What is our primary use case?
The primary use case of this solution is the monitoring of basic functionalities of servers, applications, and data applications.
Also for our internal environment, we are using only the Operations Manager and not the configurations manager.
The deployment model we are using was on-premises.
How has it helped my organization?
This solution has helped us to have better visibility of what we have in our environment, the stages of access. It allows me to see everything I need to better communicate with the business easily, concerning the situations of our services.
What is most valuable?
The features that I have found most valuable are the ease of configuration and the easy discovery of the environment.
What needs improvement?
As we are not using the latest version, it is difficult for me to say what needs to be improved, because it may have already been improved in the latest versions.
Also, we are only using 30% of the capabilities of this solution. We are limited on our side rather than the tool side. There are many features available that we have not yet explored.
This is a solution that supports many add ons, so we can run Unix, for example. I can explore it like a database but it's inconvenient.
We have, on occasion, experienced some crashes that have caused the application to break down. It could be an issue on our side, but we have not had the time to explore it.
They should have some customized solutions or internal development, then maybe it could be easier to use different solutions or some self-developed solution.
The only other thing is a better web interface. The current one is not good enough, in our version it's an installed application.
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for nine years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable.
We are an external company service desk with seven to a desk and approximately sixty technicians. For internal use, we have six people. They are made up of six technicians or the IT administrators of databases, book sellers, some service managers and the setup of publications.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We are not a large company but it's fine and it works properly.
I can imagine that we can scale this solution for a larger environment but that is not the case for us at this time.
It works on a virtual machine and I can configure the set-up of the two machines running to increase the number of services which we are monitoring.
How are customer service and support?
At the beginning of implementation during the first year, we contacted support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using an open-source solution, but I can't remember the name.
How was the initial setup?
The initial set up was simple. It's based on Microsoft technology, so we didn't have any issues.
It took two months for the installation and configuration of monitoring.
We had two people for the deployment, one from our site and one external partner, but they were not full-time.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was done through an external partner. It was easy because we are marketing our business solution for approximately fifty sellers.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We researched monitoring solutions a year ago and found that this solution was easier to implement with our internal solution based on open-source technologies like Elastic.
Because the tools are from Microsoft and we have in-house development and technology, what we were using was not easy to integrate with the Microsoft monitoring tool.
It is easier for us to integrate with Elastic than it is with Microsoft.
What other advice do I have?
We don't need to monitor the application level instead of the infrastructure, which is a standard feature fo Microsoft System Center, but it is not enough for us. Usually, the infrastructure is stabilized, but we have many issues in our applications which is not standard and usually, it's an out of the box application and we must monitor these features.
Before we were using Azure, and we were contacting Microsoft support monthly, depending on when we were implementing a new solution or if when we were having issues with the firewall.
It all depends on the purpose of using this solution and what you are monitoring, that is the main point of the decision tree. If you have a standard solution or books safe, the secure book, a secure or standard package, then Microsoft would be the right solution for that.
The most important is the configuration, the first implementation, and to find the right location, how to implement and find their interaction or relations between monitored environment and assets. It is not always easy to find the relationships between the items and how they can impact the whole solution.
We are customers and I am a happy user of this solution and I have not had any significant issues with this solution. It works well for me and our companies.
I would recommend this solution.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
It is a lot of work to deploy. Document during this protracted deployment. That documentation will serve you well.