Customers usually use SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability for infrastructure monitoring. Cloud and on-premises monitoring is something that we can do with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. Beyond that, application service monitoring is also part of it. We are trying to use as much as possible the features that belong to SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability native out of the box. Those include networking, so network devices, routers, switches, all of which are monitored using SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability only.
SolarWinds Observability SaaS
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AI-Powered Monitoring at Its Best
What do you like best about the product?
I use SolarWinds Observability for Network monitoring, APM, NCM, IPAM, and DPA. The AI-driven capability helps me catch issues faster. I really like using NPM and APM because they help me with deeper monitoring. The initial setup was easy.
What do you dislike about the product?
Nothing as such
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
SolarWinds Observability's AI-driven capabilities help me catch issues faster, and its NPM and APM provide deeper monitoring.
Unified dashboards have improved hybrid infrastructure monitoring and support daily operations
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Dashboards are the key thing in SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. When we are trying to look into the NOC team, or the command center, these are the dashboards that represent the uptime, downtime, and other things. Those are the things that are available at this point in time. While we are trying to present it to the management and try to get the insights, what is the trend? If that kind of reports needs to be generated for the last couple of weeks or a couple of months, we are having a hard time doing that. Live data is good for immediate action, specifically for the command center and the NOC team, but for the management, the live data is only a snapshot that they see at the current moment. However, they are more interested in the improvements or what has improved from the previous months. If we need to show that using SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability dashboard, that is a challenge.
I participated in the initial setup of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. As a manager, I was managing the team and they did all the configuration. I have been informed on how the things are done, how much time we took to deliver it, and how many devices we initially configured, but not at the level of how we configured them.
What needs improvement?
The dashboard and reporting can be improved. The way the dashboards are being configured and presented in SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability has certain challenges. The look and feel and ease of configuring are areas where we see difficulties. There are certain limitations where we are not able to select the range or live details. Specifically, I want to have a trend analysis on certain thresholds, but those are tricky and we are not able to do that. We are currently downloading that and then using Excel to represent it. Those kinds of features are missing as of now.
AI features in SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, we only started this in 2024. We are still stabilizing the environment. AI is the next thing, so we did not start looking into that yet.
Even the dashboards that we are trying to build to understand the trend analysis in SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability show always the live information. What is the current state, how many monitors, how many are green, how many are amber, where we have warnings, what are at risk, is the live information that we could build from the dashboard. When trying to analyze the thresholds or how much increase we need to make, or what the trend is happening, getting into those details is difficult. Building those kind of reports is a tricky one. We struggle a lot in that area.
For how long have I used the solution?
ServiceNow is the primary thing for me. SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability and these are all the add-ons that come into my portfolio where I look into these as well.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability would be rated at 8 overall. Usually there are no issues. Once we have built it, we are currently running it on-premises. We only take it down for the usual upgrades that have been sent from SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. Beyond that, we do not see any problem with the monitoring. We have to put a lot of communication in place because if we are trying to take SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability down for upgrades, then obviously the entire observability or infrastructure monitoring is paused. There is no monitoring happening when it is down. That is a risk factor. Currently the configuration is not configured for a high availability. The organization is okay to take one or two hours down in a quarter. With that, the patches that are being applied means the entire monitoring goes dark specifically. That is acceptable for the organization. That risk has been accepted.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability could be rated at 8. When we talk about scalability in SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, from the cloud perspective, the scalability is much easier. When we look from on-premises infrastructure, the scalability is not as easy as the cloud infrastructure because these are all physical servers. You have a physical node that adds capacity and we have the agents that we install or we have to choose whether to use agent-based discovery or agent-less discovery. We need physical servers that have to be deployed specifically. When we are talking about physical servers, there is a lengthy process on the scalability perspective. When it comes to cloud, it becomes pretty easy on the scalability. We could even program it to adjust the memory and the processing speeds that are required for that particular configuration. Technically looking from the hybrid model where we have physical on-premises and cloud infrastructure together, to balance that, I would rate it at 8.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is okay. I would rate it 7 for the technical support. I do not interact with the technical team of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. It is my team who regularly interact if required. I have not heard any complaints or escalations from them because there are very few scenarios where they reach out to the technical support. It is not a frequent thing that happens. What I understand from my team interacting with them is that the time duration that we get is not immediate. They take at least 24 hours or 48 hours to respond and communicate. For the current situation, it is okay. We do not find any urgency, so it is acceptable for us.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are moving from a different tool. There are other observability tools such as ScienceLogic and Netcool. From there, we needed to get the devices into SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. Initially, we were able to build the entire setup within 15 days. The entire infrastructure setup of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability has been built. The next one and a half months, or let us say two months, is something that we were able to bring up all of the 5,000 servers including VMs, data, physical Windows servers, Linux servers, and network devices into SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. That is the initial time that we took to configure SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. All of that has been brought in within two months.
The deployment depends upon if we have cloud infrastructure heavily, then deploying it in cloud is more appropriate for SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. If we have more on-premises infrastructure, we should be going with a hybrid structure where nodes should be deployed. Currently, we have three nodes where we deployed it in three regions: Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific. Similarly, if we have high utilization in cloud, we should be able to build one there in the cloud as well so that the pulling happens smoothly. It is all based on the infrastructure that we have, and we take the decision whether to put it in the cloud or put it on-premises.
How was the initial setup?
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is something that we have implemented for one of our customers, specifically on SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability cloud platform. I am leading the team and the resources have freshly implemented SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. We are also managing SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability tool and making sure the monitoring is happening and reports are getting generated. New infrastructure is getting added to SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability for monitoring. Trying to consolidate other monitoring tools such as PRTG or other things and bring other application services as well as infrastructure into SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is the overall project and it is more than a year. It is not something that has been completed; it is a continuous process where the platform has to be managed, new infrastructure has to be brought in, application service has to be brought in, and we need to make sure that the thresholds and other things are being managed properly. These are a few things that do not end once we start the project; until we are supporting the customer, we continue to do the maintenance and administration and also bring new infrastructure into SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. This is a continuous process and the target is also to integrate SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability with ServiceNow to get to the next level.
We need to find the right vendor for SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. If we directly reach out to SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, it is an expensive one. We reached SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability in India, and CDW is where we reached in the UK. We have to think from the global perspective to determine which country is giving us more effective cost. When working for a global organization where we have business across the entire globe, we have certain leverages. Getting quotes from different regions means we could buy it from anywhere. Because it is a global organization, we should be able to pick from the right place so that we could gain the right costing and discounts that we could leverage.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is device-based. How many devices we want to bring on board determines the cost. Technically, we have built multiple clusters based on the regions that we want to locate. One is in the EMEA region, one is in Asia, and one is in the America region, and we have put them into the data centers. From there, the information gets pulled into SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. Based on that structure, the licensing would work. Based on the regions, the pricing and the vendor, the price quotations are different. We approached SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability directly and the quotation that they gave was a very expensive one. We reached out to CDW and the price that CDW gave us is very effective and comes under our budget. We went to CDW and bought it.
What other advice do I have?
This project started in November 2024 and is still continuing. Before that, there was almost 2013 to 2016, where we did the same thing. There is a gap in between, but in between there are other tools that we have jumped into. We do not say it is constantly working around with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability but on and off we see our profile update.
Network path visualization capabilities of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability remain unclear.
We utilize the platform's anomaly detection in SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability. We only know that we are using that, but our team is the best team to talk about how we do that and what are the current challenges or things that bring value to that. We do not get into those details because we are managing multiple tools at our level.
Security of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability would be rated at 9. It is pretty strong because it follows all the protocols specifically covering the security space.
Modern dashboards and anomaly detection have improved insights but AI automation still needs work
What is our primary use case?
Most valuable features of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability compared to the previous platform are not immediately apparent. However, since we have not fully moved to SaaS, I cannot comment on that because it is also in an earlier stage. There are some changes that I appreciate, especially the modern dashboard features. Additionally, SWIG-related products have improved, and there have been enhancements in reporting and dashboard improvements. The main purpose is to move to SaaS, but I do not have access to that yet, so I cannot comment on how that particular movement will work for SaaS since it is still in initiation. Overall, SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is a good platform with some improved functions.
Regarding AI features in SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, we currently depend on other AI features such as BigPanda and other tools. There are some improvements in correlation, but it is still not fully automated. If you want to find the root cause analysis or something similar, you need a fully automated platform. For a certain level, it is working, but it needs some improvement.
What is most valuable?
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability provides a huge benefit on this new platform. We can use it more efficiently with the customized reports and the dashboards.
What needs improvement?
Regarding AI features in SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, we currently depend on other AI features such as BigPanda and other tools. There are some improvements in correlation, but it is still not fully automated. If you want to find the root cause analysis or something similar, you need a fully automated platform. For a certain level, it is working, but it needs some improvement.
For additional features I would like to see in the future to make SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability better, I would request root cause analysis, especially in identifying the features. There are still improvements being made, but we are currently integrating them with BigPanda and similar products. I expect those features to be built-in to this product.
Improvement in capacity planning with actionable insights needs to be present, because capacity planning does not have pure planning methods or anything equivalent. The collection methods for capacity planning should be more accurate. There should be some changes expected in that area as well.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working in this field for five years. I have been working with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability for more than one and a half years since it started.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support by SolarWinds is as usual as it was previously, so I would rate it around three on a scale of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
We are a supporter of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability and provide technical support for SolarWinds products. You can consider us as an implementation and support partner.
What about the implementation team?
We are a supporter of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability and provide technical support for SolarWinds products. You can consider us as an implementation and support partner.
What other advice do I have?
Regarding network path visualization capabilities, I do not see much improvement in understanding application dependencies. I have not used that feature much, and even when I look at it, I do not see much improvement compared to the previous platform.
With the platform's anomaly detection, there is an improvement. That is a good feature that will be more helpful in the correlation part as well. I can rate the effectiveness of its anomaly detection as something around six to seven on a scale of ten.
My overall rating for this review is seven out of ten.
Clear, Practical Dashboard That Simplifies Database Monitoring Across Systems
What do you like best about the product?
What I like most about the SolarWinds database is how clearly it shows what is happening inside the database without making things confusing. Even if you are not a database expert, you can still understand where the problem is coming from. The dashboard feels clean and practical, not overloaded with unnecessary information. It saves a lot of time because you don't have to dig through logs or run multiple queries just to understand performance issues. Slow queries, high CPU usage, or memory problems are highlighted in a very straightforward way. This makes daily monitoring less stressful. Another good thing is how it works well with different databases. Whether it is SQL Server, MySQL, or another database, everything can be monitored from one place. This is very helpful when you manage multiple systems.
What do you dislike about the product?
One thing I don't like much is that the setup can feel heavy at the beginning. It takes some time to configure everything properly, especially if the environment is large. For new users the first few days can feel overwhelming. The pricing can also be a concern. For small teams or companies, it may feel expensive compared to simpler tools. Not everyone needs all the advanced features, but they still come as part of the package. Sometimes the alerts can feel too frequent if they are not tuned well. Without proper configuration, you might review notifications that are always urgent, which can become distracting.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
SolarWinds Database mainly solves the problem of not knowing what is wrong when a database slows down or behaves unexpectedly. In many systems, when performance drops, teams waste hours guessing the cause. This tool removes that guesswork. It clearly shows which queries are slow, which resources are being overused, and where bottlenecks are forming. Because of this, troubleshooting becomes faster and more accurate. You don't fix things blindly anymore. This directly benefits day-to-day work because issues are resolved before they affect users, applications stay stable, and downtime is reduced. that improves trust from both customers and internal teams. It also helps with long-term planning. By looking at historical data, you can understand growth trends and prepare for future loads. This avoids sudden crashes or last-minute fixes. It helps reduce stress during incidents because you don't have to panic or guess where the issue is coming from. The data is already there, clearly shown, so decisions feel clearer and more confident. It improves teamwork because developers, DBAs, and operations teams can all look at the same information. This avoids blame games and long discussions about whose system caused the problem. it save a lot of manual effort. Without this tool, people often run scripts, export logs, or check multiple tools. SolarWinds database brings everything into one place, which speeds up daily work. It helps avoid repeated problems. By understanding the real cause of past issues, you can fix them properly instead of applying temporary solutions that break again later. it improve overall application performance. When the datbase run smoothely, the apps depending on it also feel faster and more reliable for end users. It supports better decision-making for upgrades. You can clearly see when hardware, memory, or database tuning is actually needed, instead of upgrading blindly and wasting money. it build confidence with management and the client. When asked about performance or outages. You can show clear data and explanation,s which makes you look prepared and professional.
Monitoring has improved hybrid cloud uptime and simplifies troubleshooting across environments
What is our primary use case?
I use SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability for monitoring the environment.
What is most valuable?
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability offers observability with problems and issues for troubleshooting in the hybrid cloud environment.
One example is monitoring a server instance with high CPU and memory usage, which I can troubleshoot effectively across SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability.
I appreciate the interface and alerts panel, which have a very good design.
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability has a full-time positive impact because I need to have great availability in my cloud environment.
Positive changes include improvements in uptime, faster troubleshooting, and reduced downtime.
What needs improvement?
I think that SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability can have improved integrations with other cloud providers, such as OCI, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Ocean Cloud.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability for seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have experienced a problem with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, although I cannot detail the specific problems I have encountered.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is faster.
How are customer service and support?
I found that customer support is adequate.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
My advice to others looking into using SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is that it is very easy to install and deploy across my cloud ambient and server cloud providers.
What other advice do I have?
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is deployed in private cloud and hybrid cloud environments.
I use OCI, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and AWS Amazon Web Services for my private or hybrid cloud setup.
I also use Cloud Watching as a reference.
I believe features about billing can exist, and I use it in AWS where the billing cost is managed.
I would rate this product a 9 out of 10.
Unified Dashboard Makes Monitoring Effortless
What do you like best about the product?
I like the unified visibility across infrastructure, applications, and networks from a single dashboard, which simplifies monitoring and speeds up troubleshooting.
What do you dislike about the product?
The learning curve can be a bit steep initially, especially when configuring advanced features and fine-tuning alerts
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
SolarWinds Observability solves the challenge of fragmented monitoring by providing unified visibility across infrastructure, applications, and networks, which helps us detect issues early and reduce troubleshooting time
Comprehensive Observability with Powerful AIOps Features
What do you like best about the product?
This platform offers comprehensive observability across public cloud, on-premises, network, and hybrid environments. It makes it easy to monitor metrics like CPU, memory, and network latency, and the dashboards are simple to customize. Integration with automation and ticketing tools is supported. The addition of AIOps features such as correlation and forecasting provides extra value.
What do you dislike about the product?
The initial deployment and configuration can be challenging, as it demands a high level of technical expertise. At present, it only supports ServiceNow ITSM out of the box, so integrating with other ITSM platforms requires custom work. Additionally, the pricing might be a concern for customers with smaller budgets.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
SolarWinds offers a unified interface for monitoring both cloud infrastructure services and network devices such as Meraki. This helps minimize downtime and improve mean time to resolution. The platform's automated alerts and API integrations further enhance the efficiency of incident response.
Traceability has guided our monitoring decisions and now exposes onboarding and autonomy gaps
What is our primary use case?
My main use case when I tried SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability was to find a solution, and we tried with Grafana and with another observability solution, and at the end of the day, Grafana was the best.
I was looking to solve traceability for the infrastructure for a telco with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, but it needs a partner, and the partner was very expensive, so this is a pilot. Grafana has all the information for their own, and we can do it for us.
What is most valuable?
In my opinion, the best feature SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability offers is traceability.
When I mention traceability, it stood out during the pilot because it was great since they give you some information about where the issue or the error was generated or created, so that was amazing. This is a very good tool, and we saw that in the demo, but not in the pilot because in the pilot, we could not do it on our own because it was really tricky to do that.
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability has positively impacted my organization by helping to understand that Grafana was the best, as the decision to go for Grafana was made quickly because we needed to go faster and we needed to go with our internal team.
The specific outcomes from that decision are time saved and autonomy, as it was to be autonomous, and we did not need an external party to create our solution.
What needs improvement?
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability can be improved by creating more content. They should create a kind of figure or person that can help and guide you, but not strictly with partners.
I think that with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, they need to have more knowledge, webinars, or tutorials so that it would be possible for internal teams to work by themselves.
I don't have more to add about the needed improvements because the onboarding is the same thing; I needed a partner, and the partner does not move forward without being paid for a full year.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability for a short time as I tried once, but I did not prefer it, so we moved back and we do not use it again.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is stable in my experience if we can deploy the solution in a stable infrastructure.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In my opinion, SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability's scalability is a ten, as I can give you that score based on the demo, in the commercial demo.
How are customer service and support?
I never knew about the customer support for SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability because the pilot never grew up; it never moved forward.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used Grafana before trying SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability.
What was our ROI?
I have not seen a return on investment from my experience with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, as the pilot was not successful. I think that we quickly moved to Grafana and we did not waste three months of work on something that we never would be able to buy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is a lot because I have more than twenty years of experience. Before, everything was licensed. Now with SaaS, it is easy, but some companies say that they are SaaS, but their business model is a license, so it is difficult to do business with them.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, I evaluated other options including Grafana, Zabbix, and Snowflake.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for others looking into using SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is that if they are able or willing to buy a SaaS model but with a license model, they should go ahead with this platform. But if not, if they are looking for a SaaS platform, SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is not the option. My review rating for this product is a six.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Unified Dashboard Makes Monitoring Effortless
What do you like best about the product?
I like that SolarWinds Observability provides a single unified dashboard where I can monitor infrastructure, applications, logs, and network performance in one place. The correlation between metrics, logs, and traces makes troubleshooting much faster.
What do you dislike about the product?
Some features feel a bit complex to configure at first, and there can be a learning curve for new users.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
SolarWinds Observability gives us a unified view of our applications, infrastructure, and logs. It helps detect issues early, reduces downtime, and speeds up troubleshooting, which ultimately improves system reliability and user experience.
Provides timely insights that help prevent network outages and support critical infrastructure decisions
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is proactive monitoring, which allows the network team or the NOC operations monitoring team to know when there are downtimes or possible issues with a service provider's links or a branch. This capability helps us provide remediation actions long before major operational issues occur. When there are links down or degraded or there's a service issue, I come in the morning wanting to see the state of the network just by viewing one pane of glass. Therefore, I frequently create dashboards for monitoring and generate reports for management.
I remember a specific time when we had complaints of slow links. In my current institution, we have over 500 branches, and we observed various complaints regarding slow links, prompting us to investigate the issue. Initially, complaints came in singly, and we escalated them to service providers. However, after analyzing the reports at the end of the day, we noted over-utilization on the ISP backhaul at the HQ, and SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability provided this insight due to the frequent reports generated. We caught this issue and upgraded the backhaul links by engaging the service providers to change from 1 gigabit interfaces to 10 gigabit interfaces while ensuring proper negotiation.
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability also helps us see the health statistics of devices. Recently, we picked up on high CPU and memory utilization on our internet routers using SolarWinds, which reported this through the SNMP credentials. We were able to raise a ticket with Cisco to solve the issue, making it another valuable use case for us.
What is most valuable?
The best features of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability include its various monitoring tools and excellent dashboards. It is one of my favorite tools because it allows teams to see and monitor multiple locations at a glance, such as our 500 branches, creating interactive dashboards that clearly indicate what actions to take through color codes. The second major advantage is its superior reporting capabilities. SolarWinds produces clearer reports than average monitoring tools, allowing us to make strategic comparisons and create custom reports that enhance our insight.
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability offers great ease of use, and I have utilized it alongside integrations with Sophos and various other partners such as Fortinet. The ease of use regarding integrations has been very handy since we can monitor various third-party infrastructures. However, we experienced issues recently with integrations with Huawei, which is fast-growing in the African market. We noticed that the integration with Huawei was not providing as much information via SNMP compared to the flexibility seen with Cisco and other third-party integrations.
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability has positively impacted my organization by improving our reporting capabilities, allowing us to send regular reports to management for constant analysis and visibility of the network's state. It has also helped reduce downtime and meet SLAs, achieving over 99% uptime for services, internet links, and spoke sites. We proactively identify issues before they occur. For example, when a site with two links has one link down, we ensure the second link is operational, which maintains service uptime, leading to an overall increase in uptime statistics and better visibility for management.
What needs improvement?
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability could be improved, particularly regarding integrations with Huawei solutions. Given Huawei's rapid growth in the tech and network space, the integration with Huawei is not meeting the standards set by integrations with other providers such as Cisco. This is essential for the continued effective use of SolarWinds in the African market.
SolarWinds has excelled in its user interface and reporting capabilities regarding custom report creation. However, communication on how to create those custom reports can be enhanced. While many of us figure it out after time, a smoother process for creating custom reports would significantly aid engineers.
I chose 9 out of 10 partly because I have recently had issues with integration with Huawei, which is quickly becoming a significant player in the market. Since we operate a majority of our spoke sites with Huawei, SolarWinds tends to lose some advantages because the SNMP criteria for monitoring Huawei devices are not providing the comprehensive reports we need, leading me to deduct one point.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working in my current field for about six to seven years across various institutions.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is stable. I have used it in other environments with success, though in my current environment, we have experienced instability likely due to the deployment not meeting required standards. Consequently, we have had to perform frequent server refreshes before it becomes usable again. Despite this, my previous experiences affirm its stability when appropriately deployed.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is great. We recently worked with a third party, Tigalogic, to increase the number of servers provisioned for SolarWinds, leading to fewer breakdowns and enabling us to carry out more activities by utilizing new resources.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support from SolarWinds is generally great, though it could improve in understanding the challenges faced in the Nigerian market. The complexities and internal processes in approvals necessitate a more tailored support approach, ensuring that assistance is relevant and timely. Recently, we have encountered issues where the support provided did not meet our expectations, underscoring the need for knowledgeable personnel familiar with our circumstances.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we used different solutions, including PRTG, which is SolarWinds' closest competitor, and ManageEngine. Although PRTG was a good solution, SolarWinds offered better dashboards and superior reporting capabilities, facilitating easier connections and support. I have also tried the Netis iOps tool for Huawei, which excels in analytics but falls short in monitoring. Overall, SolarWinds remains a superior choice, though it seems to be losing ground due to its monitoring limitations with Huawei devices.
What was our ROI?
I have certainly seen a return on investment with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability because the product does what it claims to do. The primary return comes from its effectiveness, leading to significant cost savings, especially since we can create tenants and allow multiple countries to utilize the nodes through shared tools. Additionally, we have observed a reduction in downtime by at least 15%.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing, we engaged with SolarWinds through a partner, and negotiations were conducted by our procurement team. We received a discount initially, but noticed that pricing changed upon renewal, leading to some confusion. The new pricing models lack clarity in communication, bundling services that we may not actually need, leading to unnecessary costs. This issue is more pressing in Africa, where companies prefer to pay in local currency instead of dollars, though I understand the pricing rationale.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I evaluated other options before choosing SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, including Netis iOps, which is a Huawei monitoring tool. We conducted a proof of concept but found it to be more investigative rather than a monitoring tool, leading us to reject it. Other options included ManageEngine and PRTG, which were also considered, but SolarWinds outperformed these competitors in reporting and dashboard visibility, ultimately guiding our selection.
What other advice do I have?
I advise others looking into using SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability to explore its licensing models to identify the best fit for their needs while consulting a partner for advice. Ensure deployment uses the standard required resources to avoid frequent breakdowns in applications and track licensing effectively for timely renewals to enjoy the service fully. Support is available, and following these points should lead to a positive experience. I rated this product 9 out of 10.
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