SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Reviews

SolarWinds is a traditional enterprise network monitoring platform. It provides an event-triggered alarm. 

This is as opposed to ThousandEyes which is an application for delivery and performance metric monitoring. ThusandEyes is a service delivery tool for SaaS-based applications, with service delivery monitoring and circuit performance metric monitoring. Also, whereas SolarWinds is on-premises, this solution is cloud-based. Their analytic tools are on a cloud-based portal, but we have a physical, agent-based performance monitoring tool installed across the site.

SolarWinds has improved our organization because whenever a device is down, we get an alert. Or when a major interface is down, we get an alert. This is important since we need to know when a device or major link is down.

In the case of ThousandEyes, the feature I've found most valuable is that it is an active synthetic monitoring tool. It provides per-hub packet loss latency information across the private and public internet. This provides us with capability outside our network.

SolarWinds is traditional. It's old school and SNMP-based. It provides event-triggered alarms. We rely on the features to monitor our network device to see if it is online or not. It tells us if the interface is down or up or if the device is down or up.

Regarding SolarWinds, no major comment or improvement. We just use it. Because it's an old-school technique, we only rely on it for alerts, events, system logs, etc. That's why I said we don't put any effort into it.

Since we've only just begun using ThousandEyes, we're not sure yet. But there probably will be issues.

We have been using SolarWinds for a long time.

In terms of ThousandEyes, we just deployed it. We finished the Proof of Concept and deployed before the New Year.

The stability of Thousand Eyes is good. It meets our use case requirements.

As for SolarWinds, it is a traditional platform used everywhere. It has been on the market for 15 to 20 years. And within our organization, it is stable, too.

ThousandEyes will definitely be scalable because it's a cloud-native solution and they use a leveraging agent to collect. Cloud is more scalable compared to an on-premise deployment.

It is only our network team of 15 networking admins working on these two applications. And it requires around one or two people for deployment and maintenance of these solutions.

We are using SolarWinds every day as our monitoring platform and we don't have any plans to increase usage.

Before using ThousandEyes we only used SolarWinds.

The initial setup of ThousandEyes is very straightforward. It's not complex. It is really simple from a deployment and configuration perspective. Because we have multiple sites, the majority of the deployment time is for logistics and not for configuration or setup. It's very straightforward and simple to set it up. We are a global enterprise, so it did take a while. We used a vendor as a professional consultant service to help us deploy. It was a good experience working with them.

We pay for yearly licensing on both solutions. 

We have already seen a return on our investment by going with ThousandEyes. We already see the benefit, which is that we get visibility. That's the only thing we wanted. We can pre-benchmark service delivery and monitor across different sites on the cloud.

Before choosing ThousandEyes, we evaluated Riverbed. We select a solution based on our use case. Our main purpose here is to monitor service delivery on the cloud and Riverbed cannot do that. Riverbed could replace SolarWinds but does not have that capability, which ThousandEyes does. So that's the main difference.

As for advice for people looking to implement either solution, it's on a case-by-case basis as each person has different requirements. In our case, one can do somethings and can't do others. It's not the silver bullet that can fix everything, but we selected them based on our requirements.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd rate SolarWinds a 5. It does not flow. It cannot do our metric performance monitoring. So it is very limited. They can do it but in a very limited fashion. It is only good for SNMP-based alerts.

Regarding ThousandEyes, I would give it a seven, because you can set a threshold but they are not really alert-based. They can generate an alert but they can't say if a device is up or down, they cannot monitor.

So you basically have to supplement with each other, that's why we still have both.

We use this product for monitoring our bandwidth. We run daily reports, send the data to Tableau, put that in a map of Texas, and look at all of our sites. It tells us if we're nearing 80% and when we need to increase bandwidth.

Using this solution helps us to better manage our bandwidth. We have it handled with no problem. We export information every morning so that when everybody gets to work, we can look at it and tell exactly what is going on in terms of bandwidth.

The most valuable feature is the ability to look for any increases in bandwidth over time so that we can plan before it becomes critical. We have our threshold set at 80%, which means that when we hit that capacity, it's time to start looking at things like whether there is a problem in the network or whether an increase in bandwidth needs to take place. Essentially, it gives us a tool where we can manage our business proactively instead of reactively.

I have 19 direct reports that use this product.

It's not a cheap product, so the pricing could be improved.

We have been using the SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer for about eight years.

This product appears to be very stable.

This product seems to scale just fine. We've got 862 satellite sits we're looking at and we receive data from more than 340 land sites. I'd say that it has scaled very well for us.

We have had really good support. If we have issues then my technical person makes one call and gets help.

Prior to SolarWinds, we were using WhatsUp Gold. We weren't getting out of it what we needed, so we did a trial of SolarWinds and really liked what they saw. That is why we changed.

I was not managing the team when the setup took place, but I didn't hear of any major issues so I would say that the initial setup was pretty straightforward.

We purchased it outright but there are ongoing maintenance fees. From what I have seen, price-wise, it is close to the competitors.

When selecting new products, we always put out an RFI to see who has what out and available. Afterward, we evaluate those and make a selection. The NOC was responsible for choosing the product and then it came over to my team, the network service group. Since the NOC was responsible for the comparison, I don't have information on the other solutions that were evaluated.

As this solution is implemented now, we're running fine and it is difficult to see things that can improve. It's giving us all of the information we need. For example, we have SNMP traps set up and we are able to look at offices across the entire state of Texas. It's a pretty big job. We are very much sold on this solution and plan to continue using it.

My advice for anybody who is considering SolarWinds to get the free 30-day trial, install it, test it, and see if it meets their needs. They have a lot of different modules available, so you buy the ones that you need and implement them.

Overall, we are happy with this product. That said, nothing is perfect and there's always something better.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for traffic analysis.

The analytics are pretty good.

For stability, I would give SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer a rating of ten out of ten.

It is a scalable solution, but it is costly to scale. Therefore, I would rate scalability at eight out of ten.

Approximately 20 people in our IT department use this solution.

The initial setup was easy, and I'd rate it at eight out of ten.

I would recommend the solution and rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten with one being the worst and ten being the best.

We use SolarWinds as a core tool to monitor our internal infrastructure.

In terms of the implementation, we've actually used SAM, the server and application monitoring tools. The network configuration tools are very useful in terms of bulk upgrading switches and infrastructure. Also, the Network Traffic Analyzer was extremely useful to track down errant users soaking up bandwidth.

Quite a lot of our internal investigations are actually using the Network Traffic Analyzer to find out which computers are soaking up the network bandwidth.

The biggest problem with SolarWinds is that they've tried to integrate a lot into the core modules. I think it would actually really benefit if they are more focused. It's packing a lot of technology in now, it's very confusing areas in respect to what the product can potentially do. Even though it's split into very specific core modules, there's quite a lot of overlap. I think anybody being dropped in front of SolarWinds for the first time could initially be overwhelmed.

I think it's a very comprehensive product. It could do to even be toned down a bit. It is very powerful. They keep on pushing more and more features and I don't think it's a good thing, because we've noted quite a few stability issues with the product. I'm not saying 100% of it is all SolarWinds really related, but it's doing a lot. It's a very complex product and it's difficult to troubleshoot it when it goes wrong.

The problem is that SolarWinds is trying to bolt in too much and that can leave bugs, which you have to then sort out, leaving the product unstable. SolarWinds needs to try and slow down and improve the stability of the product, as opposed to bringing out more and more features.

In terms of our environment, it's reasonably stable but not perfect. The stability can be improved. 

I think that it's really difficult to tell just whether the issues are environmental problems or whether it's SolarWinds itself. Certainly, core modules in SolarWinds would crash. Specifically, SolarWinds information services would crash quite a bit. I was constantly talking to SolarWinds about optimizing the product in order to try it to get it to working better. It's got quite heavy demands in respect to the SQL environments as well. It has got some stability issues, but it may not solely be down to SolarWinds.

We have, in terms of total numbers of nodes, including switches and nodes, perhaps six or 700 switches and nodes.

I think the product is very scalable but it's also very expensive to scale it. You have to pay for multiple steps of the initial implementation cost in order to scale the product. For example, if you spent 50,000 pounds putting in SolarWinds, you can pretty much say that you're going to pay the same in order to put another poller in because it's literally duplicating the environment across multiple pollers. It's quite expensive in order to scale the product.

We've utilized SolarWinds to its maximum for the environment that I've been testing it in. Certainly we've invested in six of the SolarWind's modules, and I don't think that there's anything further which we want to buy at this stage.

If one starts to notice performance issues, then it's worth considering putting in other pollers. And if you put in other pollers, that's really expensive because you effectively duplicate the license costs. It's fairly scalable in terms of up to the limits, the licenses you've purchased but if then you want to go really beyond the limitations of a license and put additional polling stations in, and then it gets expensive.

I think their technical support is excellent. It really is very good technical support. I can't fault SolarWinds technical support. It's very, very good.

We were previously using Zabbix. We also looked at alternative products such as Nagios, but SolarWinds was actually decided on only because it's got a lovely graphical interface, it's easy to use, has powerful reporting features, and excellent support.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward. Once you actually get familiar with what it's doing, it's fairly easy to implement and use. There's not a problem installing it and actually using it, but it's just a complex product.

In terms of actually installing core modules, it took a couple of hours.

To fine tune it, you're probably looking at really a month of operational stats. Because obviously it goes off and it builds baselines, based on the current infrastructure. Then those need looking at and optimizing for the environment it's working in.

We did the implementation ourselves but we took advantage of the Smart Start programs, which are opportunities given by SolarWinds in order to train.

Time to actually fully deploy is quite straightforward. To install all six SolarWinds modules, you could easily do it in one day. Then it's about 30 days to actually build baseline stats and optimize, and then you're going to probably spend really the next six months optimizing the alerts and dashboards.

We could say that everybody, in terms of the team that I was working with, was involved in SolarWinds in some shape or form. In terms of core people looking after the product, perhaps three or four staff members are needed. 

There are additional costs if one wishes to purchase other modules or increase the available functionality then you can pay for additional licensing options. It gets very expensive once you actually decide to scale the infrastructure but if you stick actually within the current license limits, which you may be licensed for, then that would be reasonably cost-effective.

My advice to someone considering this solution would be to look on the THWACK forums, which is the SolarWinds community support. It's a user support forum. I'd pose lots of questions on THWACK and I'd take advantage of the 30-day trial as well, which is available for all corporates initially when you want to use a product. You get 30 days free of charge to try out a product without obligations.

SolarWinds is fairly competitive. There are lots of tools and products out there so you really do need to look at what options are actually available before jumping in and going down the SolarWinds route. I think if anybody purchases the SolarWinds route, then they are buying into a solution as opposed to just purchasing a package. Once you put SolarWinds in, you're then tempted to go out and explore other SolarWinds modules and then very, very quickly you become absorbed into the SolarWinds community.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

Our primary use case for this solution is traffic analysis.

The solution can be improved by including a blog portion with SolarWinds NTA and also advanced money for logs.

We have been using this solution for approximately six years.

The solution is stable.

We have had a good experience with customer service and support. They are knowledgable and cooperative. I rate our experience with them eight out of ten.

Positive

We did not previously use any other solution.

The initial setup was straightforward. I rate the initial setup process as eight out of ten. It took approximately two weeks because we had to implement VR with it.

Implementation was conducted in-house.

I cannot comment on the price as another team handles it.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. The solution is good, and the technical support team is cooperative, but the solution needs better log management and log coordination with tools.

As all networks have bottlenecks and some problems, people would like to understand the source of the issues, so they choose to buy SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer.

What people found most valuable in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its report customization feature.

As people always complain about the pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, it's an area for improvement in the solution. People find it expensive.

Another area for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is support, as it could be better.

We've sold SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer for around two years.

Stability-wise, SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is eighty percent stable.

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is a scalable solution.

Support for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer was done over email, but it's not good enough. On a scale of one to five, my rating for the support team is three.

We decided to become distributors for PRTG, after working with SolarWinds.

The initial setup for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer was easy. It could take two hours depending on the network size.

Customers did the deployment for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer through in-house teams.

Licensing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is paid yearly, and there are no additional costs that you need to pay apart from the standard licensing fees because you don't need to purchase another solution to make SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer work.

Pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is more expensive than other solutions.

I have experience with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because my company was previously a SolarWinds distributor. My company is now a PRTG distributor, particularly an exclusive distributor, to protect resellers. SolarWinds has several distributors in the area, so my company decided to go with PTRG.

My company provided the latest version of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer.

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer was deployed on-premises because it was what people wanted.

My company was a reseller of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer.

Two persons can handle the deployment and maintenance of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. One technician or engineer from the customer-side, and one from my company.

I wouldn't recommend SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer to others, unless pricing is lowered.

I'm rating SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer seven out of ten. I didn't give it a higher score because it's an expensive solution.

I used NTA for visibility and traffic analysis in my lab.

NTA's most valuable feature is traffic analysis and visibility.

NTA's documentation for the implementation phase needs some enhancement.

I used SolarWinds NTA for one to two weeks.

NTA is scalable.

NTA is complicated to deploy and configure.

I implemented NTA myself.

NTA gives you visibility so you can make good decisions regarding new devices and adding uplinks of traffic. I would rate NTA eight out of ten.

This solution allows me to see what we are using in terms of bandwidth on the WAN. I can use that in conjunction with Observium to figure out what endpoint on the network is pulling a lot of data, and what type of data it is.

One of the problems is that I am using two different products with two different dashboards to chase down the same problem. The bandwidth analyzer alerts me to the issue of excessive bandwidth usage, but then I have to look at the second product to figure out where. I have to find out what switch, what port, and potentially what host, so it takes a little bit of investigating to really narrow down what's going on.

This solution gives us a simple way to monitor traffic that is coming in and out. It shows me how much bandwidth is both inbound and outbound, and it is shown clearly on the dashboard.

The most valuable feature is the alarm that is set up to trigger based on bandwidth utilization. When we are alerted then we know that we have to look further into the issue.

This solution does not do a very good job when I am trying to look deeper into my internal network, in particular with respect to individual ports.

I have been using the SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer for between two and three years.

This is a stable solution. It works and I really don't have any issue with it.

There are three of us who use this solution from an administrative point of view. I am the manager of the department, there is a senior engineer, and there is a junior network engineer who uses it as well.

We did not have anything in place before implementing this solution.

The initial setup was straightforward.

One of my internal engineers deployed this solution within the company.

This was a good solution when we began using it a few years ago. However, now as the company is growing, I have more data lines coming in and I have more endpoints, I want to combine products. I'm looking for a single pane of glass dashboard to keep an eye on the entire infrastructure. As it is now, I have three dashboards that I have to keep track of.

Right now, this solution is doing what I need it to do. There is probably more room for improvement but I use the product in a simplistic way so there are things that I have not learned about it. Ideally, I would like a single product that does everything we need.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.