Regular Functional Updates
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Agentless Monitoring |
Why pay maintenance if you don’t get regular updates? For the last 4 years, SolarWinds has provided one major version release and at least one minor release each year. System Center Operations Manager 2012 released in April 2012; the previous version was named System Center 2007. The one before that was MOM 2005, and before that it was MOM 2000. Even with Software Assurance, you can’t be sure you’ll receive the latest full version. At SolarWinds, as long as you keep your maintenance current, you get the new version. It’s that simple.
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Monitoring with agents adds another layer of complexity. An agent is another piece of software that needs to be installed, upgraded and watched. There are pre-requisites and compatibility issues. You can get a glance into all the problems with agent-based monitoring by looking at the Microsoft Beanspy readme. SolarWinds SAM provides agentless monitoring for hundreds of applications. |
Easily Customizable Reports
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Out-of-the-box & Customizable Dashboards |
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To create custom reports with SCOM, users need to have a mastery of the SQL Reporting Services. SolarWinds provides the ability to create custom reports with the easy to use Report Writer tool. |
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SolarWinds provides out of the box dashboards for all of the platforms monitored. With feedback from thousands of users, SolarWinds has created navigable views to get the user to the root of the problem in very few clicks. While SCOM 2012 has provided an easier way to create dashboards in the lastest version, customers are still forced to create a view rather than start from a product-provided best practice dashboard.
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Robust Server & Application Coverage
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Integrated UI for Application, Networks & Storage |
System Center Operations Manager does a good job of providing coverage for Microsoft applications and operating systems and now provides some coverage for Unix, Linux, .NET and J2E. SolarWinds provides coverage for all those applications too, and provides coverage for many more application and hardware types to include coverage for Citrix XenApp, Oracle, DB2, HP Proliant, Dell PowerEdge, IBM System-X, and VMware ESX/ESXi Host servers.
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SolarWinds’ customers can extend monitoring in the same web console to network devices, network traffic, and storage arrays through native integration of SolarWinds other products, including Network Performance Monitor and its modules and Storage Manager. SCOM 2012 recently added basic Network Management capabilities. This new feature, however, lacks support for NetFlow, volume polling, and wireless devices. |
Threshold Recommendations & Monitoring Guidance
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Short Time to ROI |
While SCOM offers Management Packs, SAM offers the same guidance and recommendations in a feature called Expert Templates. You’ll never have to guess what is important to monitor or what thresholds make sense for your environment.
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The sooner you can be up and running and the lower the initial outlay—the sooner you can recoup your investment. With SAM, you can be up and running in just one day – no professional services or big, involved project required. Time to ROI is short! |
Rich Community Content
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Extend Monitoring to Custom Applications |
SolarWinds has a BIG IT community, thwack, of over 100k IT pros. Server & Application Monitor’s interactive web console enables you to browse,
download, and share application monitor templates and scripts from directly within the product, making it easy to take advantage of the expertise offered by other community members without worrying about compatibility issues. |
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SolarWinds SAM makes it easy to extend out-of-the-box monitors with WMI performance monitors, SNMP monitors, event log monitors, SQL query monitor, process monitors, Windows Service monitors, DNS query monitors, and all-purpose and script monitors. With SCOM, users must create or purchase a Management Pack from third parties. In addition, third-party management packs may not be compatible with the latest version of SCOM.
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License Model
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Low TCO |
The System Center 2012 license includes many components: 8 in all. Many software components requires many management servers – 7 servers minimum. This complexity and cost can be too much for many companies. SolarWinds SAM is a fit for purpose product, only providing the features you need for effective monitoring, at a very affordable price.
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SolarWinds’ customers do not need to devote much time at all to deploying and updating monitoring for their environment. Typically, based on reports in customer surveys, SolarWinds’ customers devote less than 10% of one person’s time to administering the SolarWinds product. |