SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor Reviews

I work only with SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor. My major use case is the monitoring of environment servers and devices. I track metrics like server and node down events, disk space alerts, and CPU utilization in the server.

The alert mechanism is the biggest advantage of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor. The customizability of the alerting system is particularly valuable. Whatever devices are in the environment, whether EC2 servers or on-premises servers, all of them can be monitored using this service. I can easily find out what exactly is going wrong in the environment. The clear audit trail aids in troubleshooting and optimization. The tool is effective for detecting unauthorized changes across platforms.

Some dashboards I observed in Dynatrace are not available in SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor. The dashboard functionality is better in Dynatrace. Dynatrace has customized dashboards that can be created, which is where I felt Dynatrace has an advantage.

I have been using SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor for almost four years.

Most of the time, SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is stable. If I were to rate stability from zero to ten, where ten is very stable, I would give it a nine.

SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is easy to scale. It is easy to add nodes.

I never worked with the technical support for SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor. When I came into the project, it was left without any vendor support.

Neutral

I have worked on Dynatrace and some other monitoring solutions.

SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is easy to install.

SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor was implemented before I came into the project.

I find it affordable, but the customer is not interested in putting more money into that area.

In general, I think that licensing for SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is acceptable, and the solution is quite affordable.

I am still using SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor, but with no support in place. The initial monitoring setup was done, and that is how we are still continuing to use SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor.

I do not have experience working with the real-time change detection feature. I did not go through the detailed change history reports to identify server configuration trends.

I would give SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor a rating of eight out of ten.

SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor's primary use cases are to identify configuration changes within the server, at an operating system, application, binaries, libraries, or as low as a driver level. It can identify any change in the inventory of the server.

It will help a customer identify any kind of configuration changes within the environment and identify whether those configuration changes have anything to do with, performance, or application issues that they might be facing.

The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is version control. For example, if we began on the first of the month and we considered that as the configuration of the server, I could set that configuration as my baseline. On a daily basis, if there was the operations team that did, for example, server patching, the tool will maintain all levels of versions.

Another example, on the 1st of August, we set the baseline configuration. The subsequent versions, such as patches, drivers, or any kind of application update which happened, the tool will maintain versions on a daily basis or on a per change basis.

We can start doing a comparison as to baseline. I know exactly, between the baseline and the changes that happened. We know exactly where the changes are and what the changes are. It's very easy for a customer, then to roll back on to the previous version and get back the server to the same state.

We are in touch with the management of the SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor team, and we have made recommendations to them for quite a few changes. 

One area that could improve is the configuration download. Instead of only showcasing the differences between the baseline and the current configuration, or a specific version of the configuration, they should show the entire configuration getting downloaded. It could be in the form of a flat file or in the form of a binary file. If it is a flat file, it can use as a reference, and preserved for auditing purposes. That is one area where the product can see quite a lot of improvement.

They have a feature where you can download by section, what I mean is, you can download the configuration of the hardware, software, or driver information, or the file folder settings or permissions. It is a section download, but not a complete download. That is one area of improvement. 

The other area of improvement is specific to the customer use cases. They would like to compare two servers as to what the configuration drift is but not only within the server comparison. For example, I would like to take a server in the DR setup that is in the primary data center to do a comparison between the primary server and the DR server. Currently, the configuration comparison is within the server itself.

In a feature release, they could enhance the reporting. However, we have not evaluated this part of the solution extensively.

I have been using SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor for approximately one and a half years.

SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is highly stable.

The scalability of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is good. We have deployed the solution for a customer that has over 1,600 servers.

The technical support from SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor has not been used often, but whenever we have used them, we had a fairly good response.

The initial setup of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor was easy. The process took approximately two and a half hours.

The price of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is not reasonable, it is slightly on the higher side.

I don't know of any alternatives to SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor.

SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is a good-to-have solution for all customers who are under audit pressure, especially from regulatory authorities. For example, if there are insurance, banking, stock market companies, or any other kind of regulations, this is a very good auditing tool.

You will know what changes have happened in your environment, thoroughly on the server, configuration, and inventory. You know exactly what changes have happened. You can present a lot of evidence which is one of the key aspects of any kind of audit mechanism.

I rate SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor an eight out of ten.

The solution has two or three shortcomings but hopefully, they improve in the future.

We use the product to monitor the network behavior of Windows servers.

The product’s alert feature is good. We receive notifications whenever some failures occur in the configuration.

The product’s support services and licensing models need improvement.

We have been using SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor for two years.

It is a stable platform.

It is a scalable platform. It is suitable for small, medium, and large businesses.

The technical support services are good. However, they could respond faster.

Positive

It is easy to set up and maintain. It requires one engineer to execute deployment and maintenance.

SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor has medium pricing compared to other solutions.

We are evaluating the AWS cloud version.

It is a good product. I rate it a nine out of ten.