SolarWinds NPM Reviews

When it comes to the new features in NPM 11, the most valuable addition for us is the deep packet analysis Quality of Experience dashboard (QoE).

There's so many times where we get a question such as – “Is the network running slow?” It's really helpful being able to configure the deep packet analysis to say we want to look at these servers and just these particular applications - and get rid of the other noise. Before we started using NPM, we could get this info with Wireshark but it was incredibly painful getting it.

From a QoE point of view - I'm really grateful it was released so that we could get started taking advantage of the features. The one thing that would make it even more helpful would be to allow us to define our own applications. But having said that, I posted a feature request on the thwack community and got a response from SolarWinds within a half hour, asking for more details about my feature request.

We started using NPM about a year ago and we’ve been using NPM v11 for about 3 months.

We previously used WhatsUpGold, which has a fraction of the features for a tenth of the price. Moving to SolarWinds was a huge jump for our management since they were moving from a $3,000 - $4,000 solution to something which costs us $30,000 - 40,000 (5 SolarWinds products). I showed management the feature request page for NPM. What they noticed right away was that 50% of the feature requests had a "what we're working on" tag. With SolarWinds, management gets visibility into our infrastructure without them having to ask us questions. They can look themselves, it's all there. The fact that SolarWinds listens to customer feedback and requests makes all the difference.

For NPM 11, it enables management to see all of our infrastructure and gives them a heads up without doing a lot of work of how our systems are doing. To quantify it, I’ll explain it like this: we were looking to upgrade portions of our networks and our CIO suggested spending money to increasing bandwidth in our datacenter. We used NPM 11 and found that our network bandwidth within the datacenter was incredibly underutilized, we could use more bandwidth by our workstations. NPM helped us focus where to spend money on our infrastructure because we can tell where we need to spend, rather than just a gut feeling. We didn't have that visibility with WhatsUpGold. WhatsUpGold is good as an alerting tool but it’s useless for historical reporting. Graphs and easy correlation in SolarWinds are light-years ahead of what we were doing previously. Historical data is also more useful, we can go back 6-months and say ask ourselves what our pain points are and where we should invest more money. NPM paid for itself by allowing us to spend money where it needs to be spent.

Our primary use case for the solution is to monitor whether certain devices are up or down, monitor bandwidth utilization and have a network performance monitor.

The ability to quickly identify downtime is the most valuable because we use the solution for monitoring. For example, a map that shows all of our switches, which make up our core infrastructure, and then the small firewalls that connect to the other locations so that we can see how our devices are running. Hence, the monitoring ability to create those maps and monitor everything on warmup is a very valuable feature for us.

The solution works very well for our current use case, but the price of the solution can be improved.

We have been using the solution for a while and are currently using version 12.4, but we are considering upgrading it.

We have not had issues with stability. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

The solution is scalable, and there is currently only two staff utilizing the solution in our organization, but we have plans to increase usage further.

We have a fairly small environment, but this is because we only have about 15 switches, some servers, and our remote locations, so we're using a couple of hundred nodes altogether, but we can scale up to probably thousands or even tens of thousands because there is room to add additional servers. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten.

We dealt with customer service and support once for a license issue, and they resolved our concerns swiftly.

Positive

SolarWinds NPM was the first network monitoring solution we used

The initial setup was complex as there was quite a bit of work that had to be done in terms of setting up databases and making sure the database was linked to the application.

We implemented the solution through a vendor team the first time, but further installations were done in-house.

The licensing costs are fairly high. I rate it a five out of ten.

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

What I like about SolarWinds is the application health monitoring system. It's a very good system, and I recommend it to big companies in the pharmaceutical or the banking industries, for example, with large networks and very critical servers. 

The other valuable system is the DSS (decision support system). If there's a fault in the network, SolarWinds is basically capable of rectifying and resolving that problem on its own without any intervention from an IP assistant or administrator.

The evaluation time for the product is too short especially for large corporations.

I have approximately seven years of experience.

We have a hybrid cloud type of deployment.

SolarWinds is a stable product.

It's a very scalable solution because you can install different pollers.

I have not had a good experience with technical support because most of the time when I contact them, they first want to know whether you have a license. If you do, then they support you. However, if you are working on the evaluation version they do not take your queries very seriously. There is some level of support, but it's not at a high level. So, I'd rate them at six on a scale from one to ten.

Neutral

The initial setup process requires specific knowledge of the product, and if the implementation manager has the appropriate knowledge, it will not be that difficult to set it up.

The deployment can take up to two weeks depending on the size and complexity of the network.

When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low.

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

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

If there's a connectivity issue, the packets have dropped, or the traffic is going through any of the routers, you can see where that is just stuck.

The individual’s bandwidth we do not know. For monitoring purposes, we can find the exact amounts through this NPM, Network Performance Monitor, and Network Traffic Analyzer. We can see who is using how much bandwidth and where the traffic is stuck. It provides visibility to show what the issue is in our network.

The solution is very good. Previously, in the solution, there was no more option for customizing the reports and the alerts. However, they’ve improved. Now, in the last two years, since 2021, they have had a new release, a new version, and there are a lot of options for customization of the dashboard, alerts, and reports. 

Over the last couple of years, they have introduced features like NetPath and PerfStack. That is very helpful for any of the admins to troubleshoot issues to know precisely what is going on in nodes.

If we go for the NT license, then we have to purchase the NPM, Network Performance Monitor. That is a dependency. In all of the SolarWinds products now, there are only these products. For example, Net Traffic Analyzer is a product. If we go for the licensing, then we have to purchase a Network Performance Monitor. There's dependency there. If they could combine everything into one product, that would be very helpful.

The NT is the enhanced version of the NPM. They have not put a license on the different monitors of the NT. However, they have to include in the same manner in the NPM itself.

For NetPath services, right now, we have to manually install the events in the nodes. If there was something from the console side, we could post the event to the nodes. If there was automation, that would be helpful. Already there's automation for other types of things or in other features, like for communication of the nodes. However, for the NetPath feature, if we could automatically move the event from the console side to the application side, that would be a great feature.

I’ve been using the solution for the last five years.

It’s stable.

In 2020, as most people know, there was an attack on SolarWinds. At that time, there was a problem. However, in 2021, everything was good. If it wasn’t, we would have been looking for another solution. Everything has been stabilized.

We are using one in five total devices connected to that SolarWinds. We are using an AP, Additional Polling engine that will scale the solution. Scalability is there.

Only the licensing part is different. We have to purchase more licenses on that part. Currently, we are monitoring 12,000 nodes. If we want to go to the 13,000 nodes, then we have to purchase one additional license, the Additional Polling license.

We have about 50 people using the solution. They are system admins. In the North, the solution is used vastly. In the South, the solution is used by the different departments. I'm not part of the South. I'm part of the North.

We do have plans to increase usage.

For L2 or L1 problems, we are giving the support. For the L3 level, if the issue is beyond our reach, then we contact the support team from Solarwinds.

We have an online number. We have to call that number, and we’ll get support. They will support you, for example, if the system is down. Otherwise, you can open a support ticket, and they will help.

Overall, the support is good.

Now we are using Tripwire also for some of our customers. It is also good.

I am not using any other products. However, there are some solutions that are free tools.

The initial setup is straightforward. We have to just go to NetPath and just connect to the database. Once the connection is established to the database, then we will be up on both devices. There are a lot of options for onboarding the devices. It is easy. Anyone can do it.

There's an admin guide. There's a very helpful guide that SolarWinds has provided on their customer portal. There are training options too. You are well prepared.

The deployment took two to three hours to install the product and five to six hours for the entire deployment. It’s pretty fast if you have a good strategy.

While one person is enough to deploy or manage the solution, it would depend on how many devices you are dealing with.

If you are going to monitor 2,000 devices, one person is enough. If you're going to monitor a large number of devices, you might need two managers for all devices.

We are the third-party vendor for the bank. We deploy the solution, and we support them. We provide professional services as well.

The basic ROI is the fact that the client is happy, and that’s all that matters.

I’m only a technical person. I don’t have access to the pricing.

Extra costs come under support and maintenance. Obviously, we always consider support and maintenance under the same licensing cost. They'll only provide one year of support and maintenance.

We had to go for the SolarWinds. We are not able to work with any other solution.

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

I’d rate the solution ten out of ten.

We were using it to monitor network devices and the monitoring of certain servers.

It did a good job of the collection and then an investigation of the net flow of information for understanding the applications that were being used at certain locations.

They were pretty good at keeping up with things.

We have replaced SolarWinds with LogicMonitor. 

I had been working with SolarWinds NPM for five years. We stopped using SolarWinds in December of last year when it was revealed that they had been hacked with the supply chain hack and we turned it off. We began a fast-track process of trying to find something else that we could use to replace SolarWinds. We decided that we were no longer going to trust that their products have not been compromised.

At the time, we were using the latest version.

We experienced the typical ones that happen when a parameter is not well understood and that it is implemented, you end up causing issues.

The scalability was complex. 

We had 99 facilities that were a hospital holding company, and we have some 90 other facilities that we are the corporate headquarters of. In monitoring each of those different hospitals, there would be challenges with getting to all of those devices because of firewall rules.

The faculty would use it on a regular basis. There were approximately 90 users.

We contacted technical support all of the time. They were fine.

At the time I had been with the company for just over six years. They had only been using SolarWinds.

I have also been using VMware for a long time, and we are implementing vROps for alerting and monitoring.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

It seemed that they nickeled and dimed you for everything that you were doing. There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price.

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

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

• Easy monitoring of applications
• Networking
• Power
• Server infrastructure components

We are frequently able to attend to issues before our user community and customers are aware that a problem exists. We are also able to provide interfaces to our service desk and other users customized for their needs.

The stability when multiple modules are added could be addressed. We have the need to restart the monitoring solution on a weekly basis as we've combined NPM with a variety of other SolarWinds utilities.

I've used it for nine years.

No issues with deployment.

Yes, as noted above, the solution is not always stable and generally requires a weekly reboot. We do own a wide variety of SolarWinds products that are integrated with NPM.

No, additional polling engines can be purchased at any given time.

They have an excellent sales team however, they do not negotiate maintenance. So while you may get the product for 75% off list price, you'll pay 20% of list for maintenance every year. Once they have you on the product, they get their money back on the 20% maintenance on list every year.

First level usually doesn't get any further than running through the installation wizard, next, next, next. I've run into some scenarios where we've been requested to "start fresh" with data which is not a good resolution. We generally push for escalation and work with second and third level support/developers.

We used What's Up Gold at one company, which wasn't as feature rich, and Nagios at my present company which was quite expensive in terms of custom programming to get what we want out of the solution.

Quite easy, the "next, next, next" GUI installation with the addition of a standard SQL database usage made installation quite seamless and easy.

All in house.

I couldn't tack a dollar figure on this without analyzing all incidents/service requests entered based upon information obtained from SolarWinds. We do have recognition that profitability is affected at a rate of approximately. $58 x 700 = $40,600 per hour for each hour that either warehousing or manufacturing systems are unavailable.

We did an evaluation of continued Nagios utilization costs vs. purchasing of the complete SolarWinds package.

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

The primary use case is for cybersecurity, as they did not want it on their own personal cloud. 

We found that it was easy to operate, and it was simple if anyone has entry-level working experience or even if someone is not experienced.

The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market.

I have been working with SolarWinds NPM for the past one to two years.

The stability is very good and informative.

We were able to quickly expand and include any other active equipment or any new buildings which became requirements. We were able to easily take into consideration everything and set it up.

Technical support is good, however somewhat delayed due to the time difference. We had some troubleshooting issues because new people were working on it, but SolarWinds NPM responded back and it was easy for everyone to go through it.

Positive

Deployment was straightforward and we had an expert of SolarWinds NPM who we employed. The process was completed within a couple of hours.

We had one person from a third party help us through the deployment process.

I would rate SolarWinds NPM a nine out of ten.

We use it for network monitoring, internet monitoring purpose and server monitoring purposes.

It allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance.

SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly.

The time monitoring could be improved from every five seconds to every second. If they can move to an every-second basis, then it will improve the monitoring analysis.

I would also like to see the security system updated to prevent virus attacks.

I have been using SolarWinds NPM for around 10 to 12 years.

We have found it is definitely stable.

This product is scalable by purchasing extra modules for more servers.

They're one of the most responsive companies when it comes to support.

Positive

The initial setup wasn't complex, but not as easy as some systems either. It requires someone with experience with the network monitoring system. 

It was implemented in-house.

The charge is currently made per module for the product, and there is no option to buy it as a full system bundle which makes it costly. Also, charges are made annually, it's not a perpetual purchase.

It would not be affordable for SME level organizations.

The other solutions I evaluated were:

• PTRG
• Cisco
• WhatsUp Gold.

I would rate this product at 7.5 out of 10.