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it_user1627626 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Support Specialist at a government with 11-50 employees
Real User
Aug 1, 2021
Centralizes everything, backs up my configurations, and provides a map to see alerts for all locations
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the great things about Auvik is the shared collector mode, which is useful in an environment that has more than one physical location. We have 15 different locations, and I can have all of those locations pointing to one collector. So, all these locations are sharing this one collector, and I can get a map, which is way out on top of the map that you would see in Google maps, to see all my locations. I can see alerts on that map for any of those 15 locations. I can zoom in right there to the location, and from there, click on it. It is really handy."
  • "Most of the issues that I have had are related to the dashboard and wanting a bit more customization available through the dashboard because that's where you'll spend most of your time. Auvik is on the dashboard, and you can create and save these filters, which is great, but if I were to filter the map by all switches, the information below doesn't reflect the filter. I have to select the device within the filter, and then it starts to show the results. I can then see the dashboard of that device. If I were to filter by switches, I would like my top device utilization to only show me switches from my alerts and anything related to my map filter."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for monitoring and troubleshooting. It is cloud-based, but the collectors always have to be on-premise. We must be using its latest version.

How has it helped my organization?

It automatically updates your network topology, which has made any kind of troubleshooting or planning way more efficient. To make sure that everything is up for you, every 15 seconds, it checks for a device to be online and any network element to be up or down, and every minute, it checks for your other devices, such as your PCs or IP phones. It does a subnet scan every 600 seconds to see if thresholds are being pegged or have fallen off in certain levels. If you don't want to have so much ping traffic on your network, you can change that to whatever value you want. All that is customizable. It kind of becomes something you depend on when you're looking for a device. If I want to find out where a device is plugged in specifically, Auvik is the first place where I would go to check if I can see it there. Earlier, if I'm looking to see where a device is, I used to check my windows DHCP server and look for an odd or new IP address that had appeared. In Auvik, I can filter the map based on a device, subnet, or VLAN, or I can see all devices that are plugged into a specific switch, which is really convenient.

It has significantly decreased our mean time to resolution. In the past, sometimes, it took us a long time to come to the conclusion that this is the problem. When trying to go through the troubleshooting steps to know what the problem is, when Auvik has that information for me, troubleshooting is significantly quicker. I don't have to go through an entire department and look at their connections to see how they're impacted and then decide that everything they have in common is this switch. Auvik is able to tell me that this switch isn't online anymore. I can then say that we have a problem with a switch, and we're working on it to kind of calm folks down.

TrafficInsights dashboard is one of the first things that I log into every day in Auvik. Before going with Auvik, I tried a different solution for it, and that solution was just terrible in comparison. It only permitted five interfaces for traffic insights, and if you wanted more than five interfaces, it costed more money. It was just completely unreasonable. Auvik doesn't limit you on the number of interfaces for traffic insights. I get a better idea of the type of traffic on the network through Auvik than anywhere else. I can look at the type of traffic through my firewall monitoring, but I'd have to go a lot deeper into the protocols and ports that are being used just to see what's going on in the network.

With Auvik, if I look at traffic insights, I can get a good graph of how much traffic is happening at specific times a day. I can lay out the type of traffic and break it down based on the applications. I can then filter from there. If I'm seeing that we have a lot more web traffic or media streaming traffic, I can look a little bit deeper and see the exact applications, such as Netflix, YouTube, and TikTok. I can then see who is watching Netflix. It makes it a whole lot quicker than watching my firewall because I'd have to filter by a domain or IP address to come to the conclusion that someone is watching Netflix on the network. In Auvik, based on the filter, I can get all devices involved with that conversation to Netflix, which is a really nice feature. The other menus within TrafficInsights allow you to keep it all relative, so you're not resetting or recreating those filters. I can just filter based on Netflix and see who are the top users. I can see who is using Netflix and on which laptop they are using it.

The TrafficInsights feature helps in improving our overall network performance. It allows for me to look at a month's worth of time, and then I get an idea of what's the normal baseline. It helps me in getting a good baseline for expected backups because I can see when the backups are happening and how much traffic is related to backups. So, I can see when things are normal or abnormal. For example, when media streams are a little high, that's abnormal, so I will look into it a little bit deeper. It helps with this kind of stuff, and if there is any kind of impact on overall throughput for other users, I get to nip it in the bud right away, which is valuable. 

The out-of-the-box device configuration backups save time and money too. With Auvik, I can see the configurations even if I have them saved on the file server or something like that. If I got a protected share that has configuration backups, being able to deploy that configuration or even save that configuration as a text file from Auvik is a time-saver. I am not paying for the other product any longer just because Auvik handles that. Previously, I would have been paying for both. If Auvik couldn't do that, I'd have to pay for two products, so it saves money, but more importantly, it saves time. I don't have to spend so much time going switch by switch.

What is most valuable?

The best feature is the support access. Access to Auvik support is right there within Auvik. It has a little support button at the bottom, you push it, and you get connected with a support agent. They can see your internet. They help you out, work with you, and answer your questions right there. I don't have to go and open up a ticket somewhere else and try to explain anything, which is a great feature. I can get someone in less than a minute, which is really helpful.

It is very simple. It is very easy to learn how to navigate, and their knowledge base is a good resource. 

It is an SNMP-based platform. It can communicate with almost any device that you're trying to monitor, such as a switch or a router, through SNMP. If you're trying to monitor Windows machines, it uses WMI. It gives you a good layout of the sensors for a lot of devices. It can generate alerts based on if the fans are working, CPU is hot or highly utilized, or RAM is highly utilized.

The Syslog feature is also really valuable. I don't have to go into each individual box, so I have it all centralized. Everything is in one pane of glass. When I first started using Auvik, they didn't have the Syslog fully deployed. It was a beta. Now, it is fully deployed, and it is a great feature. Auvik really relies on SNMP in order to give you good information about a device, but our IP phones, for instance, don't support SNMP. With a phone pointed towards Auvik for the Syslog info, I can see the stats within Auvik, whereas before, I would have to go into the phone server and the phone to get an idea of what's happening with that phone. So, if someone is telling me that his phone keeps restarting or has bad call quality, I can go to that phone's Syslog within Auvik because even the phone itself doesn't store that information. Our phones only show the last six reasons for a reboot, and if someone is saying that reboot is the issue, then that's not good enough. You want to look for a pattern. You want to look for what might be happening internally on the phone. For that, you would have to go into the phone server and then get down to those logs. If the log info is already sent to Auvik, I don't have to go into the phone server and then write up a command to filter it down to just this little tiny query here. I could just look at that device, access the log info, and get what I need, which is very valuable.

It also gives you a live or close-to-live topology map. So, you can get down to things. For example, if all of a sudden a machine is really slow during the day for someone, or they lose connectivity, you can check out the machine baseline by name or by IP. When it is on a switch, you can check the port it is on and get the logs on that switch to see if there are any errors being generated on that port. So, it is just a lot quicker than going into the switch's interface. You can get information on the device via Auvik without going into each device separately. You can get a log, but you can't do any configuration changes. You can just get information on the devices, and then if you see that you need to make a configuration change. If you want, you can also tunnel in through that or do it externally. The ability to launch a console session to your switch, router, or any device that you're monitoring (if that device supports it), or launch a browser session through Auvik to that device is a nice little feature they have. You can interface right there through that single pane of glass.

It backs up my configurations for me. For the routers, I have a cloud-based subscription, and it backs up my configurations every 30 days. So, I can see the changes that were made, and then I can do an A/B comparison of the configurations and identify exactly what was changed. I can even redeploy the configurations from within Auvik, which is pretty handy.

I liked the Teams integration that exists in Auvik. We have Office 365, and I can create a channel within Teams where my alerts from Auvik pop up in Teams so that I can see a feed of different alerts. I have a feed of different levels of alerts such as emergency, critical, warning, and informational that are generated in Auvik, and if I'm not viewing the tab in my browser that has Auvik, and they pop up as alerts in Teams on my desktop. I might have a ton of tabs open, and if I am not viewing the tab that has Auvik, these alerts will pop up in Teams, and that'll get my attention. It also has the ability to send a text alert. It is indirect, and even though it comes to you in SMS or MMS format, Auvik sends it to an email address, and you can get around by using your MMS email address based on your service provider. So, staying informed about the environment when I'm not directly looking is definitely a valuable resource for me.

One of the great things about Auvik is the shared collector mode, which is useful in an environment that has more than one physical location. We have 15 different locations, and I can have all of those locations pointing to one collector. So, all these locations are sharing this one collector, and I can get a map, which is way out on top of the map that you would see in Google maps, to see all my locations. I can see alerts on that map for any of those 15 locations. I can zoom in right there to the location, and from there, click on it. It is really handy.

What needs improvement?

They don't let you customize the dashboard, which is like the homepage of Auvik. There is one feature that I don't use that's on the dashboard, and it is for SSL VPN services. The way it is designed is that if you have a separate, dedicated SSL VPN appliance, they can see that. I'd rather not have that take up any space on my screen because it never is going to populate with any kind of information. I'd like to move some things around on the dashboard, but I can't do anything like that. I know that they don't plan on doing it, but if they could open the dashboard just a little bit and allow us to customize it a little bit, it would be incredibly helpful, but it is not something that I feel I'm truly missing.

I wish they did have a few more integrations, and I'm sure that they're going to have more coming down the line. It was last month when I had a meeting with them, and their goal is to just kind of make it as universal as possible. So, they take some customization features or limit some customization features just because they feel that if they make it something you can customize, it might make it less universal. You can use their integrations with other applications. It integrates with the popular RMM solutions, and that's great, but when you are viewing Auvik through that integration, there is no way for me to limit or control how Auvik sees a location. So, I can't just have it default to a certain view. If you're looking at a specific department, I can't have everything automatically filtered down to that specific department. I'd have to go through and add those filters for Auvik to do so.

Most of the issues that I have had are related to the dashboard and wanting a bit more customization available through the dashboard because that's where you'll spend most of your time. Auvik is on the dashboard, and you can create and save these filters, which is great, but if I were to filter the map by all switches, the information below doesn't reflect the filter. I have to select the device within the filter, and then it starts to show the results. I can then see the dashboard of that device. If I were to filter by switches, I would like my top device utilization to only show me switches from my alerts and anything related to my map filter. That was something I asked about in one of the meetings with Auvik last month, and I don't think they have any plan to expand the dashboard anytime soon or at all. So, that was a little bit of a letdown. So, I am adjusting my workflow to fit the product and its abilities, but it really makes sense to me to expand it over time within the TrafficInsights dashboard. If I filter by my access points, then it should only show me the information related to my filter.

Another limitation, which is probably still under customization, is related to the reporting features. It doesn't really give you the ability to customize reports, create reports, or schedule reports. Adding those kinds of elements to it would really take it over the edge. It has some built-in reporting, and you can generate a report based on just a few things. You can do 10 reports that are built-in, but you can't create a report, and you can't customize a report. You can export the reports. It is designed that way. I would like to be able to create and schedule some custom reports. There should be the ability to do a temporary report. For example, if I am monitoring one or multiple devices for a week and I had the map filter to these devices, I'd like to be able to just quickly generate a report to be able to see how this device communicates, or how these devices are communicating over the course of a week. Such a feature would be really good. Reporting is the main thing that you're looking for in a monitoring system, and Auvik falls short there.

I probably have to look through the knowledge base to see if it does exist, but I do not believe there is a way for me to set a threshold for certain types of traffic. For example, when media streaming gets to a certain percentage of network traffic, I get an alert. That's why I'm kind of in it all the time. It is one of the tabs that I have open, and then I just take a look and see what is a little high and then zoom in.

Auvik doesn't deploy firmware upgrades and things of that nature. I don't know what would be required to allow them to be able to handle firmware upgrades for all these different devices, but it is probably not necessary for them to go that far because they'd have to open it up for so many different vendors.

Buyer's Guide
Auvik Network Management (ANM)
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Auvik Network Management (ANM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have probably been using this solution for a little bit over a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has been incredibly stable for me. They do maintenance just about every weekend for adding new features or just cleaning some bugs up.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The whole ability to add more locations is really impressive. I know that people can have multiple collectors, but for me, I just have one collector and 15 sites sending information to that one collector. I can expand if I need to add more devices at a location or add a new location entirely. I can even reduce, which is great.

When I first set up Auvik, during that trial, I was seeing everything from one site. After a discussion with the guys in support, they recommended that I basically change the mode of Auvik to be a shared collector and make the other locations sites. This way I can just look at one site at a time, or I can come to the main dashboard and see all the sites from a bird's eye view. I can just continue to expand or compress based on my needs and preferences.

How are customer service and support?

Access to Auvik support is right there within Auvik. It has a little support button at the bottom that you can click to connect with a support agent. You don't have to go and open up a ticket somewhere else and explain anything. You can get someone in less than a minute.

They've been great. All of my questions have been answered, and any issue I've had related to a feature within Auvik has been resolved for the most part.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The other product that I was using was a product created by the manufacturers of the devices. It was something that I thought would be perfect for the devices, but it wasn't. Auvik is superior across the board in comparison to that device. The only thing that Auvik doesn't do, but the other device can do, is deploying firmware upgrades and things of that nature. It is probably not necessary for them to go that far because they'd have to open it up for so many different vendors. I was using a vendor product for certain devices, and it wasn't reliable and viable.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in the initial setup of Auvik at my location. It was straightforward, and I was surprised by how much information Auvik can give you. The way they deploy is the smartest way to deploy anything. You go through that trial period with them where you'll give it all the time to gather the information about your gear. When you're actually talking to the guys, they give you a demonstration of Auvik in your environment related to your gear and the information Auvik will use, which is very important. 

Before we got down to the purchase, I wanted to see information related to the gear that I actually have, and that's important for anybody. I didn't want to see the hypotheticals of if we had a specific gear. Instead of deploying it in my environment with the belief that it is going to be great, and then realizing it is not compatible with this, I wanted to know that first, see it, and then decide whether or not that's going to be a deal-breaker. For example, I might get to know that Auvik is not going to show me information about the access points that I have because the manufacturer's access points don't have a feature that allows Auvik to see that information.

In terms of the duration, we gave it a weekend. There are different methods for using Auvik, and you can spin up a Linux box and install Auvik that way, or you can use their appliance. Based on your environment, they have their recommendations, and then you just let it sit for some time while you configure all your devices to communicate with Auvik. The setup configuration took me half a day. I had to make sure that I had the traffic all permitted through the firewall, the switches and routers were all set up to send information to Auvik, and SNMP communication was all good. After all that was set up, I just had to wait for Auvik to gather the information. I come in on Monday, and I saw all the information Auvik gathered about the network topology and other things over the weekend.

Comparing Auvik's setup time with other solutions, I haven't seen better. Auvik does the work for you. I spent half a day setting up the SNMP information and entering whatever credentials I needed to enter into Auvik for the WMI communication. After that point, you'd have to kind of trim it down. You have to say that I don't want to see the subnet because it'll scan everything. When you give it the information to look at your route, it'll be able to grab any route that your router can see. If you're not concerned with the public WiFi that you might provide and that your router might handle, you can just eliminate that from the map. You just say don't scan the network, and this way, you're only looking at the data that you want to see, which is really handy. So, in terms of the setup time, it is about how fast you can get into your devices and how quickly can you enter the credentials into the devices that you manage.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its pricing is very reasonable. We had looked at other solutions where you pay based on the amount of traffic that was filtered through and analyzed. With Auvik, we pay by a billable device. For one of the locations I have, one network element would likely be a billable device. So, every billable device has a network element, but not every network element is a billable device. If I have a location that has 50 network elements, then maybe 30 of them are billable devices. PCs, VoIP phones, and access points are monitored at no charge. 

You pay based on billable devices, and that is very reasonable. You can control that to a certain extent and make a device unmanaged, but you don't get the benefits of Auvik being able to collect all of the information to make it useful. It'll tell you that this is an unmanaged device. You might know it is a switch, but it is not giving you any switch information. 

When you make a device managed, then it is a billable device. It is important to the whole cost of trying to replace your devices or expand your locations. You have to consider the cost of that switch. You have to think that if you are going to buy a switch, it is not just the price of this switch; it also becomes something that's billable in Auvik. Would you buy another switch, or would you replace the switch and buy a bigger switch? Auvik just continues to collect the data and continues to give you traffic insights, Syslog, and all other features that you want. It is worth it.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

There was one other solution that was evaluated in terms of install, deploy, and configure. Other ones for which I had seen demonstrations weren't what I was looking for. They could do things similar to Auvik, but they weren't what I was looking for at the time.

What other advice do I have?

When you're doing the trial, the trial is using your info. I would just say at least do the trial and see what it shows you and really explore all of the sub-menus. If you're looking for insight and alerting based on thresholds and health checks, it is definitely something worth looking at. It might take you some time to configure devices to communicate with Auvik, and then just let it do its thing and watch.

It is a little difficult to say whether Auvik helps us in putting out fires before people or end-users even get to know that there is a problem. If you are at your computer and your switch goes down to which it is connected, you're going to know at the same time I get to know, but I will know what happened. That is the kind of fire that it helps me put out. When I'm not looking at Auvik or any kind of monitoring system, if your switch goes down, you would come up and tell me that you don't have internet. I won't know why you don't have internet until I go in and see that all people don't have internet, and that switch is offline, but Auvik will let me know if there is an outage right away.

I would rate Auvik a nine out of 10. The only thing that keeps it from being a 10 is just the lack of some customization in certain areas. That has really been the main limitation for me. It is not that big a deal, but that would just get it right to a perfect score. I find it very valuable in terms of how quickly you can set something like this up and how much information you can see within your network from a single pane of glass. I still open up my other monitoring tools that are built into the devices, but I don't really view them as much as I view my firewall monitoring in Auvik. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1396761 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology System Administrator at a energy/utilities company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Jul 29, 2021
The traffic insights dashboard enables us to see the breakdown of the traffic over our network
Pros and Cons
  • "The traffic insights feature shows us our network bandwidth usage without the need for expensive inline traffic decryption. It's very important to us. Knowing exactly what's going on, what traffic is flowing over my network is very much an important thing for me to know. We know that policies and procedures are being followed. And so we know that nobody is doing anything that they shouldn't be doing on a company network."
  • "Auvik has less AI than what's readily available. I'd like for Auvik to incorporate more AI. I'm definitely a fan of more AI being integrated."

What is our primary use case?

I have access to Auvik as the system administrator to use it to view my network and manage the various pieces of it. 

I needed a solution like Auvik because I wanted real-time network mapping. At the time, we were using Visio diagrams, which are obviously very hard to keep updated. And so to have something that is running the cloud in real-time on what our network looks like was something I really was interested in.

How has it helped my organization?

When I have my backups run nightly, Auvik is able to tell me specifically which ports on the switches are being utilized. I'm able to label that so when I see traffic on my network at 10:00 AM, 10:00 PM, or in the middle of the night, I know it's regular traffic and not something that could possibly be an issue.

It helps to put out fires before people or end-users even know there is a problem because of how things work with notifications and everything. Through alerts and automation, we are able to resolve before a lot of people are aware of an issue.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is that it maps out of the network. It is very helpful to see an actual visual representation of how our network is connected. The traffic insights dashboard is also valuable so that we can see the breakdown of the traffic over our network.

Auvik is very easy to use. The URL or the page is very intuitive and very easy to navigate.

The network discovery capabilities are very good. After I put new devices on the network and I want to see them within 20 minutes or so, it picks it up. It's very good.

Auvik automatically updates our network topology. This has shortened our operations. Our network is more organized and it allows ease of finding issues or finding the path of the network that the traffic is taking. It takes a lot less time to figure that out.

It decreased our mean time to resolution. The particular piece of it usually takes me a while, so it saves around 20%.

The traffic insights feature shows us our network bandwidth usage without the need for expensive inline traffic decryption. It's very important to us. Knowing exactly what's going on, what traffic is flowing over my network is very much an important thing for me to know. We know that policies and procedures are being followed. And so we know that nobody is doing anything that they shouldn't be doing on a company network.

The traffic insights feature helped to show where our system is experiencing performance issues. We are able to see by looking at the daily reports that we run where we're slow or what pieces of equipment have a slower connection than others.

I was able to tweak a few of that so that's increased it by around 20%.

What needs improvement?

I don't really have any points of improvement. The few times I've had to call their customer service or use their customer service, they've been pretty prompt and I've been able to get issues resolved pretty much with one phone call. So I don't have any issues there. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Auvik for around one year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Everything's always been available. The maintenance windows have always been adequately advertised beforehand, so I haven't had any issue with availability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable. With the way they have it set up as you need it on the managed devices, scalability happens very quickly. You can add endpoints as needed.

I'm a small shop so we have between 150-200 endpoints. We don't have any substantial plans to increase usage at this time. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Every time I've had to call them with questions or issues I've been able to resolve everything with one phone call. I've never really had long hold times or anything like that. I'm very happy with their support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The ease of use is definitely higher with Auvik as well as the price points, which is why we went with Auvik. A lot of the other solutions we looked at were much more expensive. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very straightforward working with our Auvik tech. We walked straight through it. I think it got done fairly quickly and fairly easily. We had it up in less than one day.

It requires no maintenance. With me not having to manage it, it's something that's always available. So the fact that I don't have to take my time away to manage it, is always a bonus.

The time savings that the setup has saved us comes out to around $2,500 per year. 

What was our ROI?

With the troubleshoot time being lessened, we were able to get a pretty decent ROI.

When taking into account Auvik's setup time and automated network mapping and documentation, if I were to compare setting up a map, how we did it previously with Visio, that would take at least a few days of my time versus having it done automatically for me with Auvik. I'm not quite sure how that equates to dollars and cents. But it's at least three or four days of work that's not needed to be done.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing makes sense. I know they do it by managed device. Compared to everything else that we saw out there, they were very competitive with how they ran things. I think what they charge and everything makes sense.

There are no costs in addition to standard licensing. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The only difference between Auvik and the other solutions that stick out is that a lot of the more expensive ones have more AI built into them to allow better troubleshooting of network issues. Auvik doesn't seem to have that, but I'm sure that for the price, you get something very good. Auvik has less AI than what's readily available. I'd like for Auvik to incorporate more AI. I'm definitely a fan of more AI being integrated.

What other advice do I have?

Keeping in touch with our original Auvik rep has helped. He's been my main point of contact when it comes to anything else I've needed with Auvik because obviously, they know. Instead of going through the standard support stuff, actually having somebody to email and contact has always been beneficial. 

I would rate Auvik a nine out of ten. AI implementation would make it a perfect ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Auvik Network Management (ANM)
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Auvik Network Management (ANM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user1579899 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder, Managing Director at a computer software company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Jun 10, 2021
Enables us to easily track our bandwidth usage that's going in and out of each of the data centers
Pros and Cons
  • "The other element that it's helped us with is in predicting the future. And another thing that it allows us to do very easily is to track our bandwidth usage that's going in and out of each of the data centers. We've been able to use that information to trend and predict when we need to get upgrades in place. Funny enough, we have an order now where we're increasing our connectivity at one of our data centers tenfold and that's being driven because Auvik's enabled us to understand that we're rapidly approaching our threshold."
  • "It uses SNMP in its discovery process and how it pulls in data. But today it doesn't have an SNMP trap facility so you can't have your infrastructure devices push alerts into Auvik. And that for us would be a big feature that we would like to see."

What is our primary use case?

We're a cloud service provider, so we wanted a solution that would proactively be able to notify us of potential issues. We have four core cloud platforms that we provide. We wanted something that could look at both the network connectivity as well as the infrastructure and storage layers.

How has it helped my organization?

As a cloud provider, it's of paramount importance that we're connected to the internet and the cloud in general. If the data collectors ever go offline, there's an alert that's actually sent out to us. Because of the alert tiering, we can have it so that that's treated as an emergency alert and it goes to a different set of critical recipients. We've had it where it's assisted us when we were having issues with one of our IP transit providers, and we were able to use the logs that it provided to demonstrate that we had a definitive issue with the provider and their connectivity. That actually enabled us to push back on the IP transit provider and get quite a substantial claim approved because we were able to demonstrate how unstable the link was.

The other element that it's helped us with is in predicting the future. And another thing that it allows us to do very easily is to track our bandwidth usage that's going in and out of each of the data centers. We've been able to use that information to trend and predict when we need to get upgrades in place. Funny enough, we have an order now where we're increasing our connectivity at one of our data centers tenfold and that's being driven because Auvik's enabled us to understand that we're rapidly approaching our threshold.

The mapping tool does make it easy and convenient to access and get console-level access quickly and easily because of the way it works within Auvik, it embeds the credentials. It's a couple of clicks of the mouse button and you're on a console session. You don't have to go through that rigmarole of what's the IP address, how do I connect, what do I use PuTTy, do I use Telnet? What are the credentials? With Auvik it's very streamlined, click, point, click and you're on.

We've saved on intangible costs. The overhead of managing three different open-source platforms has now completely gone. We just have a SaaS platform, we pay our fee, and it does exactly what it says it will do.

It carries a high value ratio on time-to-value. The interesting thing with the price model is that that value ratio could change. It depends really on if you have a hundred switches, it's going to be a lot more expensive than a client that's only got two large switches. But for us, we find it's very high value for money and good value for money.

What is most valuable?

The auto-discovery and the mapping are quite nice. We can see how our data centers are connected. That was one of the immediate appeals. 

The change control that's built into it for picking up network device changes and recording is something else that we found to be extremely useful.

It's extremely easy to use, although sometimes some features can be a little bit hidden. You have to know where to look, but generally nine times out of ten, it's very straightforward and quite intuitive.

Network discovery is very good. Like anything that does auto-discovery, it can at times get confused, but it's very easy to select to do an override. If it mis-detects a firewall as a generic network device, it's very easy to correct that on a manual basis. But that happens quite infrequently.

It automatically updates our network topology. We're quite lucky we don't have too many issues. It has given the guys on the desk confidence that they can see very quickly and access any system that we've got monitored. In the early days, we had a hesitancy to know if we could rely on Auvik, but over the last couple of years, it's proven itself time and time again. If it tells us there's an issue, we trust that.

In certain circumstances, it has decreased our mean time to resolution. The bulk of our issues unfortunately tend to be more of an application layer, which Auvik doesn't have visibility into.

Auvik enabled us to consolidate or replace other tools. In the early days, we used to use a SaaS platform called LogicMonitor, which we then reverted from and pulled to an in-house solution. That ultimately became three open-source in-house solutions. It was at the point that we wanted to look at something that could consolidate and give us more intelligence and that's where Auvik came into play.

What needs improvement?

We use network mapping slightly differently from a lot of MSPs who are more focused on using Auvik to maintain end-user environments. We're looking at it maintaining quite a complex data center environment. The mapping is good, but that can mean that it can get a little bit unwieldily. So having the ability to be able to have more manual control on how the map is organized, would be really useful for us. 

It uses SNMP in its discovery process and how it pulls in data. But today it doesn't have an SNMP trap facility so you can't have your infrastructure devices push alerts into Auvik. And that for us would be a big feature that we would like to see.

The single sign-on piece that they have is really good. That works really well for us. Everything else we're really happy with. They have the chain of control stuff and configuration management piece, which was really nice to discover. We never knew about that. That was one of those things that we fell across and then make use of that quite extensively.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been an Auvik customer for approximately two to two and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't had any issues with availability. They do regular maintenance, but we always get proactively notified of it and it's never caused us an issue.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We use it to monitor two data center sites that have somewhere in the region of about 300 to 500 infrastructure devices in each and we never had a problem with it. My understanding is that if we went out to 20 data centers, it would scale without any issues.

It requires zero maintenance. We would have to do regular patch management with our on-prem solution. It wouldn't take up a huge amount of time, but it was something that had to be scheduled on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is extremely good. Any ticket that we've raised, whether it's a query or we feel that we've hit a bug, has been responded to promptly. They have an extensive knowledge base set of articles, which are invaluable for pointing you in the right direction.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We saw Auvik through one of our partners. We sell to IT resellers, and it was seeing the ease that they could actually access some of the information for a shared client that put us onto doing the evaluation. The one-week evaluation turned into a purchase.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very easy. We downloaded an OVF file, deployed, and connected. We had someone from their tech teams, once we had done the deployments, work with our service desk team and work through doing the initial config.

We had the collectors deployed in under a couple of hours and the configuration for each data center to set things up took us a week for each data center. That was a process that was hindered by us because we had to tweak and tune things to meet our requirements.

Compared to LogicMonitor, my experience was pretty much on par. The SaaS providers tend to have quite a streamlined model. You deploy a data collector, which they have as a single download, and then it starts to consume data into the SaaS platform. For SaaS to SaaS, it was pretty much the same. When you're doing your own on-prem deployment it's vastly more efficient. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We think the pricing is actually really cool. Only certain network devices make the pricing really cost-effective for us. We can monitor 50 servers and essentially one server or 50 servers has no impact on costs. The one thing I think that's crucial is just to make sure that you understand how many billable network devices you have in your estate before you move forward.

Typically, in our environment, VM hosts, storage arrays, virtual machines, or physical like Windows or Linux machines, all have no impact on cost. The only things that really impact costs are our network switches and our firewalls.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be to verify that it can cover all the devices that you want it to monitor. For us, it does virtually everything that we need and the odd exception hasn't caused us any major problems. We're still able to do basic monitoring. We just can't sometimes get the level of detail that we want. Go back to the environment and make sure that you understand your network and your network devices so that you can make sure that it's going to give you the value that you want.

The biggest lesson we've learned from Auvik is that we had an assumption that because it talks to the devices and discovers them using SNMP as one of its main mechanisms, we assumed that it would do this SNMP trap feature. We were surprised that it didn't. It hasn't caused us any major issues, but we do welcome the day that that's actually added as a feature.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. Not a ten because of the lack of the SNMP trapping and the fact that it's got a lot of flexibility on the devices it monitors, but there are a couple of holes. It's not a big issue for us.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
it_user1575159 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist at a renewables & environment company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Jun 9, 2021
TrafficInsights allows us to see interface utilization, both WAN-facing and LAN-facing, and provides historical data as well
Pros and Cons
  • "Being able to see things like the hardware lifecycle, if our equipment is up to date, if connections are broken, or whether there are physical line breaks, is helpful. We're able to determine connectivity issues. We can monitor pretty much anything that is network-related."
  • "It's rare, but sometimes the actual application itself can be a little slow. That's because of the amount of data that it is pulling from remote networks. That has been my only complaint with it and it's really not even a complaint. But if the speed of the application were to improve, it would help a lot."

What is our primary use case?

Our use case is to monitor and maintain not only our corporate headquarters, but all of our remote sites and embedded sites across our company.

It's a SaaS application.

How has it helped my organization?

It has definitely helped us to put out fires before people even know there is a problem. It helped us to discover a lot of network problems with one of our buildings so that we could have it rewired.

We're a pretty small team, there are four of us in IT. I'm the primary network person and then I have a backup. Auvik does help him and other members of the team, and our developer. We all wear multiple hats, but we have our specialties. It helps everybody on the team when I'm not able to get to something, and somebody has a network issue. It helps everyone else to diagnose the issue if I'm tied up working on something else.

The solution has also decreased our mean time to resolution by at least half. We're able to very quickly see what's going on. We can see the connections within the image it shows, but we can also deep-dive quickly through the TrafficInsights and the logging. Even if you quickly go ahead and make a decision to reboot something to restore service, you can still capture logging and things that would normally be on the device, so that you can quickly figure out what happened. That helps with root cause analysis for after the fact so that you can come up with plans to avoid the issue going forward. That's the kind of thing we didn't have before. Before we'd have to make a quick decision regarding, "Do we troubleshoot this to figure it out or do we go ahead and just reboot it?" Nine times out of 10, that'll probably resolve your issue.

What is most valuable?

It's a network monitoring system, so being able to see things like the hardware lifecycle, if our equipment is up to date, if connections are broken, or whether there are physical line breaks, is helpful. We're able to determine connectivity issues. We can monitor pretty much anything that is network-related.

It's fairly easy to use out-of-the-box.

We also use the TrafficInsights feature and it has been a huge help to us. Using it, we can see interface utilization, both WAN-facing and LAN-facing. We can see what kind of bandwidth we're using and what is using that bandwidth: what type of application, what host is using it, and how long it's been using it. And the historical data of TrafficInsights is great as well.

With TrafficInsights, we can obviously tell when our backups are running, because we run nightly backups and hourly backups. We can see the performance utilization of our backup server. And we can also tell, end-user-wise, what applications end-users are using and how long they're using them for. And while we don't necessarily know what they're doing, at the same time we kind of do know what they're doing. We know what websites they're going to, so we understand how they're utilizing the internet connection.

When it comes to identifying where we are experiencing performance issues using the TrafficInsights feature, I'm actually working on that right now, for the comptroller of our company. It's mainly about trying to get her to call me when it actually happens so I can log in and see it. This is the first time I've used it to diagnose an actual connection problem.

Auvik's network discovery capabilities are pretty fast. The biggest thing is that you have to commit to SNMP. You have to turn that on so that you can get the layer below. From a ping perspective, it does a great job of discovering devices on the network, once you have pointed it at the right entry point. You have to commit to a few protocols to open up the network so that it will get to the levels below the surface, where you're actually pulling information, data, logging, et cetera. If you really want to manage the network, you do have to open up a few protocols.

It also automatically updates network topology. It has a great map view of everything so that you can see all the connection points and the health of a connection. You can say whether it's a ping or if you have the right protocols set up so that you can pull in information. It's very easy to quickly see, from a graph, where you need to possibly address setup issues. The other thing that is great about the highlighting is when you have unknown devices on the network. They will come up and you can quickly filter for them in a very easy-to-use table. That way, you can tackle if they really are unknown devices or if somebody is trying to do something they shouldn't.

What needs improvement?

It's rare, but sometimes the actual application itself can be a little slow. That's because of the amount of data that it is pulling from remote networks. That has been my only complaint with it and it's really not even a complaint. But if the speed of the application were to improve, it would help a lot.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Auvik since December, so it's been about six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

They do really well with the availability of the application. When they need to take maintenance windows, unless it's emergency maintenance, which I've only seen one time, they always have a backup. That means it's pretty much available all the time. We've never had a problem with it going down, ever.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's pretty scalable. It's always easy to add on another visible device. Depending on how you decide to set up your network, you're going to pull in anything that isn't a piece of that main entry point. From a pricing standpoint, that part's good. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support has been crazy good. A challenge for us, if we wanted to consider leaving the product, is just how good they are. Not only were they engaged from the beginning—even as easy as it was—but they guided us through and showed us different tools. They gave us multiple workshops. And even after those workshops we've had quarterly follow-up.

They really want you to use the product. It's not even a partnership issue. Rather, you can just tell they love what they do. It's definitely one of the better relationships I've come across in the last 20-something years of IT. That made the decision to go with them really easy for us. We felt really good about it after as well.

They're also very open to feedback and to looking at what that can lead to in terms of development and enhancing of their product. They've done so much reaching out to us. We have nothing but great things to say about them.

They definitely work with us. They don't just say, "Here, we sold you a product." They want us to get the most out of it, and that's what changes it to a partnership-type relationship.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We didn't have anything before Auvik, and it's helped out immensely.

How was the initial setup?

There are a couple of tricky things to set up. You've got to know the equipment that you're running, but once you know that and you work alongside Auvik and use their Knowledge Base, it's extremely easy to set up. We had ours up and running in a day and we had it fine-tuned in a couple of months.

As a cloud-based solution, other than troubleshooting, there's barely any maintenance on our side. A lot of it is just the initial setup, such as getting a site running, and even that doesn't take that much time. You can have a site up and running and loaded in 30 minutes or less, if you know what you're doing. It's very straightforward, very easy to use, a lot of it is point-and-click. Once you've set up a few sites, you tend to know it like I know the back of my hand. It's super-easy for me to set stuff up.

What about the implementation team?

We worked with an Auvik technical engineer. They had a deployment roadmap that we followed, and typically, every other week we were going through the different features and functions. We would set up a meeting to go over, for example, setting up SNMP and SSH login and turning on TrafficInsights. They helped us tune it to the way that we needed to use it.

What was our ROI?

The time-to-value ratio, for us, was day one. We had nothing before Auvik, so as soon as we got the product up and going, we were already seeing the networks through the discovery services. After a session of a few hours, we started to understand the SNMP and how to set things up and pull in a lot more of the logging and alerting, detailed information regarding the traffic. Within two to four hours, on top of the discovery stuff, we were off to the races. We quickly discovered versions and where we were from an asset-management perspective. We could see older equipment that we had, and we were able to quickly target a hardware refresh. The time-to-value was almost instant.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's great for small businesses, but when you start reviewing the pricing model, depending on how many devices, and what sub-devices you decide to pull in, it can get tricky as far as the pricing goes. 

For us, as a mid-sized organization, it works great. There are some functions and features that you might get from a Meraki or from SolarWinds that, if you have a more robust networking team or a security team, might be useful, and Auvik might get passed over for an enterprise-grade solution. That said, Auvik is phenomenal for us. It's great for what we use it for. It gives us a very powerful tool at a very cost-effective price point for our size of an organization.

We have 20 to 25 billable devices. In terms of endpoints, we at least have 250 machines and there are a bunch of printers that we've got alerting on, and other miscellaneous devices that are connected to networks.

The challenge might be for a more robust network, where you start putting in a lot of billable devices. There's going to be a point where this solution would potentially be more expensive than some of the enterprise solutions, just because of the billing structure. Auvik could potentially price itself out of large organizations because of how it does billable devices and lose out to solutions that not only have more robust services but that price things out differently.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have looked at a couple of open-source, network monitoring solutions, but they weren't as robust as this. NinjaRMM was one of the solutions we looked at. We pretty much just chose Auvik and moved forward with it. 

The strength of Auvik, and many of the tools at its price point, are the out-of-the-box monitoring capabilities. Where Auvik pulls ahead is when you set up SNMP and you're able to scan the layer details and information from all the devices underneath. That's when you're really going to start getting more of the robustness it offers, whether it's TrafficInsights or it's the asset management that comes from having a network monitoring tool. That's definitely where it comes out ahead. Ninja RMM, for example, is just giving you a high-level inventory of what it sees on the network. It probably wouldn't give you much more than a Lansweeper or the like.

What other advice do I have?

My recommendation is that even if you have network experience, their product is vendor-neutral, so pay attention to the way that they do things. Even though it is specific to them, it's very easy to get used to the way that they have everything laid out.

Take advantage of the training sessions and of all the meetings. Go through the certification course that they have and pay attention to the Knowledge Base. Everything that they have done shows that they actually care about what they're doing and what they like doing. They are there to help. They will bend over backward to help you.

It does configuration backups and it takes them automatically. I also do those on the side as well, manually. In the event that something does happen, it's always better to have a backup. We've got backups for everything. We haven't come across any issues where we've had to use the configuration backups yet.

It does its job well. I would rate it at nine out of 10. I'm a little bit more network-driven, so a lot of the things it can do are fun, for me. I probably enjoy it more than anybody else on the team. 

You can definitely tell that this solution is younger than some others. It definitely knows its niche. It gave us everything we needed, to the point where I could rate it an 11 out of 10. But if I start to look at SolarWinds and some of the other names out there, some integration capability to do all the clicks within the service would probably be the next improvement that I would want. But if you ask for those, it may price itself out of where it's at now, which is a really great spot.

I don't see us leaving it for quite some time for sure.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
CIO at a retailer with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 10
Jun 9, 2021
Started providing value right away by immediately sending out alerts
Pros and Cons
  • "Auvik is easy to use. The first thing you see when you open it up is a map of the United States or wherever you are, and it shows the locations of all of your network endpoints. For discovery, you set credentials and manage the credentials and it tells you when it needs a new credential. So you just click the "Manage Credentials" button and it takes you to the right spot. You enter in a new credential and then it starts looking closer at the device. It can give you all kinds of information from inside the device's log. We use it for CIS logs and we use it for just regular logging. The CIS log was something I was looking for in the other products, just so we have a place for the CIS logs to congregate so we can look them up."
  • "The map would be the first thing I would like to see improved because sometimes the maps get really odd-looking and the automated placement of things on the map, devices on the map is sometimes not right. In fact, I was just looking at the map and something got moved. I'm sure it didn't get moved, it's just that Auvik realized it was supposed to go somewhere else. So the map could be better if there was a little bit of manual manipulation that you could do."

What is our primary use case?

We use Auvik to monitor two different domains and to review any trouble that might come up. It's opened our eyes to some problems that we've had on the network and now we're working to fix those.

How has it helped my organization?

One of the things we noticed is that our wifi access points were throwing a bunch of errors. So we're in the process to replace those access points.

It is also very good at notifying you if the network goes down, and then it'll tell you if it's cleared or if it's come back up. 

Auvik started providing value right away. The APs immediately started sending alerts. It's really important that the wireless network works properly over at that location. Looking at the alerts, it's got big problems, and it's just because of old devices.

What is most valuable?

The alerts that it sends out are the most valuable aspect of this solution. The maps are okay. The interface is okay, but the alerts are what I really like.

Auvik is easy to use. The first thing you see when you open it up is a map of the United States or wherever you are, and it shows the locations of all of your network endpoints. For discovery, you set credentials and manage the credentials and it tells you when it needs a new credential. So you just click the "Manage Credentials" button and it takes you to the right spot. You enter in a new credential and then it starts looking closer at the device. It can give you all kinds of information from inside the device's log. We use it for CIS logs and we use it for just regular logging. The CIS log was something I was looking for in the other products, just so we have a place for the CIS logs to congregate so we can look them up.

The menu on the left-hand side is very straightforward and clear. If you want to see it, just log on to a certain endpoint, bring up that endpoint, click CIS log on the left-hand side, and you'll see the CIS log.

It's easy to navigate. Everything is intuitive and easily accessible.

The network discovery capability is very good. Last week we refreshed one of our locations, and while an employee was out there refreshing the location or replacing devices, I could sit and watch Auvik find the new device and start mapping it. It automatically updates our network topology.

There's only one other team member and he doesn't use it. So it's just me that uses it. And I use it to make sure that there are no loops in the network or the network is not configured wrong. Every once in a while, the map will do something funny and we'll have to try to figure out what it did. You are better off if you physically document the ports that things are plugged into and then put those into Auvik, which is not hard. You just click on the connection line and go ahead and edit it.

We never would have known that the access points were a problem until Auvik came along. The location that has the bad access points was running slow and we could not figure out why without Auvik. The network was basically configured wrong. Something was plugged in and created the loop. Within hours, we could have somebody go onsite to fix it.

We use the TrafficInsights feature a little. It shows us network bandwidth usage without the need for expensive inline traffic decryption. The part that's important to me is the application breakdown. It breaks down the applications that are running and taking up bandwidth. It lists all the applications that are taking up bandwidth.

What needs improvement?

The map would be the first thing I would like to see improved because sometimes the maps get really odd-looking and the automated placement of things on the map, devices on the map is sometimes not right. In fact, I was just looking at the map and something got moved. I'm sure it didn't get moved, it's just that Auvik realized it was supposed to go somewhere else. So the map could be better if there was a little bit of manual manipulation that you could do.

Everything else is pretty simple and straightforward and easy to use.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Auvik for six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's always been stable for me and available. They do have scheduled downtime, but that's usually in the middle of the night and it's usually pretty quick.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have a small network. We do have two domains, which a lot of things don't work well with as far as network tools, but Auvik works great. It just picks out both networks and we go from there. 

We're monitoring 575 devices with Auvik. We've maxed out on our network. We might add other devices.

It requires zero maintenance from our side. 

How are customer service and technical support?

I've used support once or twice and they were efficient, quick, and solved the problem. I don't remember what the problem was, but they were quick and efficient about it.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very easy. We use VMware, so we set up the connectors that we needed and Auvik just started working. It started going through the network and building maps at each location. It was very simple. The setup took a few hours to a day.

What was our ROI?

It's too soon to have seen ROI, but I'm sure we will.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The value is there. It's not that expensive per device and it's licensed per device. Unlike some of the other tools that I use, it's not really expensive. It's a good value for the price.

Out of those 575 devices, 49 of them are billable. The non-billable devices are workstations and printers.

What other advice do I have?

Everything just worked. The important thing is to set up your devices properly so that there are passwords and ports that Auvik can use so that it can get in, get the configuration, and also flag any alerts.

I would rate Auvik an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
it_user1567476 - PeerSpot reviewer
Global IT Security Administrator at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Jun 7, 2021
Automatically builds and updates network topology and helps us in standardizing our platforms
Pros and Cons
  • "The visibility that it provides is probably the most valuable feature because we need to know what our sites look like. Understanding what our sites look like and knowing about what kind of network gear or network equipment these sites are running is very important for us. Previously, we didn't have visibility into everything."
  • "They can definitely build more alerts."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for visibility into remote sites. We use it to fix misconfigurations that come up, investigate network issues or network slowdowns, and alert us if devices go down.

In terms of deployment, it is pretty much all cloud-based. There is an agent that you put on a server for your site.

How has it helped my organization?

We have been able to see potential misconfigurations across the network where things like STP are not set up properly. 

It has helped us to deal with issues proactively. When disk space is low on endpoints or servers, we have set up alerts to preemptively reach out to people so that we can take care of it before it becomes a bigger issue. We are able to let users know that we need to upgrade the storage on servers or endpoints.

The automation of network mapping has allowed us more time to focus on things that we deem necessary. It has enabled our junior network specialist to resolve issues directly and freed up senior-level team members to perform higher-value tasks.

I am sure it has decreased our mean time to resolution, but it is something that I need to reconfirm with our local system administrators. 

It automatically updates our network topology. It has also simplified our operations and saved the time of our staff members to a limited degree. Our structure is a little bit different from most companies, so I can't describe the full impact, but it has been helpful for the visibility that it provides into local networks.

What is most valuable?

The visibility that it provides is probably the most valuable feature because we need to know what our sites look like. Understanding what our sites look like and knowing about what kind of network gear or network equipment these sites are running is very important for us. Previously, we didn't have visibility into everything.

Its network discovery capabilities are excellent. It is able to automatically scan subnets as long as they're reachable from the host machine. After you have installed it, you can choose which subnets you want to scan to build your network. It will automatically build a topographic map of the network, which is good to understand the structure of each of these networks. It does this in a fairly quick response time and with ease of use and ease of access. 

Alerting is a great feature. We have been able to set up alerts for devices to preemptively reach out to users and let them know that we need to upgrade the storage on servers or endpoints. 

It is very easy to use and deploy. You can easily configure network monitoring on the sites.

What needs improvement?

They can definitely build more alerts. Firewalls can be more integrated to provide more information, and there can be better integration with Meraki. 

It also needs ports for stack switches. Getting into the Office 365 realm would also be a good thing for them.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Auvik for about eight months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is rock-solid in terms of stability. We have not had any downtime. It hasn't gone down on us. Maintenance windows are scheduled appropriately, and notifications are sent out in advance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. It is currently being used in 15 to 20 different networks. Across global sites, we probably monitor more than 1,000 devices.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't really had to use their technical support. We've just taken help from our onboarding success manager.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We needed something that was easy to deploy and gave us visibility. We also needed something that we could standardize across the sites.

How was the initial setup?

It is certainly easy enough to deploy. Our strategy was to work with each site for a couple of hours to install the agents and have the credentials in place in Auvik. We repeated this for every company that we had, and it took us about two months to deploy it to more than 20 organizations. 

What about the implementation team?

In its deployment, 10 to 15 system administrators were involved. Auvik has an onboarding specialist, and this specialist was the only person whose help we required. Their specialist was top-notch, professional, and caring, and our experience was great.

It is a cloud-based solution, so we don't have to do any maintenance. 

What was our ROI?

We have seen our return on investment in terms of visibility and standardizing of platforms. Auvik has enabled us to standardize our platforms. We have replaced all of our other local network monitors with a single platform. I don't know if it has really saved us in licensing costs. It is not cheap, but it has allowed us to consolidate all our other platforms.

Taking into account Auvik's setup time, automated network mapping, and documentation,
it has a pretty good time to value.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its pricing is a little on the high end. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. 

It is more expensive than other solutions, but their per-device model is very fair. Anything other than the networking gear is monitored by Auvik at no charge.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated LogicMonitor. LogicMonitor has a much wider breadth in what it can do and monitor. It is also much more configurable than Auvik, but Auvik is easier to roll out in a quicker timeframe. Auvik also wins with the autodiscovery and mapping features.

What other advice do I have?

It is definitely for larger networks, and the ease of deployment is where Auvik shines. 

It provides automated out-of-the-box device configuration backups, but we do not use this feature. We are also not using as many TrafficInsights features as we would like to use. We are planning to use more, but at this time, we do not utilize many TrafficInsights features.

I would rate Auvik an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
it_user1571073 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network/Systems Admin at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Jun 6, 2021
Found devices I didn't know existed and has decreased our mean time to resolution
Pros and Cons
  • "It also automatically updates network topology. Once it discovers something new, and we allow it, it will update it within the interface. Then, when you log in to the cloud, it shows it. It's kinds of neat. It shows you exactly where things connect. We can see and connect the dots."
  • "Sometimes we get false positives, which every now and then is not a big deal. But it would help if they made it a little easier to suppress some of the alarms."

What is our primary use case?

We really needed something for reading logs, so we can go back in time, and also something to monitor our network and our infrastructure in real-time. I use it for everything as far as monitoring in real-time goes, to see what's going on in our network, along with Kace. 

It's deployed on-premises, but it's using the cloud to get to you. You can use it on-premises, but we prefer the cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

Its network discovery capabilities are very quick and very precise. It really drills down and finds different devices. It found devices I didn't know existed. As a network administrator, that is horrifying. Our team is pretty small and we were hired to tighten things up. Auvik has helped us to do that. It has taken a while, but we found some little switches that people put in years ago that I didn't even know existed.

In addition, it has decreased our mean time to resolution. Something that would take me a couple of hours now takes 30 minutes.

What is most valuable?

For what I do, the real-time monitoring is the most important feature. When I log in, I can drill down into the network where I'm seeing the issues. It sends an email, "Hey, I cannot communicate with the server." Sometimes it's a false positive, but when I see it several times, there is something else going on and I drill down into that.

It also automatically updates network topology. Once it discovers something new, and we allow it, it will update it within the interface. Then, when you log in to the cloud, it shows it. It's kinds of neat. It shows you exactly where things connect. We can see and connect the dots. It shows you, for example, that this switch has access here, which has access there. And maybe you didn't want it to have access there. It helps you drill down and say, "I didn't want to go this far."

It does out-of-the-box backing up of your running-config for your routers or for your switches. If I need it, it just takes seconds. I can just go to our Auvik port in the cloud, and it's there.

You have to use MFA with it, always. And it's constantly updating for security, and that's very important in today's environment.

What needs improvement?

This is not even a bad issue, but when Auvik can't get to your network or can't get to a device for whatever reason, it does send you alerts. But sometimes we get false positives, which every now and then is not a big deal. But it would help if they made it a little easier to suppress some of the alarms. But that's really a feature I don't have to have. Sometimes more is better. If you had to twist my arm and to make me come up with something, that would be it.

For how long have I used the solution?

We bought Auvik in the fall, about eight months ago.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Generally, we have not had an issue. If it's going to be offline, Auvik will tell you well ahead of time that they're going offline for maintenance. It's almost never down. It's only been down twice and the most recent time it was back up very quickly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable. I would definitely give it five stars on that. In our environment, it's looking at 1,562 devices.

How are customer service and technical support?

I've only had to use their technical support a couple of times and they were top-notch. They were polite and, both times, it was a very dumb question on my part and they didn't make me feel dumb. They are very sharp men and women.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We didn't have a solution before Auvik, other than manual scripts that fit our needs until we grew. Once we grew and it got so overwhelming, Auvik really helped with that. It was very robust, but it wasn't all over the place. When it was said and done, we really loved the whole platform. It was very user-friendly.

How was the initial setup?

It tells you right out-of-the-box the credentials that it's going to need, such as SSH, your logins, et cetera. You set up the network that you want it to go monitor and, with the IDs and passwords, it pulls all the information in. You have to open up and allow Auvik in from your firewall. There are some prerequisites you have to take care of to use it and you may want to suppress a few alarms, out-of-the-box. It took a couple of days and then it had what we need, right there. 

It took some getting used to, but I started figuring things out. And they were always available for any questions that we had.

Currently, it's just our director,  the engineer, and myself who are using Auvik in our company. We're looking to get everybody more access but we just haven't gotten there yet. I'm still trying to figure it out myself, to learn more as I go with it. 

As a cloud-based solution, it requires no maintenance on our side, unless we have to update a password. But there's nothing for us to do in Auvik in terms of maintenance.

What was our ROI?

For me, part of the return on investment is just knowing it's there. If you need to pull back for litigation, or our 911 facilities are down, that's when you get your return on investment. You don't know how much your return is because it prevents stuff from happening, stuff that could be very costly.

The time to value is excellent. It's worth every penny that you pay for it. It will save you money. It might not be something that finance or an accountant can see, but if you look at what it's preventing, or what it's helping you monitor in the long run, where downtime and the like could be an issue, it helps you get ahead of the game and you're saving money in that way. We're government, so we're not making money outside of taking your taxes, but at the same time, it is saving money. You may not be able to put a dollar value on it, but I can tell you, you are saving money.

For me, it's security. That is why we have it; for security and to help prevent something from happening that would cost a bunch of money. That's where it saves you. And for auditing purposes, it helps you with litigation.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I didn't deal with the pricing of it. Our director did. It took some back and forth negotiating, but we did get close and came to a compromise. Definitely look for your sales rep to take care of it. They really went out of their way to help us out so that we could get the product.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at several products, including Splunk, NetScout briefly, and PRTG. SolarWinds was a product the company used before I got here but we just didn't use it after I started.

With Auvik, I really like the reporting. That's really what sold it, along with the layout. It was just easier to get around and it made more sense. I don't have to sit down and really study logs. And it works in real-time. Some of the other products took a while to give us the reporting, but with Auvik it is right there. If I have an issue with, say, a switch or there is a network where everything is going down at times, Auvik has a great reporting tool and I can just pull up my reports. I can see all the problems I've had. And you can pinpoint things. It tells you, "Hey, you might want to look here. And these could be the reasons why this is happening." The other products didn't do that.

The auditing of the syslogs was important to my director. That was a big selling point for her and that's how we finally got her to buy Auvik. She really likes those for auditing purposes. It was exactly what she was looking for. And for the rest of us, the engineers, it had what we were looking for. It does it all.

What other advice do I have?

My advice is to use their technical support. Yes, you can learn it on your own and it will help you, but don't be scared to use their technical support. Their support is top-notch. Most of them have probably forgotten more about network security than you have ever known about it. Use them. They want to help you. They have training available, so use the training. They offer it to you as part of the package. Watch the videos and do the training, but do not be scared to use their technical support. They're there to help you.

For what Auvik's doing with the switches, I use it all the time. I always look at my emails for any reporting that it does. I usually know a site will go down, because of alerts from Auvik, before anyone calls. Anything from Auvik goes to my alarm. As soon as it reports, I know they're down, even before they call. I use it a lot.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2321841 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Dec 19, 2023
We like having a convenient cloud-based platform that we don't have to host locally
Pros and Cons
  • "People typically use Auvik to look at NetFlow data, but we went for it because we wanted a convenient cloud-based platform to collect data that we don't have to host locally. We like that having space available is not our problem. You can deploy an agent on your network through a virtual machine running on a secure Linux operating system. It's a secure product, and the data we need is available in the cloud."
  • "Price sensitivity is an issue in the country where we use Auvik because of our exchange rate. It would be helpful if they could offer a slightly more affordable price in this region. I'd also like to see Auvik introduce more AI-driven features."

What is our primary use case?

Our initial purpose was to look at network data from our endpoint protection units. We wanted more visibility into the traffic coming into and out of the organization.

How has it helped my organization?

One of Auvik's big benefits is that it's cloud-based. You have agents that you deploy locally, but other tools require us to deploy a virtual machine inside our network. We needed to secure the operating system on the VM and ensure it was always functional and patched. With Auvik, we don't need to worry about that. We periodically need to patch the VM that reports back, but it's not as frequent as managing your own virtual machine.

NetFlow data is available in Auvik. That's an advantage over other reporting tools. You can be certain about the data going in and out, so it's easier to troubleshoot bottlenecks and look at the network switch interfaces to see which ones are overwhelmed with traffic. 

Auvik has decreased our mean time to resolution by around 10 percent by improving reporting. We pick up errors that we could probably find with other systems, but the Auvik system is a little quicker about sending us the alerts. 

What is most valuable?

People typically use Auvik to look at NetFlow data, but we went for it because we wanted a convenient cloud-based platform to collect data that we don't have to host locally. We like that having space available is not our problem. You can deploy an agent on your network through a virtual machine running on a secure Linux operating system. It's a secure product, and the data we need is available in the cloud.

The interface is easy to use. You need to refer to the manuals, but there's enough documentation for you to get started without the need to contact support. We primarily use it for NetFlow data instead of network troubleshooting, but we launched a little project to look at internal traffic, and it was quite intuitive based on my experience. 

What needs improvement?

Price sensitivity is an issue in the country where we use Auvik because of our exchange rate. It would be helpful if they could offer a slightly more affordable price in this region. I'd also like to see Auvik introduce more AI-driven features. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Auvik for probably a year already.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Auvik is 100 percent stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It seems like Auvik can scale quite quickly. We don't have a large network, but I believe it can scale well. 

How are customer service and support?

I rate Auvik support eight out of 10. I haven't contacted them much, but I was satisfied with our limited interactions. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have used other solutions, but we haven't used something that would be considered Auvik's competitor. Previously, we used a combination of tools. We used some of the native reporting tools that came with products of some of the switches. Auvik's reporting delivers more granular details.

How was the initial setup?

Auvik is a cloud-based solution, but you need to install an on-prem agent that communicates with the cloud service. The deployment was straightforward, and you can get the solution running in a few hours. It takes a little longer to start ingesting the data. We have two people monitoring the solution. It requires limited maintenance aside from periodically updating the agent. 

What was our ROI?

I can only say that I think Auvik is worth the price, but I haven't calculated an ROI. We spent less time implementing and maintaining it, and it has improved our resolution time. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

From our perspective, Auvik is slightly expensive because of the exchange rate between our country's currency and the US dollar. It makes a significant difference. Some devices are covered at no charge. We don't use it extensively, so it isn't that essential. Maybe we'll use it more in the future, so it's nice to know that they have free offerings we can use as part of the solution. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Auvik eight out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Auvik Network Management (ANM) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Auvik Network Management (ANM) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.