Original Research on SolarWinds Network Management

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager Case Study

Large Enterprise Financial Services Company

Introduction

This case study of a large enterprise financial services company is based on an August 2015 survey of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager customers by TechValidate, a 3rd-party research service. The profiled company asked to have their name blinded to protect their confidentiality.

“Our biggest benefit in my opinion is identifying unauthorized or unintentional changes to our core infrastructure.”

Challenges

The business challenges that led the profiled company to evaluate and ultimately select SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager:

Problems experienced prior to using SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM):
- Needed to know when configuration changes were made and/or prevent unapproved changes
- Wanted a faster and easier way to do compliance audits
- Needed a better way to backup and restore configuration files

Use Case

The key feature and functionality of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager that the surveyed company uses:

Company manages up to 2500 devices.

Results

The surveyed company achieved the following results with SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager:

Primary reasons for using NCM:
- Configuration monitoring to know when and how configurations have changed
- Configuration auditing to more easily and quickly perform policy compliance audits
- Configuration backup and restore to provide operational continuity
- Device end-of-life to determine and plan around device end-of-support and end-of-life
- Security scanning to identify potential vulnerabilities in network devices and configurations
Primary benefits from using NCM:
- Makes fewer errors when making standardized configuration changes
- Monitors configuration changes and fix configuration problems faster
- Spends less time and effort demonstrating policy compliance
- Makes the network devices (and the network) more secure
Is up to 50% more efficient at managing and implementing reliable network changes since deploying NCM.
Is up to 100% faster at detecting and or fixing network configuration problems since using NCM.
Agrees that they achieve far superior security and network reliability when they use network automation alongside their network monitoring solution.

What Challenges do you face monitoring IP faults?

IP fault monitoring tasks routinely performed using IP Address Manager

Detect and troubleshoot IP conflicts	53%
Monitor address exhaustion in subnets and DHCP scopes	61%
Detect DNS entry mis-match errors	22%
Review IP address forensic histories	31%
Monitor DHCP, DNS and IP Address change event logs	23%
Other	14%

Customer Facts: Automated Actions Used in Kiwi Syslog Server

Which automated actions do you regularly use in Kiwi Syslog Server?

Email messages	57%
Log to file	74%
Log to database	23%
Run scripts	6%
Forward to another host	18%

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor Customer Statistic

79% of surveyed IT organizations were able to gain greater visibility into the availability and performance of their network using SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor.

79%

Because of SolarWinds I now have more time to work on productive things than before.

— Network Engineer, Medium Enterprise Financial Services Company

Independent Farmers Bank Uses Kiwi Syslog Server Alongside SolarWinds LEM

“[Use Kiwi Syslog Server alongside] SolarWinds LEM”

“Improved our compliance ratings for IT Audits; makes it easier to track down suspicious activity.”

Challenges

Purchased Kiwi Syslog® Server for the following reasons:
- Centralized management of syslog messages and SNMP traps
- Real-time syslog alerting and notification
- Ability to store and archive logs for regulatory compliance
- Syslog messages and SNMP traps forwarding

Use Case

Around 50 Machines and devices send log messages to Kiwi Syslog Server.
Receives above 500 syslog messages/SNMP traps/event logs to their Kiwi Syslog Server roughly every second.
Regularly uses the following automated actions in Kiwi Syslog Server:
- Email messages
- Log to file
- Forward to another host

Results

Important factors to purchase Kiwi Syslog Server was:
- Affordability
- Ease of use
- Quick installation and setup
- Web-based user interface
Favorite features in Kiwi Syslog Server are:
- Centralized syslog messages and SNMP traps management
- Real-time alerts & notifications
- Log storing & archiving for compliance

TechValidate Research on SolarWinds Network Management

These pages present data that TechValidate has sourced via direct research with verified customers and users of SolarWinds Network Management. TechValidate stands behind the authenticity of all published data. Learn more »

About TechValidate Research

Selected Research Highlights

Large Enterprise Financial Services Company

Introduction

Challenges

Use Case

Results

Company Profile

About SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager

What Challenges do you face monitoring IP faults?

Customer Facts: Automated Actions Used in Kiwi Syslog Server

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor Customer Statistic

Independent Farmers Bank Uses Kiwi Syslog Server Alongside SolarWinds LEM

Challenges

Use Case

Results

About SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server

More to Explore

About SolarWinds Network Management

SolarWinds delivers powerful, affordable, and easy-to-use network monitoring and management software to help you take control of your network, reduce outages, manage devices and speed up troubleshooting.