Although to be fair even the previous versions had an easier to use interface than most of the other NPM solutions. SolarWinds did a complete overhaul of their interface in their latest version and now you just need a little intuition to navigate through the software. Admittedly, it has not always been like that. SolarWinds NPM User Interfaceīut what’s amazing is that even with all its features, this network monitor is really easy to use.
However, the NPM can only be installed in a Windows environment. Including those in your virtual environment. So regardless of the underlying Operating System, you should be able to monitor all your hosts.
This tool leverages the SNMP, ICMP, and WMI protocols that come integrated into almost all networking devices to poll the performance data. SolarWinds NPM offers Multi-Vendor Support All of which will help to effectively reduce network downtime. The SolarWinds NPM has been preconfigured to collect important performance metrics from your Network components, track the health status of these components, and also perform deep packet inspection and analysis. I don’t know about you but opening an individual SSH or Telnet session for every switch on my network is not how I want to spend my morning. The tool gives you complete visibility into your network including endpoints and servers and provides you with a central way to manage them. We will be discussing the reasons for this as we proceed through the review but in a nutshell, this NPM is the perfect combination of feature set and affordability.
A lot of names pop to mind but in my opinion, the SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is the cream. See, most of the tasks that make life hard for network engineers can be automated through various networking tools. Well, unless you are using a dedicated Network Performance Monitor. Which is not an easy task even for the most experienced pro. So, it’s up to the network admins to ensure that they detect network problems and resolve them before they escalate. And this increased reliance on networks by businesses means that even the smallest network downtimes can have adverse effects on your business. A healthy network is critical for business success.