SNMP vs WMI polling of Windows systems

Question

In the knowledgebase article SolarWinds Knowledge Base :: What polling method should I use?

There is the following note:

Note: Due to specific characteristics of WMI polling requests, polling a single WMI enabled object uses approximately five times the resources required to poll the same or similar object with SNMP on the same polling frequency.

Question: Is the "approx 5x resource requirements" on the polling engine or on the end node being polled?

Chris.

cgregors · Answer

So if I have 1500 windows nodes that I want to change from SNMP polling to WMI, I can expect an increased load on the polling engines

tech info:

polling every 5 minutes

collecting cpu/mem/disk

SAM templates in play on 500 nodes (average 3 components).

rob.hock · Answer

That quote pertains to the polling engine, however WMI is more taxing on the end node compared to SNMP as well. That said, it is still generally negligible and shouldn't impact system performance. How much will vary by node and what information is being returned.