Anyone here use Auvik? Best managed switch to support all features?

Business IT/MSP Talk
1

I recently trialed Auvik and it is really a cool product and service. This an attractive option for me to have one pane of glass to monitor, manage and document the network whatever the Managed Switches, Routers, APs, or Firewalls deployed. However, the “whatever” part is the issue. As I understand Auvik support 3 main features. SNMP v1/v2, v3 for monitoring. Login via CLI (Telnet, SSH) for configuration backups, comparison, and management and drum roll… the coolest is Netflow which they refer to as “Traffic Insights”.

The issue I have is to find the right affordable device that supports all 3 of these features. It seems all the managed switches will support one or two of the features but not all 3 three.

Below is an example of common managed switches I’ve researched:
TP Link TL-SG3216 - Yes for SNMP/LOGIN
TP Link TL-SG108E HW Rev. 3.0 - No for any
Unifi Switch US-24/US-48 - Yes for SNMP/LOGIN
Unifi Switch 16 XG - Yes for SNMP/LOGIN
None of the devices support netflow though

Note: Auvik requires a 10 device buy-in in order to support the two main features of SNMP and LOGIN but requires an even higher level of commitment to enable the “Traffic Insights” using netflow. This is doable and reasonably affordable with many of the devices I’ve seen. Heck, there are other solutions I’ve seen (aka UniFi Controller and the like). But that would mean that if we were to reach that level of commitment to Auvik we would then need to upsell our clients again to replace their networking equipment in order to realize the full potential that gives this solution it’s value. I’d prefer to find the right priced device managed switch to support all 3 upfront rather than keep upselling our clients on the basis of feature set.

My question in a netshell is. Who is using Auvik or trialed it and who may have experience with the best managed switch to support all 3 features but not cost an arm and a leg for our customers when it comes time to replace their managed switches?

2

I’ve actually been tempted by them, we spent 5 hours trying to finda fault on a network and I’m sure Auvik “might” have helped.

The problem I see with them is that there is little value if you are skilled on the network side of things. The 5 hours woul have taken someone with the network experience 5 minutes.

3

I use Auvik.

You should not be choosing which switches to deploy based on the capabilities of a monitoring tools. However for most deployments I typically will not deploy a network device that does not support snmp and cli, though there are times were the use case requires it. Netflow I prefer on all network devices but only require it for firewalls.

Also keep in mind that Auvik can connect to cloud controllers, so you do have other options.

Don’t forget that Traffic Insights is enabled per client, so if they don’t have equipment that supports it just don’t enable it.

4

I have used Auvik and it works, but my favorite is LogicMonitor.

5

Thanks everyone for your help :wink:. Thanks for the recommendation Fred… I’ll check out LogicMonitor :wink: