SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset vs. Sunbird DCIM

I have found the toolset especially useful for scanning subnets to discover devices, and for setting up temporary real-time monitors when we are troubleshooting or setting up new connections. The most useful aspect has been the ability to apply the tools to help troubleshoot and pinpoint intermittent issues. More general tools like Orion often do not have the granularity to detect issues like intermittent packet loss which are especially impactful to applications like Voice. The toolset gives us another level of capability to dig into issues.

Incentivized

There are a few things that need work from flexibility within the asset process documentation. The interfacing with CMDB will be easier if the asset documentation had more flexibility in the standard fields. The product will support our need for a central depository of all assets, connections, and usage within our data centers, which at this time is managed by a spreadsheet with limited access. The ability to review and set goals of environmental and capacity has not been easy, with dcTrack this has become much easier than dealing with Excel tabs.

Incentivized

• Various monitoring
• Stores history
• Suggests indices
• Helps to find the SQL query text
• Helps to see what machines/users the bad queries are coming from
• Shows current blocking session

Incentivized

• Inventory tracking.
• Capacity planning.
• Integration with PowerIQ - manages power, cooling and humidity status.
• Provide power and network/SAN connect paths.
• Statistics on the infrastructure within a given data center.

Incentivized

• The unifying component that is intended to be the initial interface to the tools seems clunky. I prefer to start the tools individually rather than using it.
• The port scanner could use some improvements to make it easier to use.

Incentivized

• Connectivity simplified.
• Flexibility in port and connection definition.
• Asset documentation of owners, project and responsible teams.

Incentivized

Very easy to use and intuitive. Just be careful with the WAN Killer...it does what it says.

Incentivized

Our organization uses it regularly. It is reliable, and we keep finding new uses for it

Incentivized

I haven't compared any tools similar to SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset. This might be because I'm pretty biased when it comes to monitoring, and reporting solutions. I've found that SolarWinds provides the biggest bang for the buck in my opinion. I'm sure there are other solutions on the market that compete, but I haven't tried any of them because I've been very satisfied with SolarWinds.

Incentivized

• Spend less time downloading free buggy tools
• All the tools in one spot, so you don't have to look around for tools
• Get to the solution sooner

Incentivized

• Hard to say at this time what I will gain or the company will gain for the user but to understand all assets in a Data Center in a single location is a great tool for support and maintenance cost analysis.
• To be able to see or understand the power needs of a given location provides the need of understanding cost impact under the different location cost models.

Incentivized