Releasing a product compatible with operating systems other than Windows would be advantageous. Currently, using it on Windows necessitates additional costs, including Windows Server licensing and Microsoft SQL Server licensing. This makes the overall product more expensive than necessary. Offering compatibility with platforms like Red Hat or Debian could reduce costs and potentially enhance functionality.

I would like to see more integration tools. Something like dialysis, for example.

The solution could have better integration.

Adding an AI feature would allow me to add the configuration by sentence instead of writing the command on the devices. This would be useful if you don't know everything about the command line. For instance, AI can help me to name a router if I don't know how to write the command line to name the device.

Also, it would be good if the product could give me alerts in case of any configuration change. If the product could send me a notification when there is a configuration change in any device, I wouldn't need to check the console every time.

The network flow is a problem for this solution. The network flow in other solutions is better for each device, and you can see the bandwidth or the traffic for each interface. I'm unsure if SolarWinds currently has this feature because I don't have the latest update.

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.

There are times when you schedule a job or do another action, if an issue happens or something does happen in the network, you would like to receive reports, whether via SMS or via mail. However, sometimes it doesn't come. This needs improvement. Sometimes it takes time before it comes, and sometimes it doesn't come at all. You could then falsely be accusing yourself of not scheduling something properly, or maybe the timing doesn't match, or maybe the NCP is not synchronized with the server. You then realize everything working fine, but still, the notification doesn't come the way it's supposed to.

The third-party plugins available in the solution could improve. I have received some issues with the templates.

Improvements are needed in the automatic network mapping function. Currently, the default setting generates care maps by end, which is not ideal. Additionally, navigating between maps can be cumbersome. You have to right-click, then click on the three dots, and finally select the desired map. A shortcut should be implemented where double-clicking on a map instantly takes you to it, eliminating the need for the right-click step. One aspect I find lacking in SolarWinds compared to the previous tool is the ability to view the history of an object, including its static up and down status, simply by clicking on it. In SolarWinds, accessing this information entails browsing the database within a specified timeframe, which is less user-friendly, particularly for reporting purposes. The concept is to have the device icon represent its current status. Upon double-clicking on the icon, I immediately see how long it has been in its current state. For instance, if it's showing an error, it would indicate the duration, such as "Error for twenty-five minutes." This instant visibility would be beneficial when troubleshooting or assessing device statuses.

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. But, other than that, NCM is the one product that I wouldn't change because it works well.

For the next release, I can only think that it would be helpful to have a visual indicator on the dashboard to see if a device fails to back up quickly. A small icon next to the device could indicate that it was not backed up successfully the last time. It would help me catch any backup issues since the system works so flawlessly that I don't check it every day.

I'd like to see additional features like support for devices that don't use CLI for configuration backups, expanded inventory support for other vendors beyond Cisco, and compatibility with newer SD WAN devices. These enhancements would further improve the product's versatility and utility for users.

 we hope for future enhancements, especially in supporting security devices that lack CLI backup options.

They should enhance the solution's visibility for features. There should be an easier way to have the topology of our network. Also, they should include more automation features.

The Network Configuration Manager needs to improve the access control list compliance.

Nowadays, since last week, I've been facing one issue with the NCM jobs.

When we run the SolarWinds NCM jobs at the cellular line, it runs in the morning. They're just not finishing. We're getting false processing. They're just stuck at a point and just showing me post-processing is happening. So it's not completing, and whenever I cancel it and run it again, it gives me the error. However, not all the time. It gives me the connection refused or a time-out. And when I go to the device, only the job is running. I find the connection profile is running fine and there is no blocking, and there is nothing at the network devices level. However, when I run the job, it's just giving me the connection refused by that particular device. I have raised one case with the vendor about this issue. However, they are just looking at it now, and they will respond to me when they identify something. I haven't gotten an answer on what the issue is.

Our experience has shown that most of the problems we've had with SolarWinds NCM are related to software issues.

The network logs could be improved. When the error logs come across with those false positive alarms in the error logs. We see days or weeks on those error messages. I think this needs to be addressed or they need to mitigate the house cleaning or the housekeeping of those errors or those logs. I mean that's one of the things that I will say that can be a little challenging sometimes. I'd like to see when you look for the node, via IP or via the name of the product, a quicker response in the search for the node. Sometimes when I search it, I have to look three times for the node in a different way. The search for that particular device or search for that particular product, I have to sometimes dig in on my own DNS and find the IP. Then I go to SolarWinds copy and paste it the IP. It's a pain. Let's say the search or the browse for any particular note needs to be improved for the GUI.

It would be great if they include a network service manager, network performance manager, or privileged assessment in the next release.

The integration with the network performance monitor wasn't complete as at the last time I used it. 

It has a separate interface page within the web interface. I would prefer to have the NCM features on the same interface as the natural performance monitor device page.

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. You have to go to a separate page. It would be nice to have tighter integration with the NPM (Network Performance Monitor).

I would like to see NCM be more aggressive in adding new device support to the product.

We want to be able to store it in a data warehouse format and integrate it with Google single sign-on.

The solution could improve by being more secure.

The solution could offer a better compliance report. GDPR has many security standards. If a company is working with an international client, it must be compliant with any standards. We work with a bank, financial companies, and an insurance company. They need to be compliant and the core customer compliance is our main challenge.

The interface of solar winds could be improved.

• Report generation
• We need to be able to monitor the NetScaler VIPs

Its look and feel can be improved. They can also put in more effort into building the THWACK community and use the information about various customer issues and requests to build new releases.

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.

They need to make a health checkup report in a new release.