Comparison Paper Argent vs. SolarWinds

13 Pages·2009·0.1 MB·English

Comparison Paper

Argent vs. SolarWinds
Contents

Overview 2
Critical Differences 3
Investment Differences 5
Critical Architectural Differences 6
n-Tier Architecture 7
Critical Support Differences 8
Installation And Implementation Differences 8
Service Management Software: Functional Categories 9

Trade Secret of ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited Page 1 of 12
Proprietary Information
Overview

This document compares and contrasts the network performance monitoring and alerting capabilities in the
Argent monitoring products with SolarWinds’ Orion Products.

Both products offer simple-to-use, scalable network monitoring solutions. Yet, there are many significant
differences between the products – architectural differences as well as implementation differences, and,
most importantly, differences in pricing policies and the way technical support is handled by the two
companies.

In the following sections, we will point out the major differences between these two products in a number of
critical areas.

Trade Secret of ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited Page 2 of 12
Proprietary Information
Critical Differences

The following table contains 37 critical production-monitoring requirements. The Argent monitoring products
support all these critical requirements.

Feature Server/Application Supported Argent SolarWinds

Windows NT Operating 1. Windows 200x (including Windows 2008) Yes Yes
Systems
2. Microsoft Cluster Service Yes Yes
3. Microsoft Terminal Server Yes Yes
Messaging Services 4. Microsoft Exchange Yes Yes
5. Microsoft Exchange 2007 Yes Yes
6. Lotus Notes Yes No
7. Lotus Domino Yes No
Internet/Web Facilities 8. Full FTP Site Monitoring Yes Yes
9. Real Email Turnaround Time Yes Yes
10. Hacker Attacks on an Internet or Intranet Yes Yes
11. Page Changes on an Intranet or Web Site Yes Yes
12. Response Time Alerting for Slow Intranet Sites Yes Yes
Capacity Planning and 13. GUI and web trend reporting tool Yes Yes
Trend Analysis
14. Custom Web Report Facility Yes Yes
15. Report Viewable via a Web Browser Yes Yes
16. SLA Reports Emailed to Managers Yes Yes
Linux Support 17. Ability to Monitor Linux Yes Yes
Flexible Design 18. Option to Install Local OR remote Agents Yes No
Trade Secret of ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited Page 3 of 12
Proprietary Information
Critical Differences

Feature Server/Application Supported Argent SolarWinds

SuperConsole 19. Ability to see all Outstanding Alerts for All Yes Yes
Monitored Regions on One Screen
n-Tier Architecture 20. Ability to Divide Monitoring by Region, or Yes No
Function, or Server Type, etc.
Essential Usability 21. Ability to Escalate Alerts Yes Yes
Features
22. RunBooks Yes No
23. Console Comment Field Yes Yes
24. Three Levels of Alert Importance Yes Yes
25. Memo Field for Groupware Support Yes No
26. Ability to Fire Multiple Alerts from a Relator Yes Yes
27. Drag and Drop Support in Relators Yes Yes
28. Master List of All Objects Yes Yes
29. Ability to Import and Export Rule Sets Yes Yes
Technical Support 30. Live Support on Weekends Yes No
31. Live Support on Holidays Yes No
32. Live Support Outside Working Hours Yes No
Network Monitoring 33. Hubs and Routers Monitored at No Extra Cost Yes Yes
Included
SNMP Support 34. Complete SNMP Support at No Extra Cost Yes Yes
35. Can Put SNMP Alerts on the Master Console Yes Yes
36. Optimized Long-Walk Capabilities Yes Yes
37. SNMP Macro Facility Yes Yes

Trade Secret of ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited Page 4 of 12
Proprietary Information
Investment Differences

Argent and SolarWinds’ Orion products both provide comprehensive fault and network performance
management. Their cost-effective solutions offer tremendous functionality and have helped place them
amongst the top players in network monitoring products. Nevertheless, there are crucial differences when it
comes to the kind of investment one has to make while implementing each product. Here is a table
illustrating the differences in investment one has to make for each product.

Feature Argent SolarWinds

1. Unlimited Number of Management Consoles Included Included
2. Interface to Remedy Included Included
3. Interface to Tivoli Included No
4. Interface to UniCenter Included No
5. Monitoring Citrix Included No
6. Monitoring Terminal Server Included Included
7. Monitoring Lotus Domino Included No
8. Monitoring Lotus Notes Included No
9. Monitoring Microsoft IIS Included Extra
10. Monitoring Proxy Server Included Extra
11. Monitoring Cisco Included Included
12. Monitoring NetWare Included No
13. Interfacing to Insight Manager Included No
14. Interfacing to Dell Open Manage Included No
15. Interfacing to IBM Netfinity Included No
16. Automatic Report Distribution Included Included
17. Universal Browser Interface Included Included
18. Service Level Agreement Included No
19. SNMP Support Included Included
Trade Secret of ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited Page 5 of 12
Proprietary Information
Critical Architectural Differences

We now turn our attention towards the major architectural differences between the Argent Suite of
Monitoring Products and SolarWinds’ Orion Products.

Area The Argent Monitoring Products SolarWinds’ Orion Monitoring
Products

Remote Monitoring Agents Yes, fully supported No
SuperConsole Yes Yes
n-tier Architecture Yes No
Scalable Yes Yes

Trade Secret of ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited Page 6 of 12
Proprietary Information
n-Tier Architecture

With Argent's n-tier architecture, customers can have all monitored servers in a single monitoring region, or
optionally, customers can divide monitored servers into different regions by geography, function, etc.

Typically, for small environments (under 50 monitored servers), a single monitoring region will be
appropriate.

However, take the case of a large South-West utility that uses Argent to monitor over 1,200 production
servers. Argent engineers worked with this company's technical staff to design a monitoring topology
whereby monitoring was done by server function, each of the following has its own monitoring region:

• All the SQL Server production servers in a one monitoring region
• All the SQL Server test servers in a different monitoring region
• All the Exchange 2007 servers in a different monitoring region
• All the IIS servers in a different monitoring region
• All the Power Gen production servers in a different monitoring region

Best of all, all outstanding alerts from all these monitoring regions are displayed on one screen - the Argent
SuperConsole.

Other customers create independent monitoring regions based on geographic region, such as East, Central,
West, South, Canada, etc.

Only Argent has n-tier architecture and the SuperConsole.
Trade Secret of ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited Page 7 of 12
Proprietary Information
Critical Support Differences

With both Argent and SolarWinds’ Orion products monitoring and reporting on systems and services that run
24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it is crucial that they also be provided with technical support 24X7, all year
through.

However, Argent is the only product that provides round the clock technical support including on holidays
and weekends.

In contrast, SolarWinds only offers free online support for all users of SolarWinds products. Customers can
also go in for paid support that provides them with access to the Technical Support staff at SolarWinds, new
releases of licensed products, and additional applications or utilities.

However, even paid support provides customers access to Technical Support only on weekdays and
during working hours. They do not have access to this support on weekends or holidays.

Installation And Implementation Differences

While many network monitoring products typically take days to install, implement, and integrate various
components, both Argent and SolarWinds make it a lot simpler to install their products. However, installing
SolarWinds’ Orion Product and getting it up and running successfully still takes a few hours.

Installing Argent, on the other hand, requires barely 10 minutes.

Trade Secret of ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited Page 8 of 12
Proprietary Information
Service Management Software: Functional Categories

The key to success in business lies in ensuring that all major systems including important business services
and applications run smoothly. The top network monitoring and service management software companies
provide a wide range of tools to businesses to make it easier for them to handle tasks such as network
monitoring, services and application monitoring, job scheduling, email server management and many more
crucial tasks. However, most of the services that these software solutions provide can be broadly classified
into the following categories.

(cid:190) Network Monitoring
(cid:190) Systems and Application Monitoring
(cid:190) Performance Management
(cid:190) Business Service Management
(cid:190) Event Management
(cid:190) Security Information Management

We will now compare the top networking monitoring and service management solutions in the market today
and see how they stack up against the competition, in each category.

Network Monitoring
With business networks getting more and more distributed, it is a challenge to make sure that critical
business services are available at all times. The solution is to employ a network monitoring solution that
can quickly identify the problem and quickly resolve it.

In this category, Argent provides two very powerful solutions, the Argent SNMP monitor and the Argent WMI
monitor. The Argent SNMP monitor provides a highly scalable network monitoring solution for a wide range
of SNMP network devices and a wide configuration of networks. The Argent WMI monitor provides
monitoring services for all Windows based applications and environments. Argent also offers other network
optimization tools that basically complement these two products.

SolarWinds’ Orion does not provide the flexibility and scalability of Argent Network Monitoring, making
Argent extremely cost-effective as compared to the other solutions.
Trade Secret of ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited Page 9 of 12
Proprietary Information