SolarWinds NPM Other Advice

MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Specialist at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

The solution provides comprehensive monitoring that includes proactive items such as advance notifications and engineer tickets for code breaks. This allows engineers to quickly resolve issues before major outages occur.  

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

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Angela Bustamante - PeerSpot reviewer
Monitoring and Process Analyst at Seguros SURA

We have the SolarWinds NTA (NetFlow Traffic Analyzer), and we also use another solution from SolarWinds: the SolarWinds SAM to monitor some on-premise servers. It also monitors the GPU, memory, the availability status and processes. We are now monitoring databases, particularly Oracle databases, to check their status and also check internal information. We detect all this information and equip our system so that it has the information, and we're doing it manually because that doesn't happen automatically with SolarWinds.

We have 30 people who use SolarWinds NPM and they're part of the operations, network, and infrastructure teams that do the diagnostics when something is wrong. We also have team leaders and some managers that watch the data in real time, plus the configuration and monitoring teams. We have 2 engineers responsible for the deployment and maintenance of the tool.

As for plans of increasing our usage of SolarWinds NPM, we've bought more modules recently, and we keep using the tool to monitor our network and infrastructure, together with other tools. For example: we have some very practical tools that our monitoring team uses to make diagnostic alerts such as McAfee. At the moment, our main tool is SolarWinds NPM, and we keep using it, especially for monitoring cloud devices. This is very important to our organization because we've migrated to the cloud. If you're doing cloud migration, you have to picture how you can monitor devices on the cloud.

I would recommend SolarWinds APM to others looking into using it. We're using a lot of it. We also have the SolarWinds SAM, and I would recommend it for monitoring databases and servers, and you have to do a little development, but it's manageable. I would also recommend SolarWinds NPM because from experience, it's able to do its job.

My rating for SolarWinds NPM is nine out of ten.

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CP
IT Infrastructure Analyst at Textron Systems Corporation

We are a customer and end-user.

I would definitely advise others to do their homework. There are a lot of different modules you can buy with different licensing. You need to understand what you're looking to monitor, and what you're trying to present to your business, and then do the homework on the solution itself and see how that fits your needs before just going and buying it or even talking to a sales representative.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's pretty good at its job. I haven't really delved into too many other things. I've tried to look at other tools recently and in my opinion, solutions like Nagios or Zabbix aren't the best. I haven't really looked into other things like Datadog or LogicMonitor yet, however, I'd say this solution is kind of a leader in the pack for what it's doing. Still, there's definitely room for improvement.

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Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds NPM
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about SolarWinds NPM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Alan Arnold - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Operations Manager at University of Alabama at Birmingham

One of the things I would suggest to people considering this product and products like it is having a clear agreement upon targets of what you really want to monitor. If it is applications or servers or whatever it is, it just makes sense to come at your choices with a plan. Implement that on the front end by picking out what is important instead of coming back on the back end and trying to do things after-the-fact.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this solution as about an eight-out-of-ten.  

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DarrinBryant - PeerSpot reviewer
AVP Technology Network Engineer at LPL Financial

I would advise people to only use it for monitoring or viewing traffic flows. Don't use the IPAM section, the DHCP section, or the DNS section.

I would rate SolarWinds NPM a seven out of ten.

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BP
Senior Network Engineer at a mining and metals company with 5,001-10,000 employees

My advice to others is to follow the best practices.

I rate SolarWinds NPM a seven out of ten.

The solution has good support they're constantly improving it.

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Naglaa ELDeeb - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Director, IT Service Excellence Quality Assurance at American University in Cairo (AUC)

I would advise others to test the environment before deploying the whole solution.

I would rate Solarwinds an eight out of ten. I would give a higher rating if I could use root cause analysis to point to one device in the stack to understand which device has a problem. In general, I think SolarWinds is one of the most stable solutions and it has a lot of useful features for network performance monitoring.

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BB
Senior Network Administrator at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We deal directly with Solarwinds. 

We have been keeping the solution updated. 

I would recommend the solution. A lot of our colleagues use it and we like the way it works. I'd rate it ten out of ten. 

I'd advise potential new users to give it a good rundown and see if it really fits what they need. Don't just try it with one or two things. Do the 30-day evaluation. I have folks that have used it and try to find some way to break it really. Load it up the way that you want to run it and actually take time to dig down into it. So far, there hasn't been anything that it hasn't been able to do for us. However, it's designed for that Cisco environment and that's what we've always been. I can't really talk about it outside of the box.

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Henry-Steinhauer - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at LifePoint Health

I would not recommend implementing SolarWinds because of the hacks, it is just not trusted.

Before they had the hack, the intrusion process I would have rated them a six or a seven but after the compromise, I would rate SolarWinds NPM a zero or one out of ten.

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Devdatt Diwedi - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Officer at Guardian Bank

I'm a customer and end-user.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using. 

As a user, I would recommend the solution as it is user-friendly and easily understandable. It will tell you exactly what the issue is and where. It's quite useful. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

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BO
Corporate IT Infrastructure Manager at United Test and Assembly Center Ltd.

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

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MQ
Service Delivery Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees

I would recommend SolarWinds NPM to others but it depends on how complex the network they have is and how large it is. Based on that information, you need to make a decision if the solution is the best fit. If their infrastructure is quite large, the good thing is they can expand it, even for the server infrastructure, not only for network infrastructure. 

I would recommend the solution for a larger organization.

I rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

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Umair (Abu Mohaymin) Akhlaque - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Solutions & Services Head at Duroob Technologies

We've done a couple of implementations at this point. We're actually a partner. 

For a mid-tier customer, I would rate the solution at about an eight.

I'd recommend the solution t a mid-tier customer. I wouldn't if the company was quite sizable. 

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AD
Senior Systems Administrator at Privia Health

If you’re looking to get a lot more insight and visibility into your network devices, servers, applications, and other devices, along with real-time alert notifications, SolarWinds NPM should be towards the top of your list. You will be able to view devices by type or by location and poll all sorts of different data using SNMP or WMI or other methods. Out of the box, you will also receive customizable dashboards, alerting, reporting, and Active Directory integration.

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it_user577527 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Enterprise Monitoring at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
  • Gather the official requirements for a monitoring solution, and alert all the consumers. The consumers here are the owners of the monitored gear and apps, and the engineers in the support and ops teams.
  • Set a good chunk of time aside to test drive the solution, and get creative with the custom properties.
  • Learn SQL or SWQL, a SolarWinds query language that is easier than SQL. This will expand your potential capabilities for customization significantly.
  • I am very active on the forum. I get a bunch of ideas and help; so I like to give back.
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SH
Chief Executive Officer at Suraksha

It is the latest version. The latest version comes with observability as part of the package. It's SolarWinds attempt to bring all its products under one platform. We've kind of become quite an expert in the area.

We are a provider of SolarWinds. We are an MSSP and also a reseller. It depends on what the client wants. 

We want to launch it as an MSSP for SMEs, and small companies who can't really afford a full install. We just doing a SaaS model so they can deploy it at cost to SMEs.

I'd advise potential users to use the one-month free trial and get a company like us to do a proof of concept and then do the NPM, application monitoring, log monitoring, et cetera. One by one, pick up all the products and integrate them.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

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NS
Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

In the last four years, I have deployed three tools in Avaya and another four in my current organization.

The maintenance of SolarWinds NPM is not difficult.

SolarWinds NPM is one of the easiest and most flexible tools, but I would say that SolarWinds NCM is a better tool. I rate SolarWinds NCM a nine out of ten.

I don't know if there have been any upgrades in SolarWinds NPM. Considering the performance graph, one will see a clear visualization in SolarWinds and not in Fortinet FortiCloud.

I rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

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PF
Manager at Barbados Water Authority

I rate the solution a nine out of ten based on our current version. The solution is a robust and stable product but can be improved by reducing its licensing costs. Therefore, I recommend the solution to users considering implementing it.

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AbdulKader Mohandes - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I rate SolarWinds NPM eight out of 10. Before implementing SolarWinds, do your homework and compare it with other products. Contact the technical accounts manager and find out the latest features so you can see the pros and cons. 

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RP
Consultant at HCL Technologies

I'm an end-user of SolarWinds NPM.

In the organization, over a hundred people use SolarWinds NPM, with five to six administrators. The solution requires specific maintenance, mainly because it has a lot of DW issues.

My advice to people looking to start working with SolarWinds NPM is that it's the best solution for a medium-scale environment. For a large-scale environment with many requirements, such as a vast number of nodes, for example, more than twenty-five thousand, SolarWinds NPM may not be as scalable, DW-wise. If you have below fifteen thousand to fifteen thousand nodes, then it's okay to use SolarWinds NPM.

My rating for SolarWinds NPM is eight out of ten.

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Omer_Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT Design Manager at a hospitality company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would rate SolarWinds NPM a nine out of ten.

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Vijay Samant - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager at Just Dial Limited

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate SolarWinds NPM a nine out of ten.

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DS
Systems and Data Warehouse Supervisor at MMSD

I would recommend taking into consideration that you will need more server resources than you think. Knowing that means you can save on having to rebuild the whole environment later on. We ended up going from one server to four servers and it's running much better now. Don't skimp on the server resources you get with the application.

I would rate this solution a 10 out of 10. 

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it_user227532 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Download a demo and have fun! It’s easy to use and gives great outcomes.

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RH
Sr. Systems Administrator at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Identify the business/organizational problems you're looking to solve. Build your graphs and reports with an eye toward those problems. This creates business value almost immediately.

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FQ
IT Manager at XYZies

I mostly recommend SolarWinds, especially to companies with a low budget or to those that are not ready to spend a good amount on network management and network tools.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate SolarWinds at eight.

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Ankur_Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Accenture

I rate this solution a seven out of ten. Regarding advice, I would recommend concentrating on gaining some expertise. A foundational or intermediate understanding of different network protocols and technologies would be helpful when using SolarWinds. In addition, understanding the underlying technology that will eventually be monitored or managed will be good.

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JZ
Assistant Director of Information Technology at TOWN OF CULPEPER

I would recommend having a review with a SolarWinds tech first to make sure you understand the system requirements. It would be helpful to work with them also in regards to unique configurations. 

I would rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

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CharlesGura - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Software Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

I rate SolarWinds NPM eight out of 10. I recommend taking advantage of the online training that's available. Get an account on THWACK, the online user group. It's good for getting help.

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Muhammad Asif - PeerSpot reviewer
Consaltant at a consultancy with self employed

I rate SolarWinds NPM seven out of 10. 

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PM
Technical Support Specialist at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

We don't have any plans to increase usage in the future, but we do have some additional plans on providing it as a service to other companies. That said, I don't think that we will be changing anytime soon.

I have recommended this product more than once. It's one of the better products on the market, and it also has an extensive suite.

If people are looking for network monitoring software, and are willing to pay for it, and don't want a free version, I have always said that SolarWinds is one of the better options.

I think that there is room for improvement. I have seen other products that do similar, where some elements are better and some are worse. I think that it's a good all-round product, but it can be better.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

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RajeshB - PeerSpot reviewer
Server and Network Monitoring Manager at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor are support and flexibility.

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BA
Information Security Engineer at a cloud provider with 51-200 employees

Take advantage of their free, 30-day demo.

Definitely leverage the online community, “Thwack”.

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MB
Director of Operations at 802BR

I recommend this solution to others.

I rate SolarWinds NPM a nine out of ten.

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BenjaminRafrafi - PeerSpot reviewer
System and Network Administrator at a educational organization with 201-500 employees

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SolarWinds NPM a seven.

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RajeshB - PeerSpot reviewer
Server and Network Monitoring Manager at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

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DP
Senior Executive IT Program Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

I would rate SolarWinds an eight out of ten.

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it_user216372 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

My advice to others before implementing this, is to attend one of their webcasts to get a feel for what NPM can do for you. The presenters are technical people who understand the product well and can answer a wide range of questions. Secondly, I’d make an account on their forum, Thwack, so if you’re ever stumped on an issue, you can pose a question to the community and glean information from other NPM users or from one of SolarWinds’ resident “Head Geeks.” Lastly, from personal experience, I would make sure you’re on good working terms with your network engineers before considering implementation. Like any other network management tool, you will likely run into firewall or connectivity related issues when adding nodes and having a good network engineer on your side can really make a big difference .

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SK
SME Solarwinds at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

While I haven't extensively worked with ManageEngine, I've observed some of its features, and customization stands out as a strong aspect. ManageEngine can be a good option for those with budget constraints, as it offers similar features to SolarWinds NPM at a more affordable price. I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

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GN
Instrumentation Superintendent Systems at a mining and metals company with 10,001+ employees

We're just customers and end-users.

The solution is easy to use and customization is possible. It is extremely powerful when set up correctly.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've been pleased with its capabilities, although its level of security is still worrisome.

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it_user575310 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer, Infrastructure Applications at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Avoid the urge to go quickly. Take the time to forecast your growth in the next 12-24 months and plan the infrastructure for that target. Always follow the size and scaling recommendations, especially for your database environment. Do not use RAID5 for your database as the transactional environment or SolarWinds Orion will overwhelm your storage environment.

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it_user651858 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

It’s a super easy tool to use, but you need to make sure you have a plan for what you want to do with it.

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KF
Solutions Consultant at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I rate SolarWinds NPM eight out of 10. I would recommend this product for medium-sized and enterprise-scale companies.

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Yoshiro Travezano - PeerSpot reviewer
IM Infrastructure Specialist at Anglo American

I would recommend this solution. I would rate it an eight out of 10.

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AW
Vice President Of Global Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

We're just customers and end-users.

We are likely using the latest version of the solution. I cannot speak to the exact version number.

We use both the public and private cloud deployment models. 

I led a team of several hundred engineers who used SolarWinds every day. I would be involved in making the decision of a product to go through. Once they came in and recommended me their top three, I would choose it.

I would advise potential users to first take a look at some of the newer vendors on the market who may be a little bit more nimble and are coming out of the box with a focus on edge and edge devices. SolarWinds has a heavy, heavy background. There are lighter options. 

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

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RP
Senior Vice President and CIO at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

I would estimate there are three insfrastructure managers, with myself as the head of the IT department. There is at least one other technician working on the wide area, local area network.

My advice to others is to add their nodes manually, not to let the network discovery and auto ad run.

I rate SolarWinds NPM as an eight out of ten. 

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Donald Bakels - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Adfontessoftware

My advice to people who are coming to SolarWinds is that they do a training on the website and take advantage of exploring the trial version. The free trial will allow them to use the product and get to know the features before paying for it. I always recommend that smaller organizations start small. You can make the initial purchase of a very simple license which is not very expensive. Then you can build it out later to a bigger scale and then use the software company-wide.  

So the advice is really to begin small and build it out and take more licenses as you need them. You can pick the functionality that you need at the current time and scale-out. Sometimes you need more functionality or you may need more analysis as well. You can take another module and put it into the Orion platform to integrate it. Sometimes a customer might say they are having some database performance issues. We use the Orion module DPA (Database Performance Analyzer) and then they get to see a lot of information about how their applications are using the databases — like an Oracle SQL server. Another company is also producing a database performance monitoring tool for Progress Databases and some other open-source flavors. So over time, the picture is getting more and more complete to cover everything that clients want to do.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as a nine. The reason I would give it a nine is that our customers are evaluating the software and they are big brands, like famous names in the banking industry. They really rely heavily on the software for their business. Before they purchase it, they go through a fairly strict selection procedure to get everything they need, find out if it is stable, and how well it is running. They make the product pass rigorous testing and evaluation. So if it is good for them, it is a proven solution. It is stable, scalable, reliable and not too expensive.  

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it_user575286 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Network Engineer/Business Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Make sure you have a very good machine for your database server. It will most likely use the most resources. As you add more modules, the database will grow and there will be more transactions being written with each module. You want to use RAID 10.

Ensure you have the correct resources allocated to the SolarWinds server, as well. When you spec out your machines, double that for growth. Once you start using SolarWinds, you will want to invest in other modules.

Also, you should really get a SolarWinds consultant a least for your initial install. SolarWinds is great out-of-the-box, but you really need some expertise to get the most out of it for your environment. SolarWinds is a great product that can do a lot. Customization is almost limitless.

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it_user578952 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Go online, download a free trial, and give it a spin for yourself before buying.

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MB
CTO-OSS product development at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

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MR
CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I would rate this product at 7.5 out of 10.

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MD
Managing Director at a consultancy with 51-200 employees

We have a couple hundred customers using this solution.

Whether the solution is right depends on the customer's needs. What does he want? What is the company's strategy? What expertise does he have? Does the company have its own technicians? Does higher management have the strategy to help their specialists or not? 

I would rate the solution a seven out of ten.

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DN
Digital Innovation at Bobcat Company

We just use the product. We're not consultants or resellers.

I'm not sure of which version of the solution we are currently using. It may be the most recent.

I do believe that in the future, users will gravitate towards using one solution for monitoring all the servers and applications. However, right now this product needs a lot of plugins. Currently, a lot of improvements are needed before the solution gets to a good place in terms of usability.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

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it_user579462 - PeerSpot reviewer
Networks Manager at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

Keep your imagination open and keep looking around Thwack; there are lots of great ideas in there.

It is an awesome production, I just haven’t found a way to do all my work yet.

View full review »
WK
Network/Systems Administrator at TRSP

In summary, this is a good product and I recommend it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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KhalidOmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Center Engineer at Arabianoud.com

We use the solution on a daily basis. 

I'd advise others that if they just implement the software with an engineer that knows how to handle the installation they should be okay.

We've generally had a good experience using the product.

I'd rate the solution overall eight out of ten. I'd rate it higher if the support was better.

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MA
Network Administrator at Libyana Mobile Phone

If you are looking for something which is very customizable for the customization of your network, then you should go with SolarWinds. However, overall, the customization feature is also a disadvantage because it can be very complicated.

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WK
CEO at WilCom Systems Ltd

I would recommend this solution to other users. I would rate it an eight out of ten.

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Juan Pr - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Professional at NTT Security

I would rate this Solar Winds NPM an eight out of ten.

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EL
Technical Specialist, consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Any WAN or LAN environment will benefit from this sort of solution because it consolidates not only the monitoring but also the operation. You can actually trigger some actions based on the conditional threshold that you set in the tool.

I rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

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TN
Senior Systems Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would recommend SolarWinds NPM. From the product side, it covers everything. It is perfect.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

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NK
Senior Solutions Specialist (Network & Security) at Ooredoo Qatar

This is a product that I recommend, although it requires technical skills in order to use it.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

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AN
Senior Network Engineer at Element Critical

At my old company, we were always using the current version of the solution. We'd like to keep up to date with the latest releases. The company even changed over when there was a move from a 2012 Windows server to an updated version of Windows (16).

We had a single server located in one location and all the other devices were networked. Sometimes SolarWinds was used as a slot receiver and trap receiver for some of those devices that have their own "NMS" (network managed system). It's not really proprietary, but we had a northbound interface to be able to send syslogs or TRAPS. SolarWinds was used as the one central location to be able to receive and process alarms and alerts for any trigger actions.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. The solution is kind-of expensive, but at the end of the day, it's quite robust. It has several great functionalities. It has groups, maps, almost everything. It's just a matter of the price point that makes it somewhat prohibitive.

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it_user214254 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Administrator at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Don't assume SolarWinds is the right choice. Evaluate LOTS of other alternatives. These days, SevOne is a very promising competitor. But if you choose SolarWinds, dive into it as deeply as you can. Take advantage of their free online classroom training sessions (it's thousands of dollars for you to pay for from a third-party training vendor).

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it_user212001 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network & Security Services Manager with 501-1,000 employees

Examine all the products on the market and choose the solution that requires the least amount of interaction with the most amount of usable data. I haven't looked recently so I cant comment if this is that package or not.

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it_user171912 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

It's the best solution on the market so far. I recommend adopting all the latest features in latest update.

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SK
Senior Technical Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Once the solution is implemented, we'll populate whatever the dashboard is. However, some of the things will not populate. There is a need for services there. We can use the NetPath services feature. We can export that feature to the dashboard. However, it will be easy for any of the system admin to troubleshoot the issue.

I’d rate the solution ten out of ten.

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it_user577878 - PeerSpot reviewer
SolarWinds Expert (Consultant) at a tech services company

I would advise to get a consultant, at least short-term. I have found that companies, especially big ones, and even some small ones, don't need a SolarWinds expert on site all the time. It's too expensive and unnecessary. At some point, the expert will just sit and do nothing. I think it's absolutely proper to get someone at least for a month, maybe two or three. They can then advise you to pick the right product, choose the right tools, implement it in the right way, and to set up the workflow alerts to make sure it's working.

It seems like the sales team has a slight disconnect from the presales guys. It all works well, but as I said, the sales team sells a product. They do not actually help deploy and implement workflows. They expect the company themselves to deploy and set up their own workflows and then to rely on the documentation and the forum. In reality, they just don't have time. They have their own functions and responsibilities and SolarWinds is a new project for them. It's a huge stretch to learn something new. You know that. It's human nature. That's why my advice is to get a consultant.

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it_user577521 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at a tech services company

Join Thwack. The Thwack community that is free for anybody to join, whether they actually have a SolarWinds license or not, is quite possibly the unique selling point that SolarWinds has. It's without doubt the best technical community that I've ever been a member of. A number of big vendors like Cisco have tried to recreate it and failed. It is a one off and it is perfect for what it does.

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GM
SOC Expert at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We're pretty happy with it overall. The downside is that there is no official support available in my country. 

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OH
librarian at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten.

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MH
Vice President, SaaS Operations at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

I would suggest putting in a larger VM infrastructure than they ask for because, if you don't, it'll probably be a little slow.

I would rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

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it_user578784 - PeerSpot reviewer
SolarWinds SME at a tech services company

I would suggest the following:

  1. Install the product with default settings
  2. Build the database
  3. Reinstall based on the needs and requirements of your deployment
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it_user577893 - PeerSpot reviewer
Quick Launch Team Lead at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
  • Download a demo.
  • Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries and customize the product according to your needs.
  • Use the Thwack community!
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it_user347748 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Analyst at CS Softwares.

It's the best of platform for IT management. It shows statistical data in a very detailed manner, where the user can customize the entire platform and input any information from the database through a fully-customized report.

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it_user171936 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees

I would say understand your environment and what you want to see. Also know what you deem important to your business and policies that guide your network usage. Not everyone one would find this particular product to their liking but for those who want to get to the granular level of assessment this is definitely a product to look at.

Also they have now added a feature where the traditional style of setting up monitoring reports is no longer necessary. Initially you had to create complex alerting to know what happened at a particular time. Now you just have to filter by date and time and you can choose what network protocols to filter by to see what happened at a particular point and time in real time stats.

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PS
Sr. Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Before choosing a product, I would want to evaluate it and check all requirements. Then before implementation, clear all the customer requirements accordingly. 

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it_user669324 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Monitoring Consultant at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

It requires absolute thorough and all-round details on the infrastructure and its future needs. Once the scale is identified, get the right licenses and underlying platform (physical vs virtual and quick storage).

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it_user579453 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator at a tech services company

Have a goal in mind. Prioritize your monitoring goals in terms of alerting, reporting, and dashboards. Then you can focus on completing those areas in order of importance.

The product is always being expanded and additional features are constantly being added.

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it_user167964 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer with 51-200 employees

SolarWinds makes a great product and their support is second to none! They continue to acquire/develop new software that rolls in nicely with their entire solution.

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it_user139116 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees

They offer trial periods. I strongly urge you to try Solarwinds NPM and other products as they are a great asset at my organization.

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it_user171930 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Make sure that you have the required hardware and dedicated SQL server. Trying to save money can have a major performance problem on your SolarWinds implementation. Make sure you meet the requirements.

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MV
Information Technology Director at a transportation company with 11-50 employees

My advice to anyone who is implementing this solution is to be well prepared. You need to know your network infrastructure before you start implementing. Otherwise, it will take longer than necessary to set up.

This product does what it is meant to do, although it takes ample time to get what we want. I would say that whatever is indicated in the product description, it does well.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

View full review »
DO
System Administration at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

SolarWinds is a great solution, and I think that for anybody looking for a nice infrastructure monitoring tool, this solution will do the job.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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it_user577536 - PeerSpot reviewer
Analyst Network Operations at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees

Get on their Thwack forums. That’s the best thing about the product; all the people on there, all the users. If NPM doesn’t do something, you can probably find someone to make NPM do it.

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Donald Bakels - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Adfontessoftware

I would strongly recommend this solution for others.

I rate SolarWinds NPM a nine out of ten.

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it_user167895 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager and consultant enterprise IT tooling at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
  • Create a very simple requirements list.
  • In general, do not start a paper comparison.
  • Install the product or let someone help you with the install and configuration so you will get a quick start.
  • Do not try to find out everything yourself.
  • Based on what you have seen, you can build the so-called "gap analysis".
  • If you go for SolarWinds, it will not solve all your IT problems. You will also need complementary tools.
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it_user216399 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees

If your infrastructure is big, and requires a good kind of reporting tool, then SolarWinds fulfills all these requirements.

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it_user174651 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Depending on the number of nodes to be monitored, take careful steps to size the polling server & SQL server appropriately. If at all possible, use a dedicated SQL box. Also, take the time to configure all of your network devices to send syslog & traps to the NPM server.

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FA
IT Security Architecture & Implementation Manager at Banque Saudi Fransi

This is a valuable and powerful product that will provide users with more than they expect, all in one place. Other products, by comparison, often have limitations in the features. SolarWinds is comprehensive and covers everything, and I recommend it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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it_user221865 - PeerSpot reviewer
Platform Engineer III at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees

Get the trial download to use its all the features for 30 days. Its automation/DevOps is outstanding for its software development kit.

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it_user174660 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Analyst with 10,001+ employees

It’s cheap and will easily fulfill the needs of monitoring environment.

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it_user175134 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - Global Network Ops with 1,001-5,000 employees

The product is highly recommended. I am yet to understand how it stands against the competitions.

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NJ
Optical Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Approximately 50 users utilize SolarWinds NPM within my company. 

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AA
CISO with 201-500 employees

I would like to see this product becoming more flexible in the future. In addition, integration with other solutions would be helpful.

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it_user616932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a educational organization

Make sure you have several servers. You must have the actual platform on a separate server from the database. You will need a separate database server for each module you activate such as flows. There is a very big footprint.

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it_user660639 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. IT Infrastructure Specialist at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Make sure you plan the implementation of the product; i.e., resources such as the number of pollers, add-on modules/product, etc.

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it_user83385 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Utilize this product to its full potential, NOC will find it very useful and easy to manage. View full review »
AV
Systems Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

I rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

It is a good solution, it provides multiple module options, easy to use, and predominantly easy to find people to support it in the industry.

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it_user577329 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Management at a media company with 10,001+ employees

Download and run the evaluation bundles on a spare server; it‘ll offer SQL Express.

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it_user164031 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Solarwinds is highly modular regarding products and services so it is important to keep in mind that most other modules have a separate price and licensing tag and that it can become very expensive very quickly. When looking for features try to narrow it down to only the critical ones you need, I prefer simplicity and functionality over complexity – as a company I imagine the complexities came from catering to as many customers’ needs as possible. Lastly prepare to spend a lot of time working and tending to NPM, the biggest time taker I’ve had with NPM personally was getting Overview, Node, and Interface views setup that were useful and speedy – their default views are not recommended and “noisy.”

View full review »
EE
System Engineer - Infrastructure Lead at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Overall, this is a good product and I can recommend it, especially if you have a Windows environment and network. That would not be complex. My only issue is with the integration.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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it_user384900 - PeerSpot reviewer
ENTERPRISE NETWORK : Team Leader: ICT Events Monitoring at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

The free trial is there to test the product.

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it_user656289 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head, ATM Management at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Anyone planning to implement NPM or other SolarWinds products should download the evaluation versions which give you a 30-day, free trial. This will help you make an informed decision. This should also be evaluated with other network monitoring solutions.

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it_user218772 - PeerSpot reviewer
PC Support Technician at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees

Make sure you have a strong database server separate from the NPM server.

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it_user341982 - PeerSpot reviewer
Freelancer Information Security & SIEM Consultant at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

They should change the database and OS.

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it_user1012662 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Infrastructure Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

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CC
Technical Head at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

SolarWinds is pretty straightforward. If you're a startup, you want to stand up a solution quickly, then SolarWinds would be good for you because it doesn't have a big learning curve to implement it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. They're pretty good but we really have pretty predominantly Cisco equipment, so Cisco would offer a better free view of the equipment right now.

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it_user1290390 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

My advice to anybody who is considering this solution is if they have expertise in SolarWinds then they should implement it. If they do not, then they should look at another option.

Overall, SolarWinds is a very good product. However, compared to ManageEngine, there is room for improvement.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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it_user952677 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Network Administrator at a recruiting/HR firm with 10,001+ employees

It's a bit tricky when you go to the cloud already. I don't know what's the right metric myself, what should you be monitoring. Then, the newer trend right now is they don't even have the concept of a virtual machine. Some deployments, they will just have containers, and a container can be on any machine that they can shoot up anytime and deploy the apps there. But, my question is: How do you monitor the performance? What metric are you going to use?

Overall, when considering a new solution, I always consider:

  • Ease of use
  • Ability for data collection
  • Generation of alerts.
View full review »
it_user5550 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Solarwinds NPM has lots of features not found in some other network performance monitoring tools e.g. seamless integration with Microsoft Active Directory. It can easily scale up when there is a need to support and monitor higher number of devices without impacting the overall performance. There are certain pain points that need to be addressed like improving the overall user interface and support for more number of web browsers. View full review »
it_user5157 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr System Engineer at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
Our company needed a highly reliable network and bandwidth manager/monitor as we were unable to monitor all servers /networks manually. Our search finally ended at this Orion’s NPM tool which has great scalability and reliability. View full review »
it_user1125 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a retailer with 51-200 employees
The monitoring system of Orion is powerful and has become a positive feature in the company. Latest versions need no extra training, further software installation, added licensing, and no other exertion. Updates are flawless and consistent. The application is highly self documented and sufficiently instinctive and competent, reasonably priced, and flexible. For basic enterprise network monitoring or a complete set of network diagnostic tools and monitors, Orion is the best option for its complete attribute set and simplicity of use. View full review »
YP
Managed Services Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

It's good to go for SolarWinds NPM, but make sure that you do all the upgrades on time.

I would rate SolarWinds NPM at seven on a scale from one to ten.

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it_user216402 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at a recruiting/HR firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

You can and should put the not so obvious devices onto SolarWinds. An example would be a server's back-up power supply. Otherwise you won't realize when the back-up is not functioning until the main power supply goes down and it's too late at that point.

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it_user168066 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees

Awesome product with a lot of info available and great support team.

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it_user1023 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of IT at a tech company with 51-200 employees
NPM uses Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) ping requests to gather basic connectivity and response-time information. It allows network devices that support this, to gather additional information, by using SNMP queries and Cisco IOS NetFlow. NPM can also receive Syslog output and SNMP traps for error detection and alerting. Add-on modules let Orion NPM monitor NetFlow devices, wireless appliances, and VoIP networks and also let NPM monitor more devices as your network grows. Whether you want basic enterprise network monitoring or a full suite of network diagnostic tools and monitors, I recommend Orion 9 for its full feature set and ease of use. View full review »
it_user1143 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees
SolarWinds Orion NPM tracks bottlenecks in your network infrastructure and lets you troubleshoot them before a disaster happens. It uses protocols and tools like ICMP, SNMP, Cisco NetFlow, and Syslog to provide you with the alerts and statistics you need to run your network at optimal performance and speed. The product is easy to deploy on top of an IIS and .Net framework. It also has excellent built-in thresholds and alerts available to help you get started, yet provides the option to create custom thresholds and alerts as required by your specific network and infrastructure requirements. A comprehensive web interface is available to identify inconsistencies and trouble spots in your network. View full review »
TZ
Business Consultant. at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

I would recommend this solution to someone considering it. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

View full review »
it_user555 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a tech company with 51-200 employees
It has now been about 3 weeks since we launched the Orion Network Performance Monitor and Netflow Traffic Analyzer. We chose this product based on colleague recommendations. View full review »
Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds NPM
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about SolarWinds NPM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.