[Xymon] Xymon vs Solarwinds

[Matthew Moore]

>
>     > Has anybody had any hands-on experience with both Solarwinds and
>     Xymon, who
>     > can give me a short breakdown of the advantages and disadvantages of
>     > Solarwinds compared to Xymon?
>     >
>     > Regards
>     >     Vernon
>

I used Solarwinds for monitoring a 1500 node network (all Cisco kit, 
mainly 1800 and 2800s, with a bunch of 3750s and some of the larger core 
routers) at $dayjob -1.  It's pretty good as far as 'commercial' network 
monitoring kit goes, quite flexible, good support, sensible price.  They 
had it running ok on a VM so the total cost was quite minor.  While it 
we only used it with SNMP for monitoring networks, it can be setup to 
monitor servers.

I used to use HPs Network Node Monitor v8 and v9 prior to that, which 
was rather poor for the amount of money we threw at it.  I think the 
initial cost was around 50k which included 3 years support.  Overkill 
for what we needed at that time.

Currently using Hobbit 4.2.0 at $currentjob, compared to Solarwinds it's 
fine, does the job.  Maybe a newer version of Xymon is a bit better.  I 
do find the configuration files to be rather labyrinth and confusing, 
but then I've not really needed to look at them properly to set much up 
yet.  But it does the job fine.  Might be because I'm using an older 
version, I would say that graphically Solarwinds is much nicer.  But to 
be honest all most people actually need is to know if there is a problem 
with something, so from that point of view the traffic light system is fine.

If you had to go for Solarwinds, then it'll do the job, it's easy to 
setup and their tech support are perfectly good.  It's quite flexible 
really and I'm sure it'll do what you want it to do.  I wouldn't say 
Solarwinds is a 'corporate standard' at all, however.  I can think of 
anyone of a number of other companies that I'd go to for monitoring 
before going to Solarwinds.

I've always been an advocate of the right tool for the job and if that 
means that some companies prefer commercial software, then sometimes you 
have to go down that route.  Some managers will always want to be able 
to blame another company for an IT problem, that's just a fact.  So if 
the customer is dead set on it, then you're probably going to have to go 
with it, unless you can convince them otherwise.  Maybe if you show them 
a nice shiny working installation of Xymon that might convince them that 
it's actually quite good.

If you do want open source IT support (in the UK) then 
http://www.siriusit.co.uk/ are worth contacting.

Cheers,

-- 
Matthew Moore
Surgical Materials Testing Laboratory
System Administrator
Telephone: +44 (0)1656 752165
Email: matt at smtl.co.uk

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