Auvik Network Management (ANM) Reviews

We rely on Auvik Network Management for a comprehensive network solution, utilizing it to monitor the health of all our devices and maintain up-to-date backups of their configurations.

We implemented Auvik Network Management to streamline onboarding new network devices across our global network. It also provides proactive alerts for outages, allowing us to address them before they impact users. Additionally, Auvik facilitates swift restoration from backups if an issue proves unsolvable.

Auvik and SaaS Management complement each other well. The Auvik portal's single pane of glass interface provides a seamless user experience, allowing us to easily switch to the SaaS product. While their data may not be directly integrated, these two separate products offer valuable functionalities. SaaS Management helps identify shadow IT by tracking user sign-ins to company accounts, and Auvik excels in network backup and monitoring.

Organizations using Auvik with a concern about shadow IT across various groups can leverage SaaS Management for efficient discovery. This tool provides insights into user account sign-ins and application usage, giving you a more comprehensive view beyond just the network monitoring capabilities offered by Auvik.

Auvik boasts a user-friendly interface that organizes information by office location, allowing for quick access to individual sites. Additionally, a global alert portal provides a centralized view of issues across our entire network.

The network map and dashboard provide a near real-time view of how our network is connected, with about 90 percent accuracy. It's a big improvement, especially since it's automated and now supports switch stacks, allowing us to see not only if there's a stack but also how many members it has within the map itself.

Auvik's user-friendly network map automatically lays out our entire network, allowing us to quickly click on any device and delve into its specific details for in-depth analysis.

We saw the benefits of Auvik almost immediately after deploying it. Once we set up SNMP, a requirement for the software, and entered the discovery credentials, we were able to roll it out to multiple offices. Within days, we had all the locations monitored and backed up.

Auvik has significantly improved our ability to resolve network issues quickly. By allowing us to examine alert logs for potential precursors to outages, and to determine if the problem is widespread or confined to a single location or device, Auvik significantly reduces our mean time to resolution.

Auvik allows us to spend less time on setup, maintenance, and resolution. We are able to use that saved time to work on other projects that we are trying to roll out. 

Auvik's most valuable features are the combined monitoring and backup functionalities. With strategically placed collectors worldwide, we can proactively address potential issues through real-time monitoring and email alerts. Furthermore, Auvik's backups ensure data recovery even in the case of unforeseen circumstances.

I would like Auvik to offer an alternative method for backing up devices that don't support or have SNMP disabled, since currently, SNMP seems to be a prerequisite for any functionality in Auvik. This would be helpful for legacy devices that might not be compatible with SNMP.

I have been using Auvik Network Management for two years.

Auvik Network Management is stable because it is a SaaS service.

It is easy to scale Auvik Network Management in under 30 minutes.

Auvik's technical support has been generally helpful, although we haven't been able to find a solution for managing our older devices that lack SNMP compatibility.

Positive

We transitioned from BackBox, an on-premise backup solution, to Auvik, a cloud-based SaaS platform. This switch not only simplified data management with cloud storage but also provided network monitoring capabilities that BackBox lacked.

The initial deployment of Auvik was easy. We set up a couple of sites for POC and for a lot of the locations, we used the same SNMP credentials so it was able to discover it all and start monitoring within a few hours.

The deployment took a few months to complete because we had multiple locations globally to roll out and it was not the only project we were working on.

During the initial POC and testing phase, we received assistance from an Auvik onboarding technician. Following this, we were able to independently deploy the solution to our other locations.

Auvik Network Management is moderately priced.

I would rate Auvik Network Management nine out of ten.

Auvik does not require maintenance from our end.

Ensure you have SNMP credentials and a dedicated service account for TACX prepared on all your devices. Most companies likely already have a service account available. However, for Auvik to monitor and back up your devices, create a separate service account with read-only access specifically for Auvik.

We're an MSP using Auvik to monitor our customers' networks for outages and other issues. Our clients are mostly large enterprises in the UK. 

Auvik has improved our monitoring of contracts for service outside of normal business hours. If anything goes offline after hours, we can alert our engineers immediately, so they can get it working as fast as possible.  

The solution has helped our junior technicians solve more tickets. They can log in at our office and see what's happening and then contact the customer about it. It saves us a lot of time because it can tell us the status. Sometimes, we'll finish troubleshooting halfway, and the device will return online. Without a solution like Auvik, we might not notice it's online, so we will waste time trying to fix it. I don't have a precise figure, but I would estimate that Auvik reduces our resolution time by about 30 percent. 

Auvik allows you to set maintenance windows and notify users when something is offline. Auvik's interface is easy to use, but maybe that's because I've gotten used to it. The layout is clear. At the same time, there are so many features that it's complicated. The dashboards give us a real-time overview of the networks. It's simple and easy to use as you give it access to your network.

Setting up the maintenance windows can be a bit complicated. 

We have used Auvik for three years.

I rate Auvik nine out of 10 for stability. It's definitely stable. We barely need to touch it. It goes offline every now and then, but that doesn't happen often. 

I rate Auvik 10 out of 10 for scalability. 

We don't rely on Auvik's support. There's a lot of documentation available, but we seldom need to use it because it's easy to use and the interface is intuitive enough to figure a lot of it out. 

We previously used Meraki's monitoring solution, but it doesn't send alerts the same way Auvik does. Auvik is better for that.

Setting up Auvik is pretty straightforward. I can build and deploy Auvik alone in one day. It requires some updates and configuration changes but no significant maintenance. 

I rate Auvik Network Management nine out of 10. I recommend Auvik for network visibility and any type of network monitoring. 

We use it for managing our inventory of assets and for receiving timely alerts from our servers.

Auvik's user interface, interactivity, and ease of use are at an average level.

Its network map and dashboard offer a real-time representation of our network. However, it tends to be quite cluttered.

It enables us to reduce the time spent on setup, maintenance, and issue resolution.

The most valuable features include the inventory management and alerting capabilities.

There is room for improvement in the reporting aspect. Specifically, we would like to receive notifications when individual drives reach full capacity. However, the current system aggregates information for all drives on a server, making it challenging for us. Obtaining comprehensive hardware information from both PCs and servers is also proving to be difficult.

I have been using it for a year and a half.

I would rate its stability capabilities eight out of ten

I would rate its scalability abilities seven out of ten.

Their technical support has been effective, with readily available assistance and help to address issues. Occasionally, the drawback lies in the response that certain features may not be available at the moment, with assurances that they are actively working on it. I would rate it eight out of ten.

Positive

We used Datadog for reporting in the past. We transitioned to Auvik because it provides both functionalities we require at a cost-effective price, combining two essential features into one product. 

Configuring Datadog is more challenging, yet it yields superior reports. On the contrary, Auvik is easier to set up, but its reports are not as comprehensive.

The initial setup was fairly simple.

The deployment time was approximately three or four hours, with assistance from an Auvik representative during the process. Solely, I handled the responsibility from our end. It doesn't necessitate much maintenance.

We recognized its value almost immediately upon deploying it.

The pricing is favorable.

I recommend others have a clearer vision of their goals and assess how well it aligns with their intentions before opting for it. I've spent some time exploring the reporting features, and it falls short of providing all the necessary reports and alerts. Additionally, there are numerous configurations spread across various places, which can be challenging to manage. Overall, I would rate it five out of ten.

We use Auvik to monitor if our network equipment goes down.

We implemented Auvik to be proactive in case the internet connection or equipment goes down.

I occasionally use the network map to identify new devices connected to the network. It provides a real-time visualization of our infrastructure. Additionally, the map initially displays a collapsed view, requiring expansion for detailed information.

Auvik significantly reduces our Mean Time to Resolution, especially when devices malfunction. Now, I receive immediate alerts, eliminating the need to wait for phone calls or emails from someone reporting a downed access point or camera. This was especially helpful in a case with our D-Link access points at one of our sites. When these devices fail, they don't completely shut down; they keep rebooting, broadcasting the Wi-Fi network, and then disconnecting users. Before Auvik, this repetitive cycle could go unnoticed for days, leading to frustrated users and disruptions.

We see the benefits of Auvik fairly quickly. 

The quick alerts in the event the equipment goes up or down is the most valuable feature.

When port utilization rises beyond a set threshold, an alert will be sent to allow for proactive network planning and distribution adjustments. This could also help identify heavy data users.

The user interface is not intuitive. For example, when a device fails and I need to replace it with a new one, I'm required to delete the old device from the system to prevent recurring alerts about its downtime. While I was able to find instructions on how to do this in the knowledge base, the process itself is illogical. It necessitates navigating to the "Discovery" menu, which seems counterintuitive for deleting an existing device. A more intuitive approach would be to enable deleting a device directly from the list of all devices, eliminating the need to access a separate menu labeled "Discovery" for an already discovered item.

Some device placements appear inconsistent with their logical locations, like network switches. For example, I might see devices related to the same switch cluster scattered across different areas of the map. This inconsistency in positioning for co-located devices confuses me.

Setting up a new site or viewing device configurations, particularly those involving SNMP and similar protocols, often requires significant technical knowledge. I believe simplifying this process would be a major benefit, but I'm unsure if Auvik can do so.

I have been using Auvik for almost one year.

Auvik is stable.

Auvik is scalable.

One of my sites experienced an issue where the internal internet connection port on the firewall had been changed. Consequently, our Auvik agent wasn't capturing any traffic data, affecting our utilization reports. I contacted tech support to troubleshoot, but the email-based communication proved ineffective. While I appreciate their attempt to help, I would have preferred a phone call or a remote session for a quicker resolution. The back-and-forth emails with unclear instructions simply became time-consuming, and eventually, I had to prioritize other tasks. This made me realize that offering a remote session option early on in the support process would be incredibly beneficial for customers like myself. I am unsure if it's a language barrier or the location of the support team, but encountering this email-centric approach with several companies has led me to believe it's a preferred communication style for some tech support teams. However, for me, it's not the most efficient method. While I give their technical knowledge a high score of nine or ten, I feel their support delivery falls short at around three or four. Instead of sending me emails with links to lengthy documents, a 10-15 minute support call could have resolved the issue quickly. Ultimately, spending hours reading manuals and troubleshooting without success feels like a waste of valuable time. Therefore, I recommend exploring the implementation of a remote session option for enhanced customer service and increased efficiency.

Neutral

The initial deployment was straightforward because it was done by the Auvik techs.

Two Auvik techs implemented the solution for three of our sites.

The price is reasonable.

I would rate Auvik an eight out of ten.

No maintenance is required.

The biggest requirement to use Auvik from a technical perspective is having SNMP knowledge. The rest is straightforward.

We use this solution to monitor our network devices and servers, get alerts if devices go down, and get alerts when they come back up, which is important. Auvik alerts us about abnormal network traffic and certain ports on certain network devices or high utilization and high bandwidth. We're going to use it to monitor our virtual servers and virtual systems that of which our servers run. It gives us good visibility into our network.

We're a resort and have about 800 employees. It is a single network with multiple VLANs. It is relatively straightforward, but we have a lot of remote buildings connected by fiber lengths. Therefore, it's spread out over about 1600 acres of property.

Auvik bridges a lot of gaps for us. We have several remote locations on our campus, and there are network devices that are spread out. They're not manned all the time, so if a tree falls down on a data line or if the power goes out, for instance, a lot of times we wouldn't really know about it until people come on the property or go to that location and let us know. Auvik lets us be more proactive by telling us exactly when something goes down, and we can respond to it as soon as possible rather than waiting for service disruption for a user.

It also bridges the gap as far as backing up our systems and backing up the network switches, which, before Auvik, was a manual process. Now, we don't even have to do it; Auvik does it automatically.

I like the fact that it's easy to set up and learn our network. I've used some other systems where it takes a lot of time and effort to manage the monitoring system, so you get what you put into it. The nice thing about Auvik is that you put the credentials in, put the agent on the network, and it just does its thing. It sets up alerts that you would most likely turn on anyway without even having to do it. If you add another new device to the network, it detects it and sets alerts up for that device. With the other systems that I've used, I had to manually add those devices in and manually set the alerts for new devices. I like that it's an almost set-it-and-forget-it sort of system.

The other feature I really like is the network switch backup. It backs up the configurations of all our devices. We can go back and look at the history of the configurations as well. It's a feature that the other systems I used didn't even have.

There is one portal to access everything that Auvik does, that is, it provides a single integrated platform. I don't have to access it through any other panes of glass. It's important because when the Auvik device is in your network, it uploads all the data to its cloud. That's nice because you can access that portal from anywhere. You can access it from a phone, tablet, or PC.

We previously used multiple applications for managing our networks. It wasn't an all-in-one system, and we'd have to manually do a lot of the tasks that Auvik can do.

It's very easy to use the monitoring and management functions. It's automated and keeps itself up-to-date. If you want to monitor traffic or monitor a specific device on your network, it will already be up-to-date. You just click on it and view it.

The network visualization is very intuitive. It's easy to use and navigate, and if you have any questions, the technical support staff and account manager can answer any questions you might have. I didn't really have to read any manuals or receive any training on Auvik. It's easy to install, configure, and get going.

Auvik helped to reduce repetitive low-priority tasks through automation. It automates the network switch backups, which would take four or five hours a month to do before. It also eliminates the need to tune our monitoring system because it does it itself, which is very nice.

Our IT team is more available for higher-priority tasks, end-user issues, and training because we're spending less time doing menial tasks.

Auvik helps to keep device inventories up-to-date. We have other inventory systems as well, but we can use Auvik to keep track of workstations, servers, printers, and other devices on our network. It even keeps track of printer toner and paper, which saves time.

We have seen a reduction in our meantime to resolution. Auvik helps us to be more proactive and lets us respond to issues faster.

If the out-of-the-box price was about 30% lower, I think it would have allowed us to purchase it sooner. It definitely costs more than some of the competitors that are out there. It's also better, so I understand why it's a little bit more expensive.

I've been using Auvik for less than a month.

Auvik is stable. I haven't had any issues yet with either the collector or the cloud.

We used WhatsUp Gold previously and switched to Auvik because it is easier to use, is more robust, and has better features. It's a more mature, better product.

Auvik is cloud-based but has an on-premises component to it, which feeds the data to its cloud. The good thing about that is that I don't have to do any updates or upgrades to the software. Auvik takes care of that for us. They will update the collector that is on-premises as well as their cloud systems. With the previous on-premises systems that we used, we had to manually upgrade them periodically ourselves. Auvik eliminates that.

The initial setup was straightforward; it was one of the easiest systems to deploy. I implemented it out-of-the-box, and it literally took me about 20 minutes or less to get it going. I downloaded the virtual server, installed it on my virtual system, booted it up, gave it an IP address, let some firewall rules through, and signed up with an account on the Auvik website. At that point, it was talking and running.

The somewhat harder part is adding all the credentials that you need for it to talk to the different systems. Auvik gives you usable, good data within 20 minutes.

After the collector was implemented and once the credentials have been added in for the network devices, within 20 to 30 minutes the network map started to populate. It's amazing how it updates the map pretty much right away.

If I were to compare the time and cost it took to set up and maintain Auvik versus that of the solution we used previously, the cost is higher by 50%. However, the installation was quite a bit faster. It took probably 20% of the time it took me to install and configure the other system, and the maintenance, if any, is definitely less with Auvik.

Maintenance-wise, we make sure that we update credentials if we change passwords and tune alerts a bit to make sure that we're not getting bombarded with emails that we don't really care about. Auvik is straightforward and finds everything on our network for us and keeps us posted.

I worked with my salesperson who knows the system really well, which is very rare in the IT space. I had a few questions, and he worked with me on some configurations. He was able to get me a quote and configure my system.

If you are comparing network monitoring solutions but are concerned about pricing, my advice would be to look at the big picture. You may spend less money on a solution, but you're going to spend more time configuring it and keeping it running properly. You may have to manually do some tasks that aren't featured on the cheaper version of the system. Overall, you'll probably end up spending the same amount of money with labor savings.

Auvik is straightforward. I recommend looking at the time it's going to save you, and take that into consideration when purchasing it or looking at the price. Overall, Auvik does more than a lot of solutions, so it's definitely a good time saver. I would definitely recommend it and rate it at nine on a scale from one to ten.

I'm a technical team lead managing other engineers and specialists for several clients. I utilize Auvik for strategic discussions, escalations, and support tickets. I'm on the backend trying to coordinate responses to outages, feature requests, etc. 

We use multiple applications to manage our network. Auvik is our network mapping and discovery tool that creates alerts in our ticketing system. We use ConnectWise Automate and that suite of products for ticketing. It's not like Auvik is a ticketing help desk system with remote control, but it can do just about everything from a monitoring standpoint. We still use AppNeta for board mirroring or finding latency in network traffic.

Auvik is a total package for network discovery that completely meets our needs as a company. I don't see us leaving Auvik for some other network discovery tool. It's a one-stop shop where we can dive into each of our client's networks, and we have quite a few. I don't know precisely how many we have. It's fewer than a hundred, but it's too many to do LAN diagrams in Visio. 

The solution has reduced repetitive low-priority tasks because it collects the SNMP information for us and alerts us when servers go offline. We can see connectivity in the network from a bird's eye view without the need to dive into the firewalls and switches. Auvik saves us from having to create manual diagrams, and I can export all the data about a client's network, so I don't have to gather all of that myself.

Given our number of clients, we would probably need another full-time engineer if someone had to keep track of all of this on their own. It's roughly equivalent to a human working full-time for an entire year. That's one less person we need for all that, and Auvik reduces human error. 

The visibility Auvik provides is critical because it's part of our onboarding process, giving us a high-level overview so long as the client doesn't change the SNMP default values. We can immediately see what a new client is working with as soon as we get off again into their network.

Auvik has improved the team's availability by about 75 percent. Before Auvik, we used a different tool to scan, but it provided only a one-time snapshot of the network, whereas Auvik provides mapping in real-time. 

It's probably one of the first tools we introduce to new hires in our network operations center. Auvik is intuitive and offers hints. You can type a vendor name or an IP, and it's immediately accessible at a high level. Of course, there's depth to the product that takes time to develop. Junior engineers can quickly get a look at it, start learning how SNMP works, or configure it on devices and watch them appear in Auvik.

We use Auvik when we're doing strategic planning for clients. It helps us find servers, hosts switches, correct serial numbers, etc., so we can do warranty lookups and that sort of thing. It's important. We primarily use it for information gathering to see a visual network diagram mapping and get tickets.

It's hard to say that one feature is my favorite, but I like Auvik's ability to map networks using SNMP. It maps the network, so I can look at all the devices and set them to provide alerts or automatically create tickets when outages occur. If clients need it, I can export all of the data into an Excel spreadsheet.

The monitoring and management functions are easy to use. The network visualization is also intuitive. Ease of use is crucial because many of our help desk specialists and entry-level people need to navigate the solution, so it's vital to have simplicity in standard high-level searching. A single integrated platform is essential to stay in line with our best practices.

The search could be slightly more intelligent. If I type in "Dell" and put an extra "L," Auvik doesn't give a suggestion, "Did you mean 'Dell?'" I have to fix that. That's a minor thing.

Also, if I select a specific device and apply it as a search filter, it shows me the device, and I have to click on it to see it at the bottom of the page. Otherwise, it just stays on the discovery. When I close the device, it remains on the switch displaying the diagram. I have to click the home dashboard to get back to the way it was.

When I remove the filter, it should take me back to the home dashboard. After I add a filter, select a device, and apply it as a search filter, I think it should pop up if there's only one. When there's only one device in the filter, I find it somewhat annoying to need to click it to dive into that device. If I remove the filter, I would prefer it return to the home dashboard. It's a minor irritation at times.

I've used Auvik for more than five years, close to eight. 

Auvik is solid. I have never experienced an outage. Auvik has downtime, but they provide notice well in advance. The maintenance window tends to be at times that won't impact me. The most recent maintenance window was on Dec. 3 at 7:00 AM Eastern, which is 4:00 AM Pacific, so it didn't affect me at all.

I don't see a limitation to the scalability.

Before the company adopted Auvik, I used Visio to create my online diagrams by hand.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup, but deploying the collectors is easy. Another person handles the onboarding process, but the network maps are populated within a day or so. I've never heard anyone say, "Hey, it's taking a long time for Auvik to get going." They say Auvik is up, and I see the map is there. 

I rate Auvik 10 out of 10.

We manage IT infrastructure for 400 companies, and Auvik allows us to monitor it remotely. We have a portal to monitor these companies' servers, devices, routers, and APs constantly so we know when something is down and needs to be repaired in real-time. It's nice. We have it implemented in our Autotask and service desk portal, so it can automatically open and close tickets.

Auvik has improved our company's operation tenfold. It allows us to do real-time network monitoring down to a printer connected to the network. 

We can also automate and streamline fixes for recurring issues. We can determine an ongoing problem and find a real-time fix for it. We monitor and log different events. Once we have enough cases, we create an automated fix for that issue and cross it off our list, so we don't have to worry about it again. It's been overwhelmingly successful in our company.

Previously, we had various managed portals and a list of URLs to check. We went to a client company to see what portals they used. It was an absolute nightmare. Credentials would change constantly, so we couldn't log in. It was horrible.

Auvik has saved us a lot of time. Much of the solution is automated and monitors by itself, letting us know when critical issues occur. We no longer need a dedicated technician to log into every network. It gives us real-time monitoring, so we don't need someone to check every network first thing in the morning to see if any issues require a response. 

When I click on one of the 400 companies we monitor,  Auvik will give me a spanned view of everything on their network, from their DMZ to their servers, switches, firewalls, printers, and PCs. It opens a tree view, so you can go down the list from top to bottom, which makes troubleshooting things much easier. We get a much broader view. In addition to monitoring endpoints for threats and performance, Auvik lets us see the topology of the entire network, which is perfect for our purposes.

The intuitiveness of the network visualization is amazing. Several times, it's picked things up that I've missed. I look back and ask, "Why is Auvik alerting me about this? I know that's not an issue." I'll dig deeper into it; they've noticed something I didn't even see, saving me time and energy.

Without Auvik, our technicians would spend countless hours troubleshooting things unnecessarily. When you get a call from a client with network issues, Auvik can pinpoint precisely where the problem lies. Otherwise, you'll blindly go through every device, trying to figure out what's happening, which could take hours. 

It has freed up a lot of time for our technicians to work on new projects or get certifications. We have 25 technicians, and Auvik has freed up around 24 to 48 hours of additional time for our technicians to do other tasks. Auvik has also enabled us to utilize junior staff better. The GUI interface is easy for a low-level tech to learn. After three or four days of training, they can understand how Auvik works and become accustomed to using it more often. 

I would not want to work at an MSP without a networking monitoring tool. It would be a step back to a point where you struggle to get one ticket done when you could have done eight because you don't have the necessary information. That's what Auvik does for you.

Without the updated real-time information Auvik's device inventories supply, we're not giving the customer the reliability and performance they request. These monitoring tools allow us to be proactive and see things before the customer realizes a problem. That's our reputation. That's what Auvik has given us. Any updated information will save us time. We can't use bad information when we try to fix the issue. 

I like the way everything can be integrated. Auvik uses SNMP and various protocols to ensure we can monitor any device on the network.

Auvik has issues with collecting information from some devices. I don't know if this is an issue on Auvik's end or if the device isn't compatible. We have noticed that some clients have been unable to add their devices to Auvik due to compatibility, but devices are fickle. I think it's a device issue and not an Auvik issue.

I've seen Auvik resolve these issues. They will create the ticket and tell us the issue is resolved. For example, maybe the customer restarted the modem, or the ISP got it running. They'll go ahead and close that ticket. The automation there is so nice that it will keep us updated if something's happening automatically.

I started using Auvik about a year ago. 

I rate Auvik 10 out of 10 for stability.

I rate Auvik 10 out of 10 for scalability 

I rate Auvik support nine out of 10. We've had to reach out to them a few times for custom things or issues with devices not connecting. They've always been very helpful.

Positive

We previously didn't have a managed or automated solution like Auvik. It was a list of URLs and an Excel spreadsheet for each company with all their networking and login information. After we got the pitch and went through the evaluation process, we realized what it could do for us as an IT company couldn't say "No."

Setting up Auvik can be tricky, but I think setting up any of these systems can be difficult initially. It's a piece of cake once you have the baseline down and your systems in there monitoring it. Our deployment was complex because we have 400 different companies, and each has various equipment with varying ages. 

I don't think using Auvik was complex per se. It was just the complexity we were trying to add to it. For a few small companies, we had to work with Auvik to set up custom APIs to get some things to work, but it went smoothly for the most part. 

After implementing the collectors, the network map started to populate within minutes. I think it's attributable to Auvik's ability to work the way it does and the protocols it enables to push this information over the network. We already have the credentials set up in the Auvik portal, so it has the permissions it needs. It can scrape that device for as much information as possible.

We've freed up a lot of extra employee time because of Auvik. It automated many tasks that required a dedicated technician to spend four hours each day checking every company's network. Auvik does that all the time, so it saves our employees a lot of energy and time.

It all depends on the scale of your implementation. It would be pricier for a smaller company ranging out for a few remote locations. It's cheaper if you're using lots of licensing. My advice is to try different solutions and see what works best for you. For us, that was Auvik. I think Auvik's current price is competitive and works for our business environment

We did look at a few other options, including Kaseya and SolarWinds. Auvik was the best option for pricing and features we were looking for in a product. 

I rate Auvik nine out of 10. If you plan to use old devices, verify that SNMP is an option. We had a lot of issues with a device that was 25 years old.

We use it to onboard new clients to get a baseline idea of what their network looks like and a picture of what we potentially need to upgrade or replace or get rid of entirely. And for existing clients, we use it for network troubleshooting to figure out if there are any loops in the network or, if we're seeing high packet spikes on specific interfaces, to track down the lags in the network.

We use it for small business networks, mainly SonicWall firewalls and HPE networking gear.

Auvik has helped us diagnose a lot of really painful network issues. We left it because it was a little too pricey for us at the time, but over time we realized the amount of labor involved in diagnosing even the smallest of network loops or broadcast storms is impossible without a tool like Auvik. It has taken some of our network problem-solving tickets from 10 to 15 hours down to two or three hours. We eat the cost of Auvik and, frankly, it's worth every penny in that regard.

We are also now delegating tickets for the network, moving more tickets to our tier-two engineers from our tier-three engineers.

Something Auvik does really well is provide a single integrated platform. That's very important for us as a managed service provider. We really need single-pane-of-glass for all of our programs. Auvik makes it super simple to have sub-tenants and you can then view high-level details from the "parent" tenant, which is our MSP interface, while also diving deep into the client-side and having full access there for assigning client-level permissions. For our co-managed clients, we can get their engineers in alongside our engineers to both view and manage the data.

Another great part of the platform is that it helps keep device inventories up to date. That's where we get an initial map of the network during client onboarding. We can then use that over time and say, "Okay, this switch is hitting the warranty." Auvik can detect the serial number and check the warranty status. We can prompt ourselves to call the client and say, "Hey, we should replace this before you run out of service." To an extent, this feature has created more work for us, but it's work that we need to do. It's notifying us that these things are expiring when, previously, we just didn't know. It's saving us the time of manually checking, but we weren't necessarily doing that consistently before Auvik.

The visualization of network mapping and topology is good, but it's not as customizable as I would like. I'd like to be able to adjust the images that are used for different vendors, for example. There are some improvements that could definitely be made, but it's definitely better than a lot of other programs in the market.

Also, the general feature set could use some work. For network mapping and network alerting, it's great for what it does. But it could provide more monitoring, such as jitter monitoring, which it doesn't have, and round-trip time for packets. I would like to see more network detail on the actual traffic that's flowing through the network. Maybe they could also provide some additional flow support.

It has some room for improvement, but especially since we first used it in 2015, it's come a long way. I'm really excited to see where they go next with it.

We started using Auvik in 2015 for about a year. We then left it and just started using it again about six months ago.

There haven't been any outages that have affected us. I've seen some status alerts from them saying, "Hey, we're conducting maintenance," or, "Hey, we had an emergency outage," but they have never been at a time when they affected us.

The scalability is fine. It's just a matter of adding new clients. It takes some time for each client, but that's true with every solution. It scales well because, especially once you get the setup down for one client, it's pretty easy for future clients.

Their support is quick to respond. I haven't had to reach out to them for a while now, but when I was reaching out to them during and shortly after onboarding, they were prompt, with same-day or next-business-day response times.

Positive

Between Auvik in 2015 and now, we were just using the built-in network device mapping of ConnectWise Automate and we just found that wasn't enough. It wasn't efficient and it just missed too much.

The initial setup was straightforward. We just followed the documentation. I had also done it in 2015. Although I didn't remember doing it back then, doing it again was really quick. I got one of our other network engineers involved to help at one point and he picked it up really fast. It's super easy to set up for high-level engineers, but I wouldn't necessarily trust a level-one tech with setting it up to the standard necessary to get it set for future use.

There is definitely some technical knowledge necessary. I couldn't task our tier-one techs, necessarily, with setting it up super quickly, but the documentation is good enough that, as long as you can follow documents, you can get through it. Speed is an issue there. A higher-level network engineer can speed through it really quickly.

The overall intuitiveness of Auvik's network visualization is fairly good, but that's where the configuration side comes in. If you don't configure it well from the beginning, it can be a mess to understand. So you need to have that higher level of knowledge to take care of that. But as long as you set it up right from the beginning, a tier-one tech can go in and look at that network map and see how things in the network are all connected together.

Once the Auvik collector was implemented, it said it would take about 10 minutes to populate the network mapping. I waited about 12 minutes and it wasn't done. I came back about 20 minutes later and it was done, so it took about 30 minutes, at most.

There is much less work in setting up Auvik versus previous solutions we have used. Maintenance consists of periodic checking to make sure all the credentials are still right. It uses usernames and passwords, so if you change your password and you don't update it in Auvik, things will stop working. So we check on that. Also, when you install new devices, they need additional setup in Auvik. It's not a tremendous amount of work, but there is some.

Auvik pays for itself. Network monitoring tools are all expensive. They take in a lot of data and they do a lot of processing. If you're hosting it yourself, it's going to be an expensive license. If they're hosting it for you, it's going to be expensive hosting. At the end of the day, unless you're paying employees minimum wage, which you shouldn't be doing, the network monitoring tool is going to save more hours of employee labor than the cost of the software.

We saw value from Auvik within five business days. We were really pushed when we set it up, and we pushed Auvik saying, "Hey, we need this now. We've got a client issue that we need to solve." They got our instance to us quickly, we got in there and got it set up in two or three days and we got that issue solved within five business days of contacting Auvik to get the solution. It was insanely quick.

The pricing is kind of steep, but it's worth the price. There's no beating around the bush. It's an expensive solution, but it's really the best solution there is for us.

We did some superficial looking at SolarWinds products and PRTG, and Kaseya has some products, but Auvik, at least in the MSP industry, is our standard. We did the demo and we were sold instantly.

It's fairly easy to use the monitoring and management functions of Auvik. I wouldn't say ease of use is one of our highest priorities. As an MSP, we need to cater to the lowest common denominator in our staff. We need to be able to tell our tier-one techs to at least get into this software to review the data—maybe not configure it—but at least review and understand it. Other tools, like PRTG or Nmap, just give you that data, but you need to be a network engineer to even read through it properly and understand it. Auvik really brings that down so that a junior can review things. Configuration, not as much, but that's not a limitation of Auvik, that's a limitation of network devices in general.

As a cloud-based solution, Auvik works well. The probe sends us a lot of data, but it's all tech-space data. There is constant traffic from your network to the Auvik servers, but it's not gigabytes of traffic data. We haven't had any issues with it. I definitely think that there's value in having an on-prem network solution, both for the sake of security and for being able to have a bit more access to the network than just a probe and then the cloud server architecture, but it works well for what we do.