Re: SevOne Monitoring

[Chad Myers <Chad.Myers () theice com>]

I took a look at SevOne back when you could download a free, 500-element version of it when I was looking for something 
to deal with Netflow.  I'd heard of it prior but nothing from the website seemed overly appealing.  Actually -using- 
the product though it was wonderful seeing a tool built to automatically deal with a lot of the things that are fairly 
routine but are time consuming to deal with.  Automatic filtering of what is monitored based on user customizable 
rules.  For example:  Junos device? Ignore all file systems that are mounted from /dev/md*, ignore 
pim([de])|lsi|gre|ipip|dsc interfaces, and so on.  If an interface is set to admin-down automatically prevent alarms 
from it.  Then don't alarm on it being down.  If it later changes so it isn't admin-down then start monitoring & 
alerting on it again automatically.

As Steven pointed out though the pricing model escalates rapidly since they do it by each individual object.  If using 
netflow, each netflow interface is considered 100 elements if I remember correctly.  Even if I ignored netflow, a 
single EX8216 would consume a few thousand elements or more if I wanted to monitor all of the interfaces in the 
chassis.  Just looking at it for lab usage over ~12 Juniper devices, if I wanted to get full monitoring over all 
devices, without netflow/sflow, it was a few hundred thousand elements.  When I try to extrapolate that to our 
production environment with thousands of network devices I can't even imagine what the element count and subsequent 
cost would be.  When comparing against similar tools the cost is simply outrageous due to the licensing.  And I just 
realized that it actually becomes more cost effective to have an internal development team dedicated to writing & 
maintaining custom network monitoring tools when compared to licensing costs like this.

Independent of that, I'm miffed that the free, 500-element version I was using for home and lab use is no longer 
usable.  It says the license is valid until sometime in 2031, but won't actually let me beyond that point until I 
upload an updated license file.  Can't even do a reinstall since the original license file is only valid for a few 
weeks before it expires.  I keep forgetting to contact support about it when I'm at home but since they completely 
removed the free version I'm doubtful that they will provide an updated license file.

So yeah, fantastic tool, not as pretty as Solarwinds, but it gets really expensive, really fast.  And when talking with 
them I got the impression that the licensing was per year versus a one-time license cost and then recurring maintenance 
cost for support & software updates; the above licensing behavior in the free version supports that impression.  I 
don't know if that is correct though as I didn't think to ask while I was talking with them.

-Chad


On Nov 25, 2015, at 12:04 PM, "Naslund, Steve" <SNaslund () medline com> wrote:

> I looked at SevOne and liked the product a lot.  One thing we found was that the pricing model escalates pretty 
> rapidly because they count every OBJECT you monitor, not every device.  So if I am looking at Bytes In, Bytes Out, 
> Errors In, etc on a single interface those are all counted as a separate OBJECT against your license count.  You 
> really have to be more selective about what you want to see which to me is really inconvenient because often you 
> don't know what SNMP object you want to look at until a problem surfaces.  One of the strengths I really liked was 
> the trending capability that helps you predict capacity issues before you hit them.
>
> Summary:  Good product, real expensive in wide deployment.
>
> Steven Naslund
> Chicago IL
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces () nanog org] On Behalf Of Paul Stewart
> Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2015 2:55 AM
> To: 'NANOG'
> Subject: SevOne Monitoring
>
> Hey folks.
>
>
>
> Looking for feedback from actual customers on SevOne for network monitoring . anyone using them and willing to share 
> thoughts online/offline?
>
>
>
> They have an appealing system for network monitoring and considering it as a replacement to Solarwinds.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Paul


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