Replacing a licensed enterprise
monitoring stack — 80% cost reduction.
A large enterprise was spending heavily on vendor licensing across HP, Cisco, Splunk, SolarWinds, and others for critical network monitoring. We replaced the entire stack with open source and best-of-breed alternatives — preserving every capability, improving performance, and cutting costs by 80%.
Licensing, support contracts, and per-seat fees eliminated
Every proprietary tool mapped to a capable open source alternative
Full feature parity achieved across all monitoring domains
Leaner stack, purpose-configured, with better resolution metrics
Mission-critical monitoring. Unsustainable cost.
The client operated a large, distributed enterprise network — thousands of devices across multiple sites, running 24/7. The monitoring stack that kept it visible had been assembled over years from best-of-breed vendors: Cisco for discovery and configuration, HP for fault management, Splunk for log aggregation and SIEM, SolarWinds for performance metrics, and PagerDuty for alerting.
Each tool worked. But together they represented an enormous, growing licensing burden. Splunk alone — charged per GB of daily log ingestion — had become the single largest line item in the IT budget. Cisco DNA Center and HP NNM carried per-device fees that scaled with the network. AppDynamics billed per CPU. PagerDuty charged per user.
The ask was direct: eliminate the cost without eliminating the capability. Every alert, every dashboard, every topology view, every security feed had to continue functioning. The operations team could not miss a beat.
Before & after the migration
Every tool. Every replacement. No gaps.
Each proprietary tool was audited against its actual usage. A capable open source alternative was selected, validated, and configured to match or exceed the original functionality before the licensed tool was decommissioned.
| Monitoring Domain | Proprietary Tool | Cost Driver | OSS Replacement | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Network Discovery & Topology | Cisco Prime Infrastructure | Per-device licensing + support contracts | LibreNMS | Auto-discovery, topology maps, SNMP polling — all retained |
| Fault Management | HP Network Node Manager (NNM) | Enterprise node-based license tiers | Zabbix | Richer alerting with custom thresholds and escalation policies |
| Log Management & SIEM | Splunk Enterprise | Per-GB daily ingestion — the largest single cost item | ELK Stack (Elasticsearch · Logstash · Kibana) | Unlimited log ingestion, full-text search, custom dashboards |
| Performance Monitoring | SolarWinds NPM | Per-element license with annual renewal | Prometheus + Grafana | Higher resolution metrics, flexible retention, superior visualisation |
| Traffic & Flow Analysis | Cisco NetFlow Analyzer | Per-interface / per-flow licensing | ntopng + nfdump | Real-time flow analysis, bandwidth trending, top-talker reports |
| Network Config Management | HP Network Automation | Enterprise license with device count caps | Oxidized + Rancid | Git-backed config versioning for every device, diff alerts on change |
| CMDB & Asset Inventory | Cisco DNA Center | SaaS subscription + per-seat access costs | NetBox | Full IPAM, rack management, asset tracking — self-hosted and customised |
| Security & Intrusion Detection | Cisco Stealthwatch + HP ArcSight | Per-flow and per-agent licensing | Suricata + Zeek + Wazuh | Deep packet inspection, threat hunting, SIEM — integrated into the same stack |
| Alert Routing & On-Call | PagerDuty | Per-user monthly subscription | Prometheus Alertmanager + Grafana OnCall | Same escalation policies, schedules, and integrations — no per-seat cost |
| APM & Tracing | AppDynamics | Per-agent CPU-based licensing | Prometheus + Jaeger + OpenTelemetry | Distributed tracing, service maps, latency breakdown fully retained |
Methodical migration. Zero downtime.
Full stack audit
We began with a complete inventory of every licensed tool in use — its function, the data it processed, the dashboards and alerts it powered, and its actual cost. Each tool was assessed against real usage patterns, not theoretical capability. Several tools were underused; some were redundant.
Tool-by-tool mapping
For every proprietary tool, we identified and documented the best-fit open source alternative. This was not a generic recommendation — each replacement was evaluated against the client's specific environment, data volumes, alert rules, and team workflows. The full mapping was documented in a structured migration matrix.
Parallel deployment
New tools were deployed alongside existing ones. For a defined validation period, both stacks ran simultaneously. Alerts, dashboards, and data were compared side-by-side. Only once the open source stack demonstrated full parity — on every metric, every alert, every dataset — was the licensed tool decommissioned.
Custom configuration
Off-the-shelf open source tools rarely match an enterprise environment out of the box. We built custom dashboards, alert rules, integrations, and retention policies specific to this client's network topology and operational workflows. The result was a more tailored stack than the vendor tools it replaced.
Team handover
The operations team needed to own the new stack. We ran knowledge transfer sessions, documented the architecture, and built runbooks for common operational tasks. The team was proficient before we stepped back — not dependent on us to keep things running.
The open source stack
Paying too much for your monitoring stack?
If vendor licensing is eating your IT budget, we can audit your stack, map the alternatives, and manage the migration — without operational disruption.