LOL … ah yes, Remedy etc …. I’m one of the few that actually really likes Remedy …. but with the caveat that I’m not paying for the system and the team of people to actually run it ;)
> On Nov 11, 2016, at 9:36 AM, Josh Reynolds <[email protected]> wrote: > > Yes, monitoring can get quite expensive. We have some Solarwinds at $day_job > along with HP OpenView, but we're about to roll out a full BMC solution. > (TrueSight, etc). We also run Remedy, so you know we are gluttons for > punishment. > > We will end up paying more for monitoring this year alone than the average > house price in California. > > > On Nov 11, 2016 8:32 AM, "Paul Stewart" <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > Well the answer to that question is “it depends” …. I’m a big believer that > business is critical on good monitoring (along with good staff, proper > procedures etc etc). Putting a dollar value on Solarwinds specific to your > business and it’s needs is difficult as everyone is different …. > > For some people, buying the Windows licenses and a MS SQL backend is a deal > breaker right off the bat … for others it’s the actual application costs > itself > > SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor SL100 (up to 100 elements) - License > with 1st-year Maintenance $2895 > SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor SL250 (up to 250 elements) - License > with 1st-year Maintenance $6495 > SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor SL500 (up to 500 elements) - License > with 1st-year Maintenance $9995 > SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor SL2000 (up to 2000 elements) - License > with 1st-year Maintenance $18295 > SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor SLX (unlimited elements-Standard > Polling Throughput) - License with 1st-year Maintenance $30395 > > List price and they always have some “special” on the go .. but that will > typically be 10-30% levels on average. > > One might argue that alternative system X, perhaps open source, is “free”. > It has no licensing …. but then you have the time factor and possibly support > elements of who to call for help should you need it. > > I’m a big fan of open source and Linux solutions ….. not a fan of Windows. > But in general, there’s different tools for different needs for different > businesses. For our business needs, Solarwinds was a great fit and we found > it friendly on budget - we have SLX version of Network Performance Monitor, > additional SLX pollers, SQL Enterprise cluster backend, APM SLX monitors and > soon will be deploying NCM SLX for configuration stuff. > > Paul > > > >> On Nov 11, 2016, at 9:11 AM, Ken Hohhof <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> You say price isn’t that bad. Whenever I’ve looked at anything from >> Solarwinds, the price has been way out of reach – serious, serious sticker >> shock. Did I evaluate incorrectly, or am I just cheap? >> >> <> >> From: Af [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>] On >> Behalf Of Paul Stewart >> Sent: Friday, November 11, 2016 4:59 AM >> To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] solar winds network bandwidth analyzer pack >> >> Solarwinds is interesting software… >> >> I’m now on week #4 of “renovating” our Solarwinds deployment…. updating, >> cleaning stuff up, better automation, better alerting etc etc >> >> i’m a Linux guy … really like open source. But for network monitoring I >> have yet to find an NMS (even commercial) that I actually liked in Linux. >> it seems strange just saying that as there’s a lot of great TOOLS in Linux >> but for a full blown NMS that’s where I have my issue. >> >> Right now, we run multiple tools on Linux such as Nagios, Cacti, Observium, >> Collectd, Munin to name a few …. and then we have Solarwinds. All of these >> systems are disconnected from one another, so a conscious effort has been >> underway to “standardize’ everything under one platform - and this is >> Solarwinds. >> >> I have been a long time user of their platform - and generally like it quite >> a bit. I wish it didn’t run under Windows and I wish the performance of the >> system was better …. also wish they would integrate some of their other >> products into the “common platform” that they have acquired. >> >> Also, the price isn’t that bad (that will vary with company size, importance >> of use etc) and it’s a good system that doesn’t take a huge amount of time >> to manage/maintain once it’s operational. >> >> For their net flow product in particular, depending on number of interfaces >> and flows, make sure you size the database accordingly…. it’s very hungry >> for resources in that regard. >> >> >> >> >>> On Nov 10, 2016, at 11:31 PM, That One Guy /sarcasm >>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >>> >>> We are running a demo of this. It started out as an eyeballing a netflow >>> collector and analyzer I dont have to poke all the time. we started >>> scrutinizer, liked it, but found out the price scale killed any chance of >>> getting it approved >>> >>> the pricing for this wasnt as bad, and the sales guy has some incentives, >>> but the whole package was alot, and I didnt intend on even looking at the >>> monitoring side because port based pricing models can quickly get out of >>> hand >>> >>> as part of the initial configuration i seeded the auto discovery just to >>> get through the setup. in the mean time, some other stuff came up and i i >>> got busy, this was friday or thursday >>> >>> we have been having some intermittent issues with periodic slowness to some >>> customers, the symptoms were that of a bottleneck. We had to throw some >>> static routes into our OSPF network defeating dynamics to force traffic out >>> one connection, thinking maybe it was a saturated lower quality upstream, >>> no noteable relief. so we thought maybe we were saturating a backhaul that >>> was getting to high percentage utilization, we added a redundancy and >>> further split traffic up with static routes. no joy. it was at a point >>> where the next step was just going site by site auditing every device...fun >>> since the issue was intermittent, that means multiple times >>> >>> the sales guy wanted me to commit to getting this thing up and running by >>> this weekend so next week we could list out what we want from it and how we >>> achieve it, or if we cant do it. >>> >>> so yesterday i go to turn on the flows and send them to the server, the >>> weird slowness is going on so its irritating me. >>> >>> i decided to clear out the alarms from installation and low and behold >>> theres an alarm on a named interface of one of the routers i tossed in on >>> discovery saying 90 percent or more usage. this is a 366mb licensed link on >>> a gigabit interface, so im quite curious. I drill into the detail, the port >>> is running at 100mb and saturating, i flap the port and its back to gigabit. >>> >>> we only monitor with powercode currently, we have snmpc but its old and >>> shut off. Ive toyed with a whole bunch of other opensource and low cost >>> systems but never had enough time to actually drill down and learn them, i >>> did just get a book on nagios because it was cheap on ebay. >>> >>> powercode is worthless for any amount of invasive alerting or monitoring at >>> any detail, if i want ports identified other than by port number it >>> requires an individual probe. pita. its good for long term static >>> monitoring and some real time tools, but its not an NMS. >>> >>> the point here, is the solarwinds tool is sweet, and for the 100 interface >>> package with a promotion the cost is doable if one takes into account the >>> time investment of the other opensource platforms, installation, learning >>> curve, back end configuration, and plethora of gotchas. >>> >>> this particular issue could have cost us a good deal in man hours tracing >>> it, refunds to customers for service impacts, and potential long term loss >>> of customers. >>> >>> now, once i knew where the issue was, i knew exactly where to look in our >>> existing data to verify it. 20/20 hindsight doesnt mean those are the >>> toolsets that would have been picked out first. if this tool had been in >>> production use, we would have known the first time the link negotiated >>> down, and addressed it before there was any noteable service impact. >>> >>> >>> If you are very frugal in your interface selection, this can be a good >>> choice for an nms (i havent played with the atlas map other than dropping >>> some stuff on it) if you dont want to dick around with a diy solution. its >>> cheaper if you dont add the netflow analyzer package. Its solar winds so >>> its pretty, and user friendly. the flow analyzer does route monitoring too, >>> i havent looked at that, but the salesguy says he thinks we can visualize >>> our ospf with the network atlas component, if thats the case the boss will >>> likely drop cash. licensing is perpetual with 20% yearly for maintenance if >>> you want it >>> >>> >>> >>> http://www.solarwinds.com/network-bandwidth-analyzer-pack >>> <http://www.solarwinds.com/network-bandwidth-analyzer-pack> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as >>> part of yourself you have already failed as part of the team. >
