when considering solarwinds network performance monitor

When considering solarwinds network performance monitor how to#
When considering solarwinds network performance monitor install#
When considering solarwinds network performance monitor code#
When considering solarwinds network performance monitor trial#

This provides an interactive, graphical view where you could report on trends like bandwidth utilization. Alternatively, graphs can be accessed using custom web-views that can be configured for your users. NPM can display a graph based on trend information from the database, but this requires customization after the fact. Obviously this works well for some metrics like Availability, but not so well for others – like bandwidth utilization over several days. Report output is usually a table, as in the screenshot below. Related to the point above, there is no ad-hoc graphical trend reporting in the reporting module. But it would be nice to have a wider selection of reports out of the box. Granted, you can write your own reports in the Report Writer module, and a large number of reports are available as user generated content on Thwack. But, overall I found the number of reports to be minimal. NPM has a number of canned reports that cover metrics like availability and average interface utilization. Reporting is a little weak out-of-the-box.

When considering solarwinds network performance monitor code#

I searched Thwack, and was surprised to find solutions to both problems posted by both SolarWinds engineers and customers. One of the solutions even included some custom code that the SolarWinds rep had whipped up. How responsive is Thwack? While testing the software, I ran into a couple of questions that I couldn’t answer. If you have a problem you can click on the Thwack tab, post a question to the community, and receive responses without ever leaving NPM. As a solution they’ve integrated their Thwack online community into the NPM console.

When considering solarwinds network performance monitor how to#

Stuck trying to figure out how to solve a particular problem? Odds are that you aren’t alone, and SolarWinds knows that. NPM will scale to support a large distributed enterprise with the addition of a few additional components like the Enterprise Operations Console, and additional polling engines.

There’s also a reporting centre to help you generate reports to show your management how good of a job you’re doing. Other goodies are too many to mention, including the ability to monitor your wireless networks for rogue access points, and an EnergyWise monitor to help you manage power consumption in your data centre. In the example below I placed my lab routers on a large WAN style map, but you could easily use your building diagram to map switches and devices to each floor for an instant view of your LAN. The Home page displays an at-a-glance status report on your entire network, including a customizable network map. Orion NPM is highly customizable and easy to use.

The product is primarily administered from the well designed, feature-loaded web interface. Installation itself is straightforward, and at the end you’re immediately presented with a login screen to your new NPM web-interface.

When considering solarwinds network performance monitor install#

If you don’t have a dedicated SQL server Orion NPM will install a local SQL server as part of the installation. You will need a dedicated monitoring server, and ideally a separate SQL database server. Orion NPM has pretty hefty hardware requirements, so don’t try to load it on that old Compaq workstation in the corner. It’s a performance monitoring and alerting tool that can monitor all of your servers and network devices.

NPM is the core of SolarWinds’ Orion suite of network management tools. One tool worth considering is the Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) from SolarWinds. You’ll look like a hero, and your users will be happier. If the answer is b, then you need to get some monitoring tools in place! A good network monitor will alert you when your network or servers go down, and you can have the problem fixed by the time users call the helpdesk. When your users can’t access your Exchange server, who knows first?ī) Your users angrily calling the helpdesk?

When considering solarwinds network performance monitor trial#

If you need the functionality mentioned in this post, try a 30-day free trial of SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor. This post is being retained for posterity and archival purposes. UPDATE: The Orion NPM 9.5 offering has been superseded by newer versions.