Solarwinds might be ok
I can’t point to a particular reason but for a long time I had been averse to Solarwinds. I’m not sure if it was that I considered them expensive for what they did, difficult to install or some other obscure reason.
Regardless, I’ve been trialing the latest versions for the full time contract I’m on currently. I’m pretty impressed with what I’ve seen so far. They seem to have expanded their offerings and now include modules such as Netflow Analysis, Config Management and App performance management.
More to come if we actually implement it but I think it might be a good contender for the $20-40k management platforms.
Categories: Cruft, Networking
I just implemented Solarwinds in my network and i think its better than Ciscoworks. The problem i have is their licensing for example…
If I would have bought a license for Network performance monitor SL-100 and a Network (netflow) traffic analysis SL-100, if in the near future i want to upgrade the Network Performance monitor to 500 license, you also have to upgrade the Network (Netflow) traffic analysis to a 500 license for it to work. Even though you only need a 100 license for netflow.
Also it sucks that 3750 switches don’t support netflow. I think cisco should enable this feature.
Reggie!
That does blow about the licensing, especially since there are a lot of devices that don’t support Netflow. As for the switches supporting it, it seems to be a challenge for Cisco to get Netflow enabled on the 4500, let alone lower end switches. The tradeoffs for getting Netflow on the 4500 aren’t obvious. Basically SupV with the NFC. No E chassis solution I think. I’m already forgetting what the details are.
Yah i have to get the card to do netflow on the 4500. I was working on the ASA firewall to do the netflow but unfortunately, solarwinds don’t support the type of netflow that the ASA is pushing.
ended up here when i searched for “$20-40k network management platforms”.. you should take a look at opmanager netflow plugin – http://www.manageengine.com/products/opmanager/network-traffic-analysis.html .. the plugins start from 10 interfaces at $650, licenses at 25, 50, 100 all detached from the base product.
@Matt
Wow, how do I not know about that??? Definitely going to take a look.