers in each data center for proper discovery, hindering the ability to discover assets across continents such as Asia Pacific and Europe."
"Application discovery could be improved. And, right now, ServiceNow needs to be coupled with another solution in order to verify information."
"Debugging is a bit tough in ServiceNow Discovery, so debugging should be made very easy."
"ServiceNow is very costly."
"Its integration with legacy apps is one area for improvement. ServiceNow Discovery offers out-of-the-box reports, and though that's okay, allowing easier report customization would improve the solution."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"Mapping interactions between systems."
"Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."
"It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Pricing and Cost Advice →
ServiceNow Discovery is ranked 3rd in Server Monitoring with 36 reviews while SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is ranked 11th in Server Monitoring with 38 reviews. ServiceNow Discovery is rated 8.0, while SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of ServiceNow Discovery writes "Valuable relationship building that discovers and auto-builds to make cleanup easy". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor writes "We use this product for base and application monitoring. ". ServiceNow Discovery is most compared with Tanium, Microsoft Configuration Manager, AWS Cloud Map, ScienceLogic and Oracle Enterprise Manager, whereas SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is most compared with Azure Monitor, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, Prometheus and Nagios XI. See our ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report.
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