SolarWinds adds deeper visibility and smarter scalability

SolarWinds says the broad refresh of its network management portfolio strengthens its IDC^®-validated network management leadership position.¹ Updated versions of Network Performance Monitor (NPM), Network Configuration Manager (NCM), IP Address Manager (IPAM), NetFlow Traffic Analyser (NTA), and VoIP & Network Quality Manager (VNQM) are now available.

“In the hybrid IT world, networks are growing larger, more complex, and more distributed, making them even more challenging to manage and troubleshoot,” said Christoph Pfister, executive vice president of products, SolarWinds. “This is a big reason why over half of enterprise IT professionals in our SolarWinds 2018 IT Trends Report said they do not feel as confident in their IT environment's performance as their mid-size and small business counterparts.”

“By quadrupling scalability and deepening visibility, SolarWinds network management software will give IT professionals unprecedented flexibility to evolve easily as their networks expand and spread out. It also offers the power to manage networks simply, comprehensively, and accurately, all without compromising our industry-leading affordability,” he added. “As recently confirmed for the third year in a row, we believe our position as highest in ability to execute in the 2018 Gartner^® Magic Quadrant^® for Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics² reinforces our commitment to helping organisations meet their network management needs today, regardless of their size.”

Navigating the Complexity of Today’s Networks

The updated SolarWinds^® network management portfolio features three breakthroughs designed to further improve visualisation and speed troubleshooting across the complex and distributed networks at the foundation of today’s hybrid IT environments. 

• First, the four-fold increase in monitoring capacity allows IT professionals to accelerate and simplify their network management process while reducing the resources needed for monitoring activities, making it easier to consolidate tools. 

• Second, the latest software adds intelligent, auto-generating, and contextually-aware maps that enable faster and clearer visualisation of network performance. These powerful capabilities enable IT professionals to quickly identify issues and speed time-to-resolution when troubleshooting.

• Third, SolarWinds is introducing Network Insight^™ for Cisco Nexus^®, the latest Network Insight, which already includes support for F5^® and Cisco^® ASA. Adding support for Cisco Nexus bridges a huge gap in data centre performance visibility with in-depth analyses that go beyond basic hardware health and statistics.

This feature gives IT professionals a quick view of the landscape and any bottlenecks. It presents data in a simplified functional model, so that everyone on the IT staff can achieve expert-level insights on Nexus performance regardless of proficiency level. By embracing Cisco Nexus hardware, this new Network Insight also underscores the SolarWinds commitment to enabling superior device-specific visibility for environments of all sizes.

“The Network Insight for Cisco Nexus feature is doing a lot to help us monitor our environment much more effectively,” said Josh Haberman, Network Engineer, Veolia North America, the world’s leading provider of environmental solutions. “There really is a need for deeper visibility and this latest offering from SolarWinds clearly shows us what is happening in the network,” he added. "The scalability improvements were also an unexpected surprise. It's reassuring to have the extra capacity as we plan for the future."

Further, the enhanced network management portfolio builds on other SolarWinds innovations such as NetPath^™, which provides a “hop-by-hop” analysis of network performance across hybrid IT landscapes and into the public cloud. Recently, SolarWinds began deployment of NetPath onto its Managed Service Provider (MSP) platforms, providing another way to access this powerful technology regardless of how they monitor their environments. This important migration underscores the ongoing commitment made by a worldwide leader in network monitoring and management to extending the powerful benefits of its technology and expertise beyond its core customer base of IT practitioners and into the growing legions of all professionals who manage IT environments.

New Versions across the Network Management Portfolio

Within its network management portfolio, SolarWinds announced updates to the following software products.

• Network Performance Monitor (NPM) 12.3 – Along with Network Insight for Cisco Nexus, including detailed visibility into virtual Port Channels (vPCs), the latest version of NPM provides superior network monitoring capabilities and detailed visibility for multi-vendor environments.

• Network Configuration Monitor (NCM) 7.8 – The updated version brings even stronger automation and control of network functions and, like NPM, adds Network Insight for Cisco Nexus switches. It provides configuration snippets and the ability to filter, search, and view access control lists (ACLs), including object groups, and Virtual Device Context (VDC) support.

• IP Address Manager (IPAM) 4.7 – A valuable tool that automates management of IP addresses, the latest version now automates IP requests and monitors hybrid environments with Amazon^® Route53 and Azure^® DNS support.

• NetFlow Traffic Analyser (NTA) 4.4 – With a new Flow Storage SQL database at its foundation and less-demanding CPU and IOPS requirements, the new version offers IT professionals significantly improved speed and performance in identifying network traffic issues and removing bottlenecks, while providing better security.

• VoIP and Network Quality Manager (VNQM) 4.5 – The latest version of VNQM adds support for monitoring of SIP trunks, enabling users to manage voice quality and performance across networks using the latest VoIP technologies.