In the Toolbox-Solarwinds Engineer's Toolset
- Admin
- Jun 14, 2017
- 2 min read
The Solarwinds Engineer's Toolset (noted as just Toolset after this) has been a staple in our district for many, many years. Although this software isn't free, I have to say it has been one of the better investments we've made.
Over the years we have used the Toolset time and time again. Though there have been upgrades during that time-they are not the kind that blow every bit of knowledge you have about a product out of the water and make you start fresh with a huge learning curve. Updates have been smart, keeping the main functionality intact with very little learning curve for new functionality.
I have used the Switch Port Mapper to find what is where on a remote switch and Ping Sweep functions more times than I can count. We also use the Network Performance Monitor component to keep track of key devices in our network, and multiple other tools in the Toolset. I admittedly don't use ALL of the tools in the Toolset ALL of the time. We used to be a Cisco shop, for example, but since we've moved our switches to HP there is no need for me to use that module. But that's OK because there are plenty of other ways I put the Toolset to use.
And while this tool doesn't fit the Fast and Free category (it is Fast, not Free), it does fit the Super Simple category. I cannot reiterate enough how important it can be sometimes to just have something that is easy to implement and just works.
We have had a number of far more complex pieces of software (Manage EVERYTHING in your network under one plane of glass--Plus we've also included the Kitchen Sink! type software) and truthfully the learning curve and time investments to get that kind of software configured have often left us with a partially configured, mostly useless digital paper weight.
We ultimately expanded our Solarwinds usage to include Orion as well, and nothing against Orion but if my boss were to come tell me I had to choose only one tool I could keep (Why would he do that?) I would definitely keep the Toolset.
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