Sorry to burst your hopes there…. :)  i wanted to make sure you knew that 
instead of what a sales guy might be pushing…

if there’s one thing that Solarwinds is very very good at .. it’s pesky sales 
people who won’t leave you alone … 

> On Nov 11, 2016, at 12:28 PM, That One Guy /sarcasm 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> you just broke my heart
> 
> youre completely right, the remote agent is not a polling probe as I assumed, 
> I just added one. That was the primary feature I was going to promote to cost 
> justify since it had revenue potential.
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 11:02 AM, Paul Stewart <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> I’m not aware of it having probe capabilities - just had that conversation 
> with them a month ago.
> 
> Their only solution is to stand up additional servers in remote locations and 
> have them linked back to the SQL backend …. less than elegant and a licensing 
> nightmare
> 
> 
>> On Nov 11, 2016, at 11:58 AM, That One Guy /sarcasm 
>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> 
>> solar winds has remote probes. I havent done one yet, im waiting on the 
>> sales guy to get back on the restrictions that imposes as far as selling 
>> monitoring as a service to contract customers, or even other WISPs.
>> 
>> Im hoping it functions in a similar fashion to the remote pollers in SNMPc, 
>> just a light piece of software you drop on a machine with access to a 
>> network that calls home. Unless you have a backup path for the data to get 
>> to the server, real time would croak out for that network. I enjoyed it 
>> because I could put a poller on my laptop and drop into a network and scan 
>> it. I wanted my laptop to get stolen so I could use it as lojac to locate 
>> it. 
>> 
>> There was an option to do a distributed system with snmpc, but there would 
>> have been no benefit to a remote poller on the same network as the 
>> distributed server.
>> 
>> We had it set up on a school distrct to monitor their wireless 
>> infrastructure between campuses, it was sweet because we had no external 
>> access, but therough the remoute poller tunnel (it calls home) we had full 
>> snmp read/write access on their network in a secure manner
>> 
>> On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 10:26 AM, Josh Luthman <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> Xymon FTW!
>> 
>> 
>> Josh Luthman
>> Office: 937-552-2340 <tel:937-552-2340>
>> Direct: 937-552-2343 <tel:937-552-2343>
>> 1100 Wayne St
>> Suite 1337
>> Troy, OH 45373
>> 
>> On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 10:43 AM, Josh Reynolds <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> NetXMS *shudder*
>> 
>> I can just see you sitting there in an argyle sweater sipping tea out of 
>> your Windows95 mug - watching your NetXMS updates in the client.
>> 
>> ;)
>> 
>> (To be fair, Xymon is WAY older than NetXMS, but it was here decades before 
>> I was LOL)
>> 
>> On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:36 AM, Mike Hammett <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> NetXMS does that.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----
>> Mike Hammett
>> Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
>>  <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL> 
>> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb> 
>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions> 
>> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
>> Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
>>  <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix> 
>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange> 
>> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
>> The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
>>  <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp>
>> 
>> 
>>  <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
>> From: "Josh Reynolds" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
>> To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>> Sent: Friday, November 11, 2016 9:35:40 AM
>> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] solar winds network bandwidth analyzer pack
>> 
>> We are still using Xymon in parts of our network simply because it supports 
>> proxy collectors.
>> 
>> On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:32 AM, Paul Stewart <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> So that’s one area where Solarwinds falls down in my opinion … there may be 
>> workarounds but it’s not ideal for that kind of situation …
>> 
>> Some NMS solutions have that capability and I hope Solarwinds will develop 
>> it at some point as could really use it for some areas of the network as well
>> 
>> On Nov 11, 2016, at 10:10 AM, Ken Hohhof <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> 
>> How well does it accommodate remote probes?  My network isn’t a nice central 
>> NOC with backhaul links radiating out, and I need the ability to monitor 
>> things like packet loss and latency from multiple points in the network.  
>> Also to always have monitoring even if a part of the network gets isolated 
>> by multiple failures like during a storm or DDoS.
>>  
>>   <>
>> From: Af [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>] On 
>> Behalf Of Josh Baird
>> Sent: Friday, November 11, 2016 8:48 AM
>> 
>> To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] solar winds network bandwidth analyzer pack
>>  
>> 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] 
>> <mailto:[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] 
>> <mailto:[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.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> 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.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 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.

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