Auvik Network Management (ANM) Reviews

I'm one of the biggest Auvik fans out there. I have used it personally, and I have brought it to every single company since 2015 as a product offering or for the internal use case. I currently own a firm, and I am yet to talk with Auvik. When the time comes, I will absolutely be doing its implementation for my company, and I will be offering Auvik to my customers.

I did its implementation for a company in the November of the last year. NetFlow was one of the biggest use cases, and it was for monitoring the type of traffic inside the network. We were also able to do a lot of Syslogging, and with one pane of glass, we were able to remote into the various routers and switches that we had.

It was deployed via Windows services and not as a virtual box inside VMware, which is probably better. We also had a cloud collection point, which was also a failover in our Chicago environment. I was deployed for five different sites along with the NetFlow application.

Auvik provided one of our clients the ability to see the network in its entirety. We were seamlessly able to implement an encryption deployment because we could see the whole network from a bird's eye view. It was internally implemented, so it didn't really help us in terms of performance, but it improved the productivity of the project on which we were working.

In terms of whether the automation of network mapping enabled junior network specialists to resolve issues directly and freed up senior-level team members to perform higher-value tasks, as an IT Manager, it has allowed me to delegate tasks. What was nice was that a lot of people were annoyed that Auvik just didn't combine everything, and everything was slow when Auvik did combine the whole map. When we broke it out the way Auvik told us to, which was by the site, it allowed me to actually assign a small networking team of two or three personnel essentially to that specific location. Everybody knew what exact equipment they were responsible for, and then it just trickled down to all of the other systems and processes. This made the communication more effective. We could hand off jobs and shifts at almost a seamless rate. When it came to documentation and password inside of Auvik, I knew and felt that they were secure. It has definitely decreased our mean time to resolution. It improved our overall productivity by at least 20%.

Its TrafficInsights feature shows the network bandwidth usage without the need for expensive, in-line traffic decryption. Most of the time, I'm able to get a pretty detailed kind of report or visionary on it. This feature is extremely important. From a managerial standpoint, we wanted to know what people were doing. The pandemic was huge for a lot of work for home people, and we wanted to know what our employees were doing on their computers at home. While they were connected to the VPN, Auvik provided us the ability to see whether they were watching Netflix and things like that, or what other type of bandwidth they were taking up. It was very amazing. We were canning people over it, and we were utilizing it to kind of take a temperature of our culture.

The TrafficInsights feature is helpful in showing where your system is experiencing performance issues. When we have a network problem, I'm able to see where and what's causing it. Back in October, we had some sort of network storm on our layer 3 in Chicago, and we were able to pinpoint different types of traffic going on. It was nothing, and packets were coming back at zero bits and different bits, and it was just noise. We were able to figure out that there was a loop somewhere. We had to physically go down and examine it, but without it, we probably would have chased our tails around or spent a lot more money than we did to resolve the issue.

The TrafficInsights feature has helped in improving our network performance. It improved our understanding of the network and what was going on. It helped us utilize other tools that were in place to block traffic, allow different traffic, or redirect different traffic.

It provides automated, out-of-the-box device configuration backups. I had to go in and do some configuration myself, but it was very simple. It automatically pulled the configuration from the device, and I could download it from Auvik. It probably saved me a couple of hours a week. At $100 or $200 an hour, it could save you a couple of thousand bucks a year.

It has definitely enabled us to consolidate and integrate other tools. Auvik integrates really well with other tools such as Lucidchart and different PSAs such as ConnectWise. With that, I can just utilize more functions inside these solutions. I don't necessarily have to have my Lucidchart. It integrates well where I don't have to add any more products. It is kind of that last missing link theme. It takes away from having to purchase a Visio chart, individually go and pull network reports, or have a product at each site that does that. It has this overarching big brother side. Not having to spend on these tools has probably saved us $10,000 to $20,000 annually in licensing costs. These are the software that you got to get rid of, and they are probably about $10,000 per piece.

NetFlow is probably one of the most valuable features. Since starting with Auvik, and seeing how far it has come, NetFlow has been one of the most valuable features. This feature is important because as a network administrator, you always want to examine what type of traffic is going on. You can limit users from watching Netflix on a route, or you can also pinpoint malicious activity going on in the network. So, I really do find Auvik to be a utility, not only from a network standpoint but also from a security standpoint. It provides a very good security feature in a way even though it is not branded like that.

Towards the actual Auvik side or the networking side, one of the most valuable features is its capability to quickly go out, discover, and have the intelligence to either utilize known usernames and passwords (when it comes to SNMP) or ask for the proper credentials. If they weren't provided, then it provides information about how to go retrieve them. When you examine the whole workflow or compare it to SolarWinds Orion, which got hacked, Auvik blows it out of the water because of this feature. This feature is important because when you're monitoring multiple locations and managing multiple employees, it is important to have that piece fit inside of that business continuity. I like to involve those things in security and business continuity when I am selling, deploying, or implementing it, thus making it the culture behind the product.

Its network discovery capabilities are very impressive. The discovery piece is amazing. I don't know if they have an AI or some type of advanced intelligence inside of their program that helps with the discovery piece. I haven't seen anything that discovers products that well and is able to label them, tag them, and pull as much information about them. I don't know what drives that engine, but I'm just absolutely blown away by it. It is cool.

Its ease of use is great. I was very pleased with how the junior employees, and even a couple of senior employees who had not worked with the product, were able to jump in, learn quickly, and work through the interface.

Some of the automation pieces for discovery still need a little bit more improvement. I wouldn't mind seeing some more security features as that's the world we're driving into. I know Auvik probably wants to try to keep itself separate because that's its brand, but even if they brought on board another brand that was able to plug into them, it would benefit us. It would lower some more network security costs if as a company, they are a one-stop shop. They have already got the network piece going. If they improved in that area and focused a lot on that, they would gain me as a customer, and they would probably gain a lot of others.

I have been using Auvik since 2015. 

I've been pretty impressed with its stability. I've been with Auvik for such a long time, and they've improved over the years. That's why I have nothing bad to say about them. Its stability in 2015 was great, but now with the redundancy and this cloud thing that they've got going, it is even more impressive.

They've improved it in that area a lot. It is scalable now.

In the previous job, we only paid for 20 billable endpoints, but we had more than 100 endpoints. We had three users. My title there was a senior systems architect, and then I had a network engineer under me. Above me was my boss who was the Chief Information Officer. 

If I had to rate its usage on a scale of one to 10 with 10 being eight hours a day and one being twice a week, they would probably fall in the five range. They probably use it four out of five days and for an hour or an hour and a half a day.

Currently, I don't have it as an offering in my own company. We are brand new, and I just opened this firm this year in February. As we get the ground and the ball rolling, we will be an Auvik customer within the next six months for sure.

Their technical support is the best. You can talk to an Auvik support technician about something Cisco-related. They don't have to, but they are very knowledgeable in that technology, which is so impressive. 

I'm glad, and I'm sure that Auvik hires nothing but educated people, which is probably why it's just that much better of an experience. I can talk to them, and they know what I'm talking about. A lot of the things that we talk about are complex things related to the Cisco technology, FortiGate, etc.

In the previous job, we had a third-party firm called Transcendent, and they resold SolarWinds Orion, but it was not good. I replaced it shortly with Auvik after Orion was hacked, and then we integrated their team into the product. We had it all on-prem, but we utilized this hybrid thing that Auvik had. If our on-prem collector went down, we weren't completely blind. We had redundancy built into it.

It makes me so much happier to be an Auvik customer and a champion of the product. I'm really glad that Auvik hasn't been touched like SolarWinds Orion. It gives me the confidence to keep utilizing and selling their products.

Auvik automatically updates the network topology at an interval of approximately 60 seconds, and you can also go in there and forcefully update it. We, however, never really relied on that technology. You could click on a spot, and it was a 50:50 shot if we had to move in and relabel it, which was better than SolarWinds where you get a 10% chance of getting it right. So, you're doing 90% of the configuration in SolarWinds versus having to do 40 to 50% in Auvik. That's why Auvik is better.

It was pretty complex. When you are setting up Auvik, you can set up the collector, which is straightforward. However, when you are trying to set up your router and switches, you have to have at least an associate-level degree in Cisco networking, for example, to understand the commands and the things that you need to do to prepare your router or firewall to work or integrate into the Auvik system. You need somebody who knows networking. When it comes to finding those people, they're expensive. It is probably cheaper to go through Auvik's offering at that point. If you have them on staff, utilize them. So, it is complicated, but it is no fault of their own. Auvik was easy, but they can't really control Cisco or the other people who have their technology.

The deployment probably took about two weeks. In terms of comparing the setup time of Auvik with other solutions, Auvik allowed me to do it from one location and in my chair. For other locations, I probably would have had to travel at least twice with a SolarWinds solution. I would have had to deploy it on physical hardware at that location and then use my Cisco DMVPN to make everything toss, which isn't really all that cool or modern. So, Auvik saves me traveling time and money, and I am able to do it from one location. Such cost savings probably translate to $10,000.

Our implementation strategy was to start with our home office, which was our data center here in Milwaukee, and then to set up a redundant site in Chicago. We discovered there, and then we went by the office and deployed it office by office through discovery. We didn't move to the next office till every piece of equipment was accounted for, labeled, and documented.

I have not used any third-party integrator. I did it myself. I also did all the maintenance, which included server maintenance, different updates, patches, backups, etc.

They weren't like that, but I can tell you that they've made it.

The cost for all the devices that we were billed at in my last job was about $2500 annually. It wasn't much.

It has the most reasonable pricing as compared to any product out there. I can't complain. It is amazing. It allows me to bundle inside the package what I charge customers per user per month. I don't charge them per device anymore. That's not how we do things in the industry. It is per user per month. The way Auvik is charging us allows me to do it. For example, if they charge $250 for a certain number of seats, I'm just going to write the costs onto per user per month. I have a few leftover licenses to use, which allows me to go out and make some more sales and give some freebies at some shows. So, it makes me very flexible. I am very happy with it.

It is billed by network devices. You could choose which billable device you want. What is really nice is that if you don't want one switch to be billable and the other one to be billable, you can do that. You just won't have the features that the billable switch has, which isn't horrible. Sometimes, you don't need that. What I'm really happy about is that Auvik doesn't force things on you and doesn't say, "You have to have all of this," and that's a great business model.

Sometimes, you can get overages if you go over your agreement per device, but they don't try to nickel-and-dime you on it. They're very reasonable, and it is easy to go in and look and see. They harp on it too. They ask you to go in and check and make sure you have what you want because you have this many licenses.

They didn't evaluate any other product.

To anybody utilizing it internally, I would advise going through Auvik directly. You'll pay a little bit more, but you'll have the support as an IT staff unless you want to come through a company like me. Auvik has just recently opened up their company to accept companies that want to utilize it internally. As a consultant with the landscape that I'm looking at right now, I advise Auvik to keep pricing in the same way.

I would advise taking your time and doing your implementation right the first time. You're going to gain more knowledge about your network, and the people coming after you are going to be able to support your network that much easier. 

Its ease of use is great, but I firmly believe that if you don't have experience in networking, you're going to fail. If you don't take the time or pay the money to sit down with Auvik and have them teach you to utilize the tool, you're doing yourself a disservice because of what and how inexpensive it is to get the tool and how valuable it is to have their time to teach you how to utilize the tool. They have an implementation team that will walk you through it. You have to pay for this service separately. I utilized this service once, and I've been able to implement it myself. I would highly recommend that somebody without experience should pay for this service at least once in their career.

It doesn't really help us put out fires before people or end-users even get to know that there is a problem. That could be because of the customers that I've had. However, Auvik does allow me to pinpoint the problem right away. I may get the alert two minutes later than my customer alerted me, but I'm able to get a fast resolution in place right away. It is easy. So, that's what I'm very happy about.

As a seller of Auvik, the cost-savings that it provides allow me to be more mobile. I don't have to hire as many employees because I can have them sitting in a chair watching a dashboard, which saves cost. If I'm a customer myself, I don't really see cost savings, and it is just another tool for my IT guys to be successful. So, it doesn't really save costs, but at the same time, it has a positive impact on the network.

As a consultant, Auvik has shown me the habits of end-users or IT staff. For example, Auvik has been able to pick up on rogue, small six-port switches that get plugged in somewhere under somebody's desk. I am also able to see the weird things that get plugged in or turned on in the network. I am also able to have conversations, but it is just weird to see how that technology or software translates to the behavior of these people. It is kind of neat.

Its time to value is what it is. There is a cost to everything, and there is really no value when it comes to implementation. Especially with how I am going to have it implemented in my environment, I have to ask somebody with a reasonable amount of knowledge, and he is going to cost me $80,000 to $100,000 a year to go out and implement. It is just a cost, and there is really no way around it.

I would rate Auvik a 10 out of 10.

We use Auvik to discover devices on the network, to get a good layout of the network, and to have the solution back up the configuration of certain network devices. We have it deployed to each individual client so that we can map out each of their networks. When a device breaks, we get an alert from Auvik, and then we deal with it. We have the alerts set up for high-value tasks or high-importance devices, such as a network switch going down. We use something else for remote management, but Auvik does all the other work.

Auvik provides a single integrated platform for our organization which is super helpful.

Before Auvik, our network was a little bit of a mess. Sometimes we would use an application, and other times we wouldn't use anything. We wouldn't know anything about the network. As a result, it was all over the board.

The solution gave us the ability to see the network's layout, which gave us a better understanding of how it worked. Auvik can help identify where a device is plugged in and how it is accessing the network. This can help troubleshoot any issues with devices not working properly.

Auvik's mapping is great. It is one of the better-looking mappings that I have seen. Having the mapping available visually is great. It is super helpful for the techs to be able to pop open Auvik and see where everything is plugged in.

Auvik has affected our team's visibility into our remote and distribution networks globally in a positive way, making the network easier to manage.

It helps keep our device inventories up to date. When a device breaks, we get an alert from Auvik, and then we deal with it. We have the alerts set up for high-value tasks or high-importance devices, such as a network switch going down. We don't use Auvik for low-priority tasks at all.

I love that Auvik can automatically back up the configuration of switches and firewalls.

It's not difficult to use the monitoring and management functions of Auvik, but it's not entirely intuitive either. Once we get the hang of it, it's simple enough.

We have other solutions that keep our inventory up to date, therefore using Auvik to keep inventory up to date for us is redundant. However, I see how other people would use the solution because it scans the network constantly and keeps the inventory up to date. Auvik can save time. 

Auvik requires almost zero maintenance.

I would recommend fixing the visual layout of the screen. I dislike not being able to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel. To zoom in and out, we have to use the plus and minus buttons on the side of the screen. I also recommend not having the device constantly refresh while we're looking at it. At times, we'll be trying to figure out where things are and devices will suddenly start moving back and forth. Sometimes we want the information to pause so we can check the layout.

I wish there was a way to reduce the cost somehow.

I have been using Auvik for a few years.

Auvik is very reliable. I've seen the solution break a couple of times, but it's rare.

The scalability is great. It can handle small networks and humongous networks.

I had a question that was answered by technical support quickly.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward. It was very simple, we installed the agent and let it scan out of the box.

It takes under ten minutes for Auvik to start network mapping once the collector is implemented.

The implementation was completed in-house using just me.

Auvik helped speed up network troubleshooting. And having the layout can help us figure out where devices are when somebody's unsure, remotely. The solution definitely improved our time.

Depending on the situation we occasionally see a reduction in our MTTR. If there's a network issue, Auvik can help with troubleshooting, significantly reducing our time.

Auvik is expensive but worth the cost for a network management solution.

It can get expensive quickly if we monitor a lot of devices, which is unfortunate because we have a lot of devices to monitor.

Auvik is definitely the leader in the visual layout field. We looked at SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, but it didn't have the feature set or reliability that Auvik offers.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Auvik is deployed across multiple locations. We're an MSP, and we have multiple clients, each with separate networks. We installed an Auvik agent for each of those clients.

Before using Auvik we must have all the credentials in our hands. It makes the deployment easier.

We use Auvik for network mapping. It helps us to understand the layout and where things are so that we can troubleshoot the flow of data, where something is on the network, and why it might be having an issue.

Before Auvik, I had to go on-site to the client's offices to physically trace all the cables manually and draw the network map on a diagram tool. That would take a long time, and there was potential for human error. When something changed, I had to go back and update the map. It took hours. With Auvik, the devices quickly populate the screen, and I can click through them. That's incredible. It's a huge time-saving troubleshooting tool. We realized Auvik's benefits immediately. Once I understood the features, the benefits were very clear.  

Auvik has sped up our resolution time in many ways. When something is offline or something is wrong with a site-to-site connection or a switch, we can easily go in and see what's happening. We can identify what's connected and what may have been disconnected. It's more often used on the tier two side, but the tier one techs aren't using it. 

I like having a remote tunnel where I can access web interfaces inside a network, whether it's a DVR, an NDR camera system, a printer interface, or an IoT device that has a local web interface. I love being able to tunnel in straight through Auvik instead of having to VPN in or remote to another. It's more straightforward and makes troubleshooting that device more accessible.

Auvik gives us a real-time picture of the network. In the past, when we did things manually, it was never up-to-date. Auvik keeps everything updated. The network map is accurate in the sense that it generates the correct data. Sometimes, we need to update it with the SNMP credentials. If we're feeding it the information it needs, it's highly accurate.

Auvik's interface is decent overall, but I wish I could get more of a full-screen map layout. That would be helpful. Overall, the flow of everything on the screen is good, but I would like a more full-screen, immersive user experience. There are too many menus around. It would help to have the ability to sift and move through it more easily, but there's too much stuff in the way.

I found the search feature somewhat frustrating. For example, let's say I'm searching for an IP address. Even though this thing exists, it doesn't do a good job of showing it to me. 

We have used Auvik for nearly six years.

Auvik is stable. We haven't had any problems. 

Our customers aren't growing quickly, so scalability means rolling Auvik out to new clients or clients adding new devices. If we're talking about adding new clients, it's easy to implement. If we're talking about clients adding stuff to the network, it's automatic, so we don't need to do much besides inputting the credentials.

Before Auvik, I constructed manual network maps. We are using other remote management tools like Kaseya RMM. It's a different type of tool that overlaps in a few areas. 

I was not directly involved in the deployment. After deployment, it requires very little maintenance. We only need to deploy the Auvik collector and ensure it's running. 

I rate Auvik nine out of 10. I suggest reaching out to their customer relationship people. They're super personal and helpful. Take advantage of them. 

It is mainly used to monitor new devices on the network and get alerts for printers that might be out of paper or jammed. We also use it to troubleshoot network connectivity issues.

By implementing Auvik Network Management, I wanted to get visibility into the network. I wanted to be able to see what devices are on the network.

Auvik's network map along with its dashboard gives a close to real-time picture of your network. It updates pretty regularly as you are using it.

Its benefits are pretty immediate. Once status starts populating, within an hour or two, we are able to get some good insight into the network and what is going on.

Auvik Network Management has decreased our mean time to resolution. We are able to pinpoint the device that may be causing issues on our network or having trouble connecting. It is definitely a valuable tool in troubleshooting that.

It has not empowered our entry-level technicians to solve more tickets on their own because we are structurally different. We have higher-end technicians taking care of networking issues. Our lower tier does not get into the platform.

Auvik does not allow us to spend less time on the setup and maintenance of the solution, but it does allow us to spend less time on issue resolution.

Traffic insights are valuable. They show you what type of traffic is on the network and how much bandwidth it is utilizing. It can help you pinpoint issues if a device is broadcasting too much or if there is any other issue.

The network map and dashboard can be difficult at times because they do not scale very well. You have to either view the map itself or the dashboard itself. You cannot easily view them both at the same time, but you are able to use them pretty well in conjunction. They could be a little better.

They can make it a little less cluttered on the display so that you can easily view the devices and the network map in one good window instead of having to jump between sizes on both. That would be beneficial. I do not know how that would happen, but that would be a plus.

I have been using this solution for three years.

Its stability has been great. We have not seen any issues yet.

It is scalable. It just depends on how much you want to pay when it comes down to it. 

They have a chat feature. They are very quick to answer any issues, and they work until it is solved. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

I have used Domotz. Auvik is better in terms of the information provided, overall layout, and ease of use. Domotz is better in price by far.

With Auvik, we could see its benefits within hours of getting the system set up with all the passwords and everything. Domotz took a couple of days to get it all figured out.

The agent is on-prem, and the solution is cloud-based. This is how it is provided.

It is easy to set up. It took about 20 minutes.

It does not require any maintenance from our side.

I am the one who set it up.

The pricing gets pretty expensive because it is per device that is managed. It is not per site, so it can get pricey.

There are no critical devices in our network that are monitored by Auvik at no charge. They are all charged.

The biggest piece of advice is to make sure you have all of the SNMP and command line interfaces set up on your networking devices. Make sure you have the passwords for those so that you can easily put them into the system. WMI would be great to have enabled for all your workstations.

There is a little bit of a learning curve. It is not the easiest to use, but it is full-featured, so that is expected.

I am familiar with Auvik's SaaS Management product, but I have not used it yet. I am looking at setting up a trial for it within the next couple of weeks.

Overall, I would rate Auvik Network Management an eight out of ten. 

We're using it just to monitor customer equipment and make backups for network device configuration changes. We're using maybe one percent of what it's capable of doing. We're trying to get some of our stuff straightened out since whoever set up our Auvik did not do a great job of organizing it.

I like the alerting. It integrates with our ticketing system. I like the fact that it integrates with our ticketing system so that we can open tickets and close tickets for network outages. 

I like that it can actually log in and make backups of multiple types of equipment. We have a lot of different customers out there with a lot of different equipment, and this one tool can actually log into anything. We haven't found one that it can't yet. It can log in to almost any piece of equipment and make backups for it, monitor changes, et cetera, if any network changes happen. We can also monitor network usage at different locations and check for overallocation.

It provides us with an intuitive interface that supports ease of use. Their website is very easy to use. This ease of use helps with troubleshooting network issues. We use the product a lot to troubleshoot. We don't use it as much as we'd like to. That's one of the aspects that we're working towards. It is capable of doing a lot more than how we're using it for currently.

They have a dashboard, and a topology map. I've used their topology map a few times. It actually shows you the connections between different devices. That has helped a lot in terms of finding how equipment is connected and finding loopholes in your network. This dashboard and network map give us a real-time picture of our entire network. I have found it to be very easy to work with.

It has helped us decrease our mean time to resolution, however, at this time, we don't really use it enough. I wish we were able to use it more. That said, I can see what the features are capable of doing. It's just that we haven't actually had that benefit yet.

The solution allows us to spend less time on setup and maintenance and less time on issue resolution.

The tutorial could be a little bit more comprehensive. Their online training is one area that needs improvement. 

I've been using the solution for six months. The company's been using it a bit longer. 

I've had zero experience with stability issues. 

The solution seems to be very scalable. 

Technical support seems to be very knowledgeable. They handle tickets in order once they come. They do everything fine. They've been able to resolve issues. Once, they just couldn't do something that we were asking them to do due to their policy. That said, it's fine.

Positive

I have used different solutions in the past. This is more network-oriented. If you know how to use either tool, you'll definitely realize the benefits right away. 

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Whenever we make a network change or whenever we add a device, it requires some maintenance.

I'm not aware of the exact pricing of the product. 

We're customers and end-users.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

I use it as a first line of information gathering. When properly configured, I am able to quickly diagnose and troubleshoot issues from the network's infrastructure level and go up to servers and other devices.

Auvik has helped to decrease my mean time to resolution. If configured correctly, it definitely takes 10 to 20 minutes off resolution. I am able to diagnose things at least 15 minutes faster than I would manually.

I like the feature that allows us to remote access and remote troubleshoot many of the devices, including terminal Windows.

When it tries to build the topology, it does it in a way that is usually incorrect. It cannot validate VLANs correctly, and it is a bit cumbersome. When we have a known topology, it makes it completely different. The network maps are not accurate.

It does not always give a real-time picture of your network. It all depends on how it was configured. I have seen proper configurations, and they look fine, and then there are other ones that are completely broken. For example, I have several clients with mixed equipment, but the topology map shows switches that are on top of the map, whereas firewalls are technically on top. It does not see them correctly. At times, it puts random switches not even connected to anything, even though we know they are physically connected in the topology.

If we are able to manually move devices on the topology, that would be great. It would be amazing if the network map could be manually redrawn. I have submitted this as a request previously.

I have been using Auvik for the last five years.

I have not seen any stability-related issues.

In my opinion, it would be a very scalable product.

I have not contacted them in more than four years. I only contacted them once very early on when I was asking about being able to move things.

To my knowledge, we did not have any solution that would be a comparative analysis of what Auvik provides. In recent months, I have come across a similar topology and diagnostic tool that is built into Fortinet's security appliance. It is a bit similar.

A similar networking map topology that I used to use was when we would build things in Visio and have them as interactive maps.

I was not involved in its deployment. 

In terms of maintenance, it does require maintenance. We have to update devices. When there are changes being made, we have to go back in and make sure that things are updated. Password maintenance needs to be done every so often, and our collectors need to be changed out every once in a while. We have some communication errors with them, so we have to do some troubleshooting with those. That is a bit of internal maintenance.

I was not the person who made the choice.

If you are a managed service provider, it is one of the best tools, and I believe it is worth the investment for senior engineers to do critical troubleshooting. It will take an application champion to make sure that it is configured properly, but it is very powerful for those who deal in the managed service provider workspace.

Auvik has not empowered our entry-level technicians to solve more tickets on their own because we do not allow our entry-level technicians access to Auvik.

It took me some time to learn the product and know exactly how it worked and how it was deployed. After I learned some of the nuances that were inside of Auvik, I was able to see remotes and things like that. It did take a few months of training to really understand it. A lot of it was self-paced. There was no sponsored training, so I had to learn on my own.

I would rate Auvik a solid seven out of ten.

I am the network administrator for our company, and we use Aruba Central but we're looking into Auvik to see what else we can do with it. We're seeing quite a bit of difference.

We have been using multiple applications for managing our networks. Switching to Auvik has been amazing. It has been impressive. Without Auvik, I go through five different applications every morning, clicking through everything. It's very irritating. I have Auvik open in front of me right now and it's simple.

It definitely reduces repetitive tasks with its automation. One of the biggest things is the mapping records widget. With our current system, I have to do the mapping. If we replace an item or we change an IP address, I have to go back through everything and change what I've done. I go through the five applications in the morning to figure out my APs, my Cisco equipment, my Aruba equipment, my Blancco Management, et cetera. Auvik saves a lot of time and a lot of repetitive work.

I can go into it and get a configuration file. With some of our other solutions, because not all of our switches are Aruba, I then have to go to the switches to pull the configuration files. With Auvik I see all of them here. It doesn't matter what brand it is. It saves me a lot of time.

The automation Auvik provides has allowed us to see areas that we need to fix, which, of course, is very important. And it has reduced our MTTR because I see things more quickly and I see things through Auvik that I can't see through Aruba.

It would improve things a lot for us [if we continue beyond our trial of the solution]. It noticed a drop on my network at the instant it was happening and sent me a notification. We had a couple of devices that were questionable and Auvik said, "Hey, you have Raspberry Pis on your network." To me, that's very important. I don't like Raspberry Pis because they are easily hacked and I don't want them on my network. So far, what I've seen with Auvik in terms of notifications has been great.

Another benefit is that it keeps device inventories up to date. It notifies us about firmware updates and about what we need to change, which is nice and has saved us time. It tells us everything. I like it because if, for example, the device is a phone, it tells me the subnet that it's on and the IP address. It's great.

We are trying to get a full package together to go to our vice president and say, "Hey, this is what Auvik has done for us and we need to continue." Right now, we have five different software tools that we're trying to use and manage things, while Auvik is one. I'm fighting very hard to get Auvik.

One thing I like about it is how it maps the network. It shows all my devices and it shows everything that is possibly connected to the network. Most of our network is in the cloud and the mapping starts with basic internet, where it is. It gives me how many devices or switches are connected, and what is connected to each switch, including how many printers are on it. We have Blancco Management and our backup servers, and Auvik tells me how many of those are connected. It gives me everything. At this minute it shows me that 346 devices are connected to our network and what they are. That's beautiful, and I didn't have to do it. I have had to go and map out, by hand, every device on the network with what IP address it's set to. That's a pain.

And the visualization is very eye-catching. It's easy to use and very self-explanatory. If something is eye-catching it makes people go into it more. I really like that.

I also like how it even tells us that printers are low on paper.

To me, it's very simple to use the monitoring and management functions of Auvik. We were setting up the SNMP with Auvik yesterday and everything on it—setting up our firewalls with it—is very simple.

It also seems to be a single, integrated platform. We have 26 switches and hundreds of devices and it has detected everything. So far, we're very pleased with it. I take care of our network in Oklahoma City and in Memphis. Being able to see everything in one place is very important. With Aruba Central, I'm only able to see the switches in Oklahoma City, and I can't even see my APs because my APs are not Aruba. Aruba only lets you see Aruba. With Auvik, I'm able to see all the types of devices that I have, which is extremely important.

We have a lot of remote users. It's nice that we're able to see them and keep up with what's going on there. That visibility is extremely important. We have a very small IT team and we have to stay on top of things quickly. Ours is a larger company and, with a small IT team, things can get away from us very quickly. It's nice to have that full visibility and those upfront notifications so that things don't get away from us very quickly.

The window view could be improved. For instance, if I'm in inventory and I'm looking at my devices, I don't like the way the window splits at the bottom. I want to be able to choose the way it appears.

Similarly, when it shows me all the devices on my network, I don't like the fact that I can't adjust the display to the way I want it. I can increase it, but it's very difficult to move up and down to see that part of it.

We've been on the free trial of Auvik for 12 days.

I'm very impressed with the stability of Auvik. I have not had it go down or had a major issue. I haven't even had a small issue with it.

We spoke to some people from Auvik and their support is very friendly. They're very helpful and very knowledgeable. I was extremely pleased with them.

Positive

We currently use five other solutions.

The price that Auvik is offering us is a little bit steep. I'm hoping we can figure out something else about the pricing, but right now, it's a little bit steep.

My boss has been looking at five or six different solutions and he came across Auvik. He asked me to check it out. I brought it in and started using it and, so far, overall, I like Auvik the best.

When comparing network monitoring solutions and there is a concern about pricing, my approach is that you get what you pay for. The functionality is extremely important to me. The pricing is extremely important to my VP. You need to write out the pros and cons based on your needs and figure out how the pros and cons compare with your budget. But I would suggest you give Auvik a chance.

I like Auvik's cloud-based solution much better than having an on-prem network monitoring solution. We still have a couple of servers that are not cloud-based. I like the cloud much better.

If you are looking for any type of monitoring software, make sure that you find a product that sees every type of device on your network. Auvik even shows me the redundancy that I have on there. For a network administrator that's very important.

I'm a system administrator. I use it to monitor and automatically draw a network map of our network.

It has helped us determine better ways to organize some of our physical networking, and it also allowed us to locate and troubleshoot issues more quickly.

It saved me at least a couple of days of work in regard to network mapping. There's a lot of detail that it figures out automatically that otherwise, I would have to do manually. It definitely helped that way. The monitoring is a little bit redundant. We already get emails for some of the things it warns us about, which is fine, but it also warns us about other things that we are not aware of. It saves me some time that way as well.

The network visualizations are quite intuitive. It comes with a number of different controls to manipulate, monitor, and change the visualization of what you're seeing. They're pretty intuitive and don't require many instructions.

We recently opened up a branch office, and it allowed us to visualize that remote network in more detail than we would have before. This visibility is quite important so that we have a better understanding of the way the network is configured and if there are any problems with it. Before, we had no way to visualize which devices were connected to other devices. It just had to be common knowledge or certain documentation, but now, we can visualize our network in real-time and troubleshoot if any issues arise.

Automatic network mapping, alerting functionalities, and TrafficInsights are valuable.

The monitoring function is quite easy. It's already set up with a lot of good defaults. So, I didn't have to change too much. The management function is also pretty useful. The interface sometimes takes a little bit of learning to navigate, but besides that, it has been pretty useful so far.

I like the methodology of its deployment and how it's set up. I like how we simply have to put a simple virtual appliance in our environment, and it figures out everything for us. The methodology of how it's designed to be used from that cloud environment works well. 

Some of the network map customizations could be improved to show or hide certain components if desired. There are already some tools built in to do that, but they could be improved upon.

Some of the discovery methodologies could be improved upon. It removes the device that is offline, but when that gets added back, if there is any custom information saved for that device, such as it's a smartphone, you have to change and reenter the information all over again. It would be nice to not have to manually modify certain devices that get added to the network.

I would give it pretty good marks in terms of helping to visualize the network mapping or the topology of our organization, but sometimes, the map refreshes in a way that doesn't always make sense. I have to create a support ticket to ask why the map is showing things the way it's showing, but that's more of a learning curve related to learning about the tool itself, but for the most part, it automates that whole process quite well and makes it easy to see what's on the screen.

There could be a mobile app or some type of mobile interface to review details on the go. I haven't tried it yet, and I am not sure if there's one.

I have been using this solution for approximately three to four months.

For the most part, it has been quite reliable and stable. There have been a few maintenance windows recently where they needed to fix some issues. It didn't affect me per se, but there was a little bit of downtime for the problems they were having with the collectors. They had to push an update for it, but it didn't concern me too much because it was over the course of a weekend. So, I wasn't paying too much attention to it. I would rate it an 8 out of 10 in terms of stability.

It seems it would scale very well to a large network, but I don't have experience with it in that scenario. From the way the tool works, it seems that it would be able to map out quite complicated networks and all the details.

Currently, Auvik is monitoring about 220 devices in our organization.

Their support is excellent. I've reached out to their support a couple of times, and every time, they've been very professional and quick to respond. 

I reached out to them recently, and there was very quick detailed research done into the issue. It wasn't a simple issue, but they were able to dig into it and get back to me with some good detailed answers.

I would rate them a 10 out of 10. So far, my experience with their support has been good.

Positive

We used PRTG, but we didn't necessarily switch. We're using both. We're still using PRTG, and we're also using Auvik. So, for managing the network, we are now using two tools. Previously, we used one tool, but now, we're using two tools.

It was straightforward. We implemented it out of the box. Network mapping started to populate in less than 15 minutes after implementing the collector. So, once it's configured, it does the job very quickly.

Its setup time is similar to other solutions. It takes a few hours of installation and configuration and then going from there, you just wait for it to collect the data.

It takes a little bit of time to configure and make sure that it's scanning and pulling in the right information. Some of the information, such as the system name and the type of the system, needed to be updated manually. So, a little bit of manual work needs to be done after the setup, but once it's properly set up, it does help to save time. It took extra three to four hours just for configuring and manually making changes to improve the data collected.

In terms of maintenance, it does require maintenance. On occasions, I need to clean up and monitor unknown and generic devices that show up in the list of devices just to determine if they are trusted devices that should be on the network. So, it's used for seeing what's on the network and paying attention to those devices that get added. We then ensure that they're trusted and should be on the network.

I implemented it on my own. I also take care of the maintenance. I do have other users with access to the service, but they only use it for monitoring. They don't make the changes.

We have seen time-to-value with Auvik. It's able to automatically make network maps that otherwise would take a lot of time. It would also take time to customize them manually. So, it has helped automate that task for sure. It has definitely saved about 48 hours.

We haven't seen a reduction in our meantime to resolution (MTTR) because I can't think of any situation where the tool has been involved in those types of scenarios per se. It's more to show the information that we were already aware of. So, it didn't necessarily change that for the better or worse. In the future, there might be a problem where it'll help us troubleshoot deeper by using some of the tools that we didn't have before, such as TrafficInsights.

It's quite reasonable, although it's reasonable for us right now only because of the small number of devices we're using. If we had a lot more to monitor, then I'd have to double-check the pricing and compare it with other solutions to see if it would be competitive.

To someone comparing network monitoring solutions but concerned about pricing, I would suggest that trying the product first is key and based on that, you can determine the value. I find the pricing to be reasonable, and I was able to try it first to make my decision.

We didn't evaluate other options. I knew about using Auvik from a previous employer. They had a good trial setup. The reason why I used it in the first place was that I was looking for tools to do network drawing or mapping, and I was aware that Auvik could do that type of work automatically. So, I just signed up for the trial and went from there.

I would suggest letting the tool add all of the networks automatically first as opposed to manually adding certain details and letting it fill in. Just let it gather all the information it can and then worry about cleaning things up. 

Also, I would advise monitoring generic and unknown devices just to understand what is present in the network. I would also advise getting familiar with filters and setting up filters in a way that allows you to customize the tool to suit you best.

Auvik has a single site that allows us to perform a number of dedicated tasks. Having this single site is moderately important for us because we do use other tools as well to collect data on what we're looking for. We're always looking for tools to add to our listing. We don't just always rely on one tool to do all our monitoring. This is an additional tool that we're using, but it offers functionality that our other tools don't necessarily have. That's why we're using it.

Auvik hasn't helped reduce repetitive low-priority tasks through automation because we're just using it for some passive monitoring. I can't think of a situation where that's had to occur per se.

Its automation hasn't had an effect on our IT team's availability. More time has been spent in the software configuring it, and now that it's set up the way we want it, we just go into it every once in a while to browse and see how things are going.

I would rate it an 8 out of 10. There are a few things to improve on, but for the most part, it does exactly what I'm hoping to do, which is automatically help generate a visualization of a network to better understand it and troubleshoot it.