Foglight NMS vs. SolarWinds

1. Flexible Deployment: Foglight NMS provides a flexible deployment architecture leveraging either an agent or agent-less approach. When companies have multiple offices, datacenters, and/or disparate IT locations, managing the devices under one console becomes difficult – especially having to rely on remote connections. Monitoring solutions do not scale well without an agent-based approach for the remote location network. SolarWinds requires a separate purchase of a full Orion system plus an expensive add-on module to connect the two locations. Foglight NMS solves this problem out of the box.
2. Performance Baseline: Foglight NMS Performance Baseline automatically analyzes collected data to identify changes in network behavior over a configurable amount of time (typically four weeks) and establishes a baseline that represents the regular and expected activity of a device and network. The established baseline accurately reflects use of the IT infrastructure by taking into account patterns and variations in usage – for example, increased traffic on the network on Monday mornings at 9:00am. Performance Baseline continuously logs subsequent activity of a device and compares it to baseline. Once irregular behavior is detected, Foglight NMS produces a qualified alert that contains details to be used as a starting point to help guide the troubleshooting and remediation process. SolarWinds does not have this technology.
   1. Reports more accurately on monitors that vary during a business cycle
   2. Identifies abnormal increases or decreases in network utilization, performance, and quality or service (QoS) to shorten mean time to repair
   3. Eliminates false positive alerts caused by normal behavior on the network
   4. Reduces manual configuration of administration settings and thresholds.
3. ptFlow: Did you know that over 50% of routers, hubs, and switches do not support NetFlow, sFlow, or JFLOW? Both Foglight NMS and SolarWinds support NetFlow, jFlow, and sFlow, but what if you have a network device that does not support "flow" technology? Only Foglight NMS solves this problem by leveraging patent-pending ptFlow™ technology. ptFlow™ allows Foglight NMS to capture traffic for devices that do not support standard "flow" technology allowing you to solve network bottleneck problems faster and more reliably.
4. Remote Control: Foglight NMS now includes ExpertAssist™, an advanced behind-the-screen remote troubleshooting tool for desktops and servers. Deployed within the Foglight NMS framework and launched with a single click from the device in the Foglight Studio, ExpertAssist can manage devices remotely, in real-stime, while users continue to work without interruption. ExpertAssist™ provides more than 45 distinct capabilities to control, manage and gather information from remote computers. These capabilities include file transfer, stopping and starting services, command prompt, registry editing and local disk manipulation. Engineers also have access to real-time performance information.
5. Patching: Only Foglight NMS provides Patch Management that allows administrators to automatically manage and control critical Windows updates to ensure that customer's devices are protected with the latest security patches and updates.
   1. Complete automation for patch discovery and deployment
   2. Create multiple patch groups to accommodate your customer's needs
   3. Real-time alerts for successes and failures
   4. Comprehensive history and reporting to the device level
   5. Granular control of each individual update.
6. Live Real-Time GoLive™ Network Monitoring: Only Foglight NMS provides real-time monitoring and data collection of networks during the troubleshooting process. This granular view of device information helps identify performance issues in seconds, not minutes, and reduces mean time to repair. Each SNMP or WMI monitor can be modified for each device, giving you full control to collect the data required to a solve a problem.