Test/Development Licenses

Solarwinds if very generous and I’m happy they offer their products out to
customers whenever the customer needs them. They have done an impressive job
moving away from a "Core" Server solution, keeping things comparable,
and somehow allowing customers to blackout of most upgrades. Their support
staff I can’t actually say anything bad about, they always seem get someone on
the line that knows what’s actually going on. I like the community thing they
have going on, and the direction they are going with SAM and NCM.

The issue I have is complicated. I must monitor "things" for
"things" that may tell someone that "Things" have
"things". I know that Solarwinds can just about monitor anything I
need it to.

Attempt 1:

I take this Solarwinds tool that monitors a particular thing and then show
people. They tell me "yea, it shows me less that the management console
does.... What’s your point.... Why go here and see less when you can go to the vendor’s
management console and see it all!" The guys that spend the cash hear
this. I tell them that it’s going to tie into the existing Solarwinds monitoring
tools we have, providing an overall understanding of what’s happening and what’s
being affected. I add that this does not replace the existing things management
console, rather ties into the system for a better view of what or if something
is wrong.

Result 1:

The guys spending the $$$$ hear from this all that the solution I have
provides us some information about things, and puts it with other things.

Attempt 2:

I take this Solarwinds tool that monitors a particular thing and install it
on my production system then show people. The admins say "yea, it shows me
less that the management console does, but it also allows me to see these things
that I couldn’t see before". then I usually get a "hey, why is this
VSAN sending to this thing, when this server's spiking the disk on that, when
CPU1 is spiked and the other 15 are almost idle?" Now the admin likes this
solution. The guys spending the $$$ don’t care because its end of Q3 and they
are thinking about assets and other things.

Result 2:

I somehow managed to sneak a changelog in on the prod system to test this
solution. Integration into our environment with the solution halted once the
license expired. The hype and many use case was just in the sys admins memory,
and I need to explain why my prod Solarwinds server tells everyone that a trial
expired. LOL

These are some examples that I have ran into.

I have done all the vanilla test deployments as well. I have managed to get
the following solutions purchased doing the two methods above.

APM:

Storage:

I have managed to get management to purchase the following by convincing
them we had exhausted the current solution.

2x unlimited pulling engines

2x additional web servers

The following were just purchased without me even knowing.

NPM:

NCM:

VOIP:

NTA:

I am not posting this to start an argument, or for others to
tell me what I did wrong.  I cannot go
back and do it over again.  This is
problem solving.  Submit your solutions
to Solarwinds, or the community.  I
solved my issue by getting someone else to do it.

A solution could be to allow solarwinds License Manager to remove and remember for trial installs?

A solution could be to allow solarwinds License Manager to remove and remember for trial installs?