What network monitoring tools were the leaders in the Gartner version

In February 2019, Gartner released the new Magic Quadrant for Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics (MQ for NPMD). NPMD tools are solutions for monitoring network traffic and infrastructure metrics of network devices. Most vendors supply integrated solutions and network monitoring - one of the components of such solutions. In the article I will compare the new quadrant NPMD 2019 with the previous one and see what has changed there. At the end of the article links to the original reports, where you can find out details about the changes for each vendor.



Compared to December 2017 (the last quadrant was then released), Gartner changed the approach to evaluating vendors, which they could include in the comparison. If earlier the vendor needed to support all three monitoring technologies: infrastructure metrics, flow and packages, now two is enough.

Let me remind you that Gartner divides the magic quadrant into categories: leaders (leaders), challengers (challengers), strategy (visionaries), niche players (niche players). Vendors are evaluated for their ability to perform (the quality and effectiveness of internal processes, systems, methods or procedures that allow the competitiveness and efficiency of the vendor to influence income and reputation) and the completeness of the vision (the ability to convincingly formulate statements about current and future market trends, innovations, customer needs and competitive power, as well as how well they are matched to the position of Gartner).



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Last year, there were 22 vendors in the quadrant, only 16 remained. Two vendors were added: LogicMonitor and Broadcom, and dropped out 7: CA Technologies (acquired by Broadcom), Corvil, Infovista, Ipswitch, Paessler, Savvius (acquired by LiveAction) and Statseeker.

The leaders

Over the past three years, NetScout, Riverbed and Viavi have been leaders. They remained in this. But in 2019 ExtraHop moved here from the category of strategists. Vendor has added AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology to its products and improved visualization.

Challengers

In the quadrant of claims is the only vendor - Solarwinds. Compared to last year, CA Technologies (now Broadcom) has moved from here to the square of applicants. Solarwinds has consolidated all of its network monitoring tools into a single Network Automation Manager (NAM).

Strategists

From the squad of strategists to niche players, Cisco evaporated and Corvil completely disappeared. Broadcom moved from the applicants and from AppNeta niche players. There are suspicions that the acquisition of CA Technologies by Broadcom will slow down the development of the product and for the next year the position of Broadcom may change. AppNeta has moved to this square mainly due to sales growth. NPMD solutions from ColaSoft, LiveAction, and SevOne remained in the same square as last year.

Niche players

Since last year, Accedian, ManageEngine, Micro Focus and New H3C Group have remained in this box. This also added a new vendor LogicMonitor, not previously present in the Gartner quadrant, for its ease of use. Cisco has moved from a squad of strategists to niche players due to the lack of proper user awareness of this vendor's NPMD line of solutions.

Gartner report for 2017 (2018) year

Gartner Report 2019

If you are looking for an NPMD solution to replace an existing one or realize its necessity, you should not immediately look towards the leaders. It is logical that the price for them is often higher, because there is more functionality. But maybe this unnecessary functionality is not even necessary. First of all, decide on the tasks you want to solve and only then look at the possibilities of products from different vendors. Although this advice sounds like a cap, but usually they first ask to show something from well-known vendors, and only then they talk about tasks.

Tell us in the comments how you chose a solution for network monitoring. At the end of the article - a small survey.