We use both the Solarwinds suite and Zenoss Enterprise at $realjob (and a few others).
$30k is cheap for large shops/enterprises. Enterprise monitoring can get super expensive. Zenoss Enterprise is usually $100+ per device per year. On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:38 AM, Paul Stewart <[email protected]> wrote: > 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]> 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]> 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] <[email protected]>] *On >> Behalf Of *Paul Stewart >> *Sent:* Friday, November 11, 2016 4:59 AM >> *To:* [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]> 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 >> >> >> -- >> 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. >> >> >> >
