SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

SolarWinds NCM is principally used to perform configuration backup but also to perform global configuration update like a password change or SNMP community update.

• Time saved when configuration restore is needed.
• EOL inventory
• Global configuration update.

Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution

• ROI is months! Another valuable asset in my organization.
• Almost a Full Time Employee! Generally, you only need it when the human employee has made a mistake. The ability to go back in time is phenomenal.
• Learned a hard lesson when my DR site got severed and I needed a copy of a config. I now replicate the SolarWinds SFTP Directly to the DR site for availability. Sharing a lesson learned with this particular tool. That directory alone can save many hours of unnecessary work if properly maintained.
• Network Configuration Manager along with the compliment of other SolarWinds Tools has been such a valuable and important investment in our organization. I can provide metrics of UP time. When properly equipped with tools that are properly maintained, you can sleep quite well at night!

NetApp Active IQ, Trend Micro Apex One, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR (Traps)

• The impact of NCM has been huge and quantifiable. I would conservatively estimate that it consistently reduces the man-hours spent on our typical management tasks by more than 50%. The savings in time spent on policy auditing tasks alone are worth the price paid for NCM.

ManageEngine OpManager and Spiceworks

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds IP Address Manager, SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

Our organization uses SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) to take over configuration management duties and responsibilities for the networking systems, assets, and devices within our IT environment. Besides that, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) is being utilized within our organization for its configuration backup and restore capabilities. Also, NCM has the ability to conduct compliance reporting and vulnerability assessment of network resources.

• Network Compliance Auditing
• Automated IOS Upgrades

I use it to manage the compliance of our network devices to configuration hardening standards. Our information security program requires that all our network devices, routers/switches/firewalls/etc, have a defined security hardening standard defined and implemented. As a member of the team, I had to come up with an easy way to measure and demonstrate device compliance to defined standards. I tried setting up regex checks against configs stored in ansible but that required all configs to be in ansible, which they weren't, and so I found myself working edge cases and relying on others who had better things to do than help a security guy. I tried a few config managers including the managing engine NCM, which I used for several years at a previous job, but then migrated to the SolarWinds NCM. I like the SolarWinds NCM interface better and since it is part of the Orion suite and our network team was using Orion I was able to add it to their deployment. If I'm being honest I prefer the management engine interface better but found the functionality to be identical between the two. Most valuable thing is having all the device configs available for testing without relying on other teams.

• Saved many hours of my time and the network team's time with automated remediation to deviations.
• Saved many hours of time and impressed auditors during security audits

ManageEngine Network Configuration Management (NCM)

Splunk Enterprise Security (ES), Sumo Logic, CrowdStrike Falcon Endpoint Protection