Network Performance Monitor Software

Pros

Right out of the box, admins can begin using this software. Alerts are already configured for common needs such as when a server goes down, or when it reboots. Disk space, CPU and RAM usage, etc.

Cons

Can be a bit difficult to discern which variables do what when formatting alerts and email notifications. First initial load of the portal takes a few minutes. After the initial load, portal loads fast each time, until the next day.

Timely alerts and warnings that keep our network and server infrastructure running smoothly.

Pros

Once it's set up, NPM is pretty easy to configure and monitor just about anything with a network adapter/connection. We purchased the SLX version which means we can monitor as many nodes/elements as we want. Email alerts are timely and help us stay on top of outages and server capacities. Been using this for 5 years now and it just doesn't the job. Can't forget about the customer SQL alerts either. Great job here!

Cons

You need SQL server for this. If not using an Express version, that's more costs. The SLX version is expensive compared to other solutions.

The ability to constantly monitor the health of my network.

Pros

What's not to love? Deep, Reliable, and an absolute monitoring beast. I use this daily - DAILY - to monitor my company's environment. The awareness that it gives you is bar none the best around.

Cons

Cost can get hefty depending on how many modules you use. If your company is in a lucky enough position to accept the price, then you are in for a treat.

Being able to forget about the network 24/7 and rely on it to notify us when something is wrong.

Pros

Ease of install, ease of customization, and easy to learn based on the interface. Without training, I was able to pick it up and run with it.

Cons

The cost is the only concern I have. You buy modules based on what you need, and I think one package with all would make life easier.

Pros

Complete network monitoring tool. Allows you a near single pane of glass approach to you network. You have details and i mean details about every server, switch, I even have my consumable good inventory vending machines monitored with NPM. Detailed level for switch ports and routers, Cisco UCS, HP, DELL, and the list goes on and on. When there is no identified MIB, you can create your own. You can label your undefined items so they mean something to you. The Agent for servers installs on Windows and Linux and is SO EASY. It offers WMI, SNMP and ICMP monitoring as well as the agent which gives you several flavors to monitor equipment. Ease of use is good, interface is above average, and saving my score is 1000 out of 10

Cons

For me there is only one real things that gets me with NPM. Licensing. SolarWinds has a great set of products, but the licensing costs are really high. Even a small company needs this software but its hard to justify. The way they count nodes against your license total is in my opinion unfair. I think of a server as a node, and everything on that server should be covered as 1 node, but they see everything down to seems like the vlans on a switch port, but to be clear it is not counting vlans. However if you have 2 48 port switches, that is 96 nodes, you want to monitor, guess how fast your 100 node license gets used up. But the price to jump up is super crazy expensive. They need to rework that.

Pros

Monitoring for all endpoints available
Uses SNMP V1-V3
Alert notifications available for email distribution
dashboard for NOC or super user

Cons

Have to figure everything out yourself. Solarwinds does not provide much training on the configuration of the system to fully maximize it. The refer you to a outside consultant to setup the system. Support is pretty limited because many of the issues revolve around how it is setup. Which they would provide more training with the purchase of the product on how to fine tune the software for your needs

Pros

Ease of installation. Product Support in clubs I've of upgrades. Great online training and folllowup

Seemed easy to use.

Pros

The software can do just about anything you need. Very in depth and helpful product.

Cons

As I said above. The software is very hard to navigate and use. I access it everyday and it is still doesn't feel smooth.

Pros

Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is an excellent tool to get a overview of the how you network is performing. The setup is easy and if there is something that is confusing or causing trouble it can be solved using google search or heading to the Thwack community provided by Solar Winds.

Cons

I don't hate the product but some of the UI features are quirky, and haven't gotten used to yet. There does seem to be a lot of customizability but figuring out how to get the setup how you want it seems to take too long to do.

Pros

Very intuitive interface. Easy to use. Real time alerting is awesome. Reporting functionality is always on par

Cons

The software tends to use too many server resources causing the application to fail and disrupt ease

Solarwinds Network Performance has been excellent for monitoring my mix of Cisco and Brocade Equipment.

I am utilizing NPM, SAM and DPA to monitor our environment. NPM is used to monitor a mix of Cisco and Palo Alto equipment. We are monitoring nodes in about 12 sites (2 hubs and 10 spokes).

Overall, the product is stable and features get added on a timely basis. If I had one gripe, I would wish that Solarwinds could move the product towards the cloud (ala Kaseya, LogicMonitor, etc). This would remove my need to run an application server and database.

Pros

Easy to use. Lots of features.

Cons

I wish the management and database were in the cloud and they used the "collector" model at the location to get the data.

This tool helps prevent major Server downtimes with a great alert system. Every System Administrator should have this. I can't count the number of times it has saved me.

Pros

The features I like the most about this tool are the fast and easy deployment and the high-quality monitoring and alerting. Very nice UI, also very scalable.

Cons

The element base pricing is very expensive, can quickly escalate.

Advice to Others

Overall this software is a must-have for any systems administrator.

SolarWinds is what you expect from a legacy SNMP monitoring and management system... it's great for managing network devices. The rest of it is not so good. Its IPAM solution has a Read only API, meaning you can't modify records with your existing automation. Worse yet, they have no plans to fix it. It can do a lot of things, just not well. You will end up needing to fill the gaps with other tools.

Pros

Network device management
Price

Cons

Lackluster API that's partially implemented.
Interface is clumsy and requires a lot of redundant clicking.