SAM Getting Started 1 GetStarted PDF

GETTING STARTED GUIDE
Server & Application Monitor

Version 6.7
Last Updated: Tuesday, September 18, 2018

GETTING STARTED GUIDE: SERVER & APPLICATION MONITOR
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Table of Contents
SolarWinds SAM Getting Started Guide 8
Product terminology 9
Navigate your environment 10
Explore your SolarWinds SAM environment 11
Management actions for nodes, applications, and components 13
Introduction to the AppStack environment 14
User accounts 17
How user accounts work 17
Create a user 18
Enable Windows Authentication with Active Directory 19
Authenticate users through MSAPI 19
Change account passwords 20
Get connected 21
Access the Customer Portal 21
Create your user profile 21
Explore the Customer Portal 22
Set up additional Customer Portal user accounts 23
Engage with the SolarWinds community 23
Create a THWACK account 23
Explore the THWACK site 24
Discover 25
What should I monitor? 25
Discovery checklist 26
Monitoring overview 27
Discover your servers and applications 29
Add discovered servers and applications to SolarWinds SAM 32
Add a single node for monitoring 34
Advanced discovery 36
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Configure Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring 38
Monitor 41
Understand the relationship between applications and templates 41
Monitor Internet Information Services (IIS) 42
Add AppInsight for IIS to a node 42
View IIS application data 44
Navigate to the AppInsight for IIS details view 44
Navigate to the website details view 45
Navigate to the application pools view 45
Navigate to the performance counter details view 45
Expert knowledge for AppInsight performance counters 46
Monitor your Operating System 46
Before you begin 47
Apply a template to a node 47
View the application data 49
Configure hardware health monitoring 49
Monitor hardware health 51
Monitor cloud instances and VMs 52
Plan to scale monitoring 54
Investigate application performance with Performance Analysis 55
Alerts and reports 59
How alerts work 59
Manage and use alerts 61
List preconfigured, enabled alerts 61
Enable and disable alerts 62
Action types 62
Configure the default email action 63
Manage active alerts 64
Create a custom alert 66
How reports work 69
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Run a preconfigured report 71
Enable Asset Inventory data collection 71
Generate the report 72
Schedule a report 72
Create a SAM custom report 73
Create a custom property to identify nodes running IIS 73
Create the IIS application server issue rollup report 75
Templates 82
Create a template for an application 82
Create a template to monitor file size 82
Apply the template to a node 83
Import and export templates in SAM 84
Export a template 85
Import a template 85
Share application monitor templates on THWACK 87
Export a template 87
Import a template 88
Thresholds 90
How thresholds work 90
Edit a global threshold 90
Edit a local node threshold 92
Edit a local component monitor threshold 93
Edit an application template threshold 94
Properties and groups 96
Why use custom properties? 96
Customization checklist 97
Tips 98
Add custom properties to nodes 98
Create groups 100
Custom views 103
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How custom views work 103
Customize views 103
Create a view and add resources, or widgets 104
Create a view 104
Add resources, or widgets 105
Edit a resource 107
Change resource name and number of displayed objects 107
Sort objects in widgets 107
Filter objects displayed in a widget 108
Edit a view 108
Add subviews using Enable Navigation 110
Limit objects on the view 110
Create a custom table resource 111
Customize menu bars 113
Add your logo 116
Reduce alerting noise 118
Complex trigger conditions 118
How condition blocks are evaluated 118
Aggregate alerts 119
Alerts with multi-element triggers 119
Use instance names 121
Use duration in the alert trigger 121
The 'Do Not Alert' alert 122
Send alerts to specific contacts 124
Alerts with device-specific thresholds 125
Single alert when multiple devices go down 125
Use groups 126
Define object dependencies 126
Event correlation alerts (Y after X) 128
Agents 130
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How agents work 130
Agent communication modes 131
Server-initiated communication 131
Agent-initiated communication 132
Deploy an agent with the Add Node wizard 132
Agent resource consumption 133
Agent settings 134
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SolarWinds SAM Getting Started Guide
Welcome to the SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) Getting Started guide.
This guide walks you through the best features and options to get visibility into hardware health, asset
inventory and operating and application performance and further customize your monitoring with SAM.
l Get started. Plan your implementation, set up SAM, and collect data about your environment.
o Understand the SAM environment, user accounts, and access
o Discover applications, servers, cloud instances/VMs, and devices
o Monitor applications, hardware health, assets, cloud instances/VMs, and more
o Use Performance Analysis (PerfStack) to identify issues before customers call the help desk
o Prepare alerts and reports
l Customize. Tailor SAM to your internal processes so you can more effectively respond to
performance issues.
o Create templates for custom applications
o Create and assign custom properties to nodes
o Create dependencies between applications and supporting infrastructure
o Create custom pages
o Create dashboard views and adjust user permissions
o Create custom alerts and reports
Existing customers: Follow recommendations in this guide to ensure your system capabilities are
appropriate and your environment is sized correctly. Minimum system requirements used during
evaluation are not sufficient for a production environment. Access your licensed software from the
SolarWinds Customer Portal. If you need implementation help, contact Customer Support.
Read Working with Support to learn how to open a support case with the correct level of visibility.
Evaluators: If you are evaluating SolarWinds SAM, concentrate on the Get Started and Customize
objectives described earlier. As you work through the guide, you will see some topics that provide
information for production deployments. That information is included to provide a sense of what a
production environment looks like. Download a free 30-day evaluation here. For assistance during
evaluation, contact sales@solarwinds.com.
Here are some additional resources:
l This SAM Administrator Guide provides an overview of product features and related technologies. In
addition to details about configuring and using SolarWinds SAM, it contains recommendations on
best practices, and troubleshooting information for common situations.
l To install SAM, review SAM 6.7 system requirements and SAM release notes, and then use the
SolarWinds Orion Installer.
l To get the latest version of SAM, use the SAM upgrade guide.
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l For details about features shared by SAM and other Orion Platform products such as user accounts,
views, dashboards, and alerts, see the Orion Platform Administration Guide.
l Visit the SolarWinds Success Center for product guides, training resources, and technical support
articles.
Be sure to check out the Server & Application Monitor product forum in the SolarWinds online IT
community, THWACK, to connect with SolarWinds developers and product managers, plus other
SAM users. Download templates, reports, scripts and more that allow you to customize and extend our
products. Some content in this area is created by SolarWinds staff and the rest is created and shared with
the community by our members.
Product terminology
Orion Platform: The common backend platform used by the Solarwinds Orion suite of products, including
NPM, SAM, NCM, NTA, and more. The Orion Platform is the backbone for navigation, settings, and common
features like alerts and reports. It also provides a consistent look-and-feel across products, giving you a
"single pane of glass" for your Orion monitoring tools.
Orion Web Console: The web interface you see when you log into the Orion Web Console that is used to
view, configure, and manage all of your monitored objects.
Orion server: A Microsoft Windows server that hosts the Orion Web Console and collects data from
monitored objects. Also called the Orion Main Poller or Main Polling Engine.
Orion database server: A Windows SQL server that is hosted on a dedicated server in a production
environment, separate from the Orion Application Server. It stores Orion configuration data plus collected
performance and syslog data.
Polling engine: A polling engine controls polling job scheduling, data processing, and queries your
monitored devices for performance metrics like CPU, memory, and up/down status. Additional Polling
Engines (APEs) can be licensed to provide additional scalability and capacity. By default, the Orion Server
provides one polling engine, that is often called the "main polling engine."
Node: A node is considered to be any endpoint of a given network. For example, any application, server,
device, or computer on a network is considered a node.
Template: A template is the blueprint for an application. It is a collection of component monitors designed
to monitor a server or application. You can customize numerous templates using only the component
monitors you need for a specific environment. For a list of out-of-the-box templates, see the SAM Template
Reference.
Application: An application or application monitor in SAM monitors a specific application or server using a
collection of component monitors.
Component Monitor: A component monitor is the fundamental element of an application. Component

monitors return the current status or value of a monitored service or process. All component monitors
return at least one value or one status condition. For a full list of component monitors, see
SAM Component Monitor Types.
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Navigate your environment
SolarWinds SAM includes many resources and views you can use to manage and troubleshoot an
environment. A resource is a building block that displays on a view as a box and provides information
about different aspects of monitoring, usually in a chart or table. Some resources are intended for use on
summary views, some are suitable for detail views, and some can be useful on both view types.
The following figure shows several resources in a single summary view, including a resource with gauges
that displays statistics for multiple compontents:
Some resources and views are not visible by default and can be added by editing settings.
Continue to the following pages to learn more about SolarWinds SAM:
l Explore your SolarWinds SAM environment

l Introduction to the AppStack environment
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Explore your SolarWinds SAM environment

Most resources in the SolarWinds SAM environment are actionable. For example, drilling down to and
clicking an individual node in the All Nodes resource on the Summary page takes you to the Node Details
page. The Node Details page contains resources that provide information about this node. The following
example shows the Management resource, which is one of many resources available on the Node Details
page.
Clicking Manage Nodes in the All Nodes resource opens the Manage Nodes page where you can take
action on multiple nodes.
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Use the All Applications resource on the Summary page to drill down to individual applications and
component monitors of an application. The Application Details page provides details about the individual
application and actions you can perform on that application. This allows you to manage templates and
applications to node assignments, or "unmanage" (that is, stop managing) multiple applications at one
time.
Clicking Manage Applications in the All Applications resource takes you to the Manage Applications page
where you can troubleshoot and resolve issues on multiple applications.
Expand an application name to show all component monitors associated with that application. Click a
component monitor to access the Component Monitor details page to view detailed information and
perform additional actions.
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Management actions for nodes, applications, and components

The Orion Platform provides many options to manage nodes, applications, and components, similar to how
Windows Task Manager works.
OPTION FUNCTION
Edit Node Edit the properties of a node and the polling method used.
List Resources Display resources that indicate what is being monitored.
Unmanage Suspend polling and collecting statistics for a set period of time.
Poll Now Reschedules a job to run immediately.
If the job scheduler is at capacity, the job may not execute immediately, but it
will execute before the next scheduled poll cycle.
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OPTION FUNCTION
Rediscover Update node data such as machine type, system name, or location.
Add New Alert Create a new alert for a node.
Real-Time Stop, start, and select processes to monitor.

Process Explorer
Service Control Stop, start, and restart services.

Manager
Real-time Event Display a list of system events and start monitoring events.
Log Viewer
Reboot Restart the remote computer.
These controls are available on the Details page of the node, application, or component in the
Management resource.
Introduction to the AppStack environment

SolarWinds SAM provides an Application Stack (AppStack) with an interactive visual map that displays a
detailed view of your environment, helping to identify the root cause of performance and availability
issues. Use AppStack to assess the overall health of your environment and to troubleshoot specific and
related problems.
AppStack provides a more thorough analysis of root cause problems in your environment when
combined with Storage Resource Manager, Virtualization Manager, and Web Performance Monitor.
An AppStack view is also available at the application layer that only shows the relationships for that
application. This view is called the Mini-Stack.
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1. Click My Dashboards > Environment.

The AppStack environment generates categories that show the status of objects in your IT
environment. Objects on the left are the highest priority.
2. Click an object to highlight related objects and gray out unrelated objects.
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3. Click Spotlight to remove unrelated objects.
4. To investigate further, click the selected object.
The relevant Details page appears.
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User accounts
This section provides information on working with user accounts:
l How user accounts work

l Create a user
l Enable Windows Authentication with Active Directory
l Change account passwords
How user accounts work

Check out this video on account permissions and limitations.
User accounts consist of three types of permissions:
l Basic account permissions

l View assignments
l Application specific settings
Before you begin, consider what tasks the user must perform, and what views and menu bars are most
suitable.
Users created using default settings can log in to the Orion Web Console and see information available in
views, resources, and reports. For administration and customization tasks, users need extra rights.
TASK ACCESS
(SELECT YES FOR THIS OPTION OR DO AS INSTRUCTED)
Add and edit user accounts and reset Allow Administrator Rights
passwords.
SolarWinds recommends that

you do not allow users to
change their own Orion Web
Console account passwords.
Add, edit, and delete nodes. Allow Node Management Rights
Enable/disable monitoring elements. Allow Account to Unmanage Objects
Add, edit, schedule, and delete Allow Report Management Rights

reports.
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TASK ACCESS
(SELECT YES FOR THIS OPTION OR DO AS INSTRUCTED)
Add, edit, and delete alerts. Allow Alert Management Rights
To only allow some actions, keep No in Allow Alert Management

rights and Allow items in the Alerts section as appropriate.
SolarWinds does not recommend enabling Alert

Management Rights when a user account is set to expire.
When the account expires, any alert the account created
will behave erratically.
Customize views. Allow Account to Customize Views
Access only a set of devices (type, Click Add Limitation and define the limitation.
location, department, and so on).
If you create a new account and do not configure the SAM User Role, you will not be able to fully
manage applications within SAM.
Create a user
Check out this video on creating users.
1. Log in to the Orion Web Console, and click Settings > All Settings.
2. Click Manage Accounts in the User Accounts grouping, and click Add New Account on the Individual
Accounts tab.
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3. Select Orion individual account, and click Next.
4. Provide the account credentials, and click Next.

5. On Define Settings, provide rights so that the user can perform assigned tasks, select default views
and menu bars, and then click Submit.
Enable Windows Authentication with Active Directory

The Orion Web Console can authenticate Active Directory users and users who are members of Active
Directory security groups by using MSAPI or LDAP. By default, Windows individual or group accounts use
MSAPI to authenticate accounts.
You can only use one authentication protocol at a time. All Windows accounts are authenticated through
MSAPI or LDAP, depending on which one is enabled.
SolarWinds offers a free analyzer tool for Active Directory that provides instantaneous visibility into
effective permissions and access rights. The tool provides a complete hierarchical view of the
effective permissions access rights for a specific file folder (NTSF) or share drive. Download it for
free from here: http://www.solarwinds.com/products/freetools/permissions_analyzer_for_active_
directory/.
Authenticate users through MSAPI

1. Enable the Orion Web Console to use automatic Windows Authentication.
a. Start the Configuration Wizard in the SolarWinds Orion > Configuration and Auto-Discovery
program folder.
b. Select Website, and click Next.
c. Provide the appropriate IP Address, Port, and Website Root Directory, and select Yes - Enable
Automatic Login Using Windows Authentication.
d. Click Next, and complete the Configuration Wizard.
2. Log in to the Orion Web Console using the appropriate domain and user, providing Domain\User
name or Username@Domain as the User Name.
3. Run the Configuration Wizard and enable Windows authentication.
4. Login to the Orion Web Console, and navigate to Settings > All Settings. In Web Console Settings,
select Enable automatic login in the Windows Account Login drop-down.
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Change account passwords
When you log in to the Orion Web Console for the first time, SolarWinds recommends that you change the
password for the Admin account.
Only users with administrator rights can change the password.
2. Click Manage Accounts in the User Accounts grouping.
3. Select a user, and click Change Password.
4. Enter and confirm the new password, and click Change Password.
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Get connected
This section contains information on accessing the SolarWinds Customer Portal and engaging with
THWACK, the SolarWinds community of IT pros:
l Access the Customer Portal

l Set up additional Customer Portal user accounts
l Engage with the SolarWinds community
Access the Customer Portal

The SolarWinds Customer Portal provides access to license and maintenance information, support cases,
and product downloads, as well as live and instructor-led virtual classroom training.
Create your user profile

To create a user profile, you must know the SolarWinds customer ID (SWID) issued to your company. If you
are a SolarWinds customer but do not have a SWID, contact SolarWinds Customer Support.
Users with multiple SWIDs require only one user profile. Your user profile can be linked to multiple
SWIDs.
1. Go to customerportal.solarwinds.com.
2. Click the Register tab.
3. Enter your organization's SWID and your email address.
If you have multiple SWIDs, enter any SWID to create your profile. Later, use the User Profile
menu to link the other SWIDs to your profile.
The account administrator will review the request, and you will receive an email when it is approved.
For more information about creating an account, see this FAQ page.
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Explore the Customer Portal
Manage licenses and access license keys.
Download purchased products.
Open a new support case and monitor existing cases.
Download free trials of integrated products.
Sign up for training.
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Set up additional Customer Portal user accounts

If you are an account administrator for the SolarWinds Customer Portal, you can add additional user
accounts and define each user's access level. Set up additional accounts to allow other users to view
information in the portal, create a support case, access information about existing support cases, or sign
up for training.
For more information about user account types and permissions, see this FAQ page.
1. Log in to the SolarWinds Customer Portal using an account with Account Administrator level access.
2. In the user account drop-down menu in the upper-right corner, click Company Account Settings.
3. Click the Add User button.
4. Enter the user's email address.
5. Specify the user's access level and click Create.
l Account Administrator: can access all areas of the Customer Portal. Can also add and remove
users, edit user profile information, and assign roles and contact types to users.
l Standard Access: can access all areas of the Customer Portal.
l No Access: cannot access the Customer Portal, but is listed as a contact on the account.
The system sends a user profile creation email to the user. The user account is listed as Pending in
the Admin portal until the user activates their account through the user profile creation email.
Engage with the SolarWinds community

Use the SolarWinds THWACK community website to learn more about SolarWinds products, participate in
discussions, and get help resolving issues.
Create a THWACK account

You can read content on THWACK without an account. However, having an account allows you to take full
advantage of the site by submitting feature requests, liking or following posts, and contributing content.
When you create a THWACK account, SolarWinds will not send you unsolicited emails or add you to
marketing lists.
1. Go to thwack.solarwinds.com.
2. Click Register in the top right.
3. Enter the required information and accept the license agreement.
4. Click Create Account.
After you create a THWACK account, you will be asked if you want to link your THWACK account with
your Customer Portal account. If you link the accounts, you will see more relevant content and
messages in the Customer Portal.
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Explore the THWACK site
After you create an account, complete the onboarding mission to begin exploring THWACK. Participating in
the THWACK community earns points, which you can use to purchase items in the THWACK store.
As a member of the THWACK community, you can:
l Participate in community discussions and get answers to your questions.

In the product forums, you can post questions and view responses to other users' questions. Advice,
resolutions, and troubleshooting tips are provided by community members and by SolarWinds
employees.
l Extend product capabilities with custom templates, reports, and scripts.
The THWACK product forums include thousands of downloadable templates, reports, and scripts you
can use to customize or extend your SolarWinds products. This content is contributed by SolarWinds
employees and by other community members.
l View product roadmaps, which list the features currently being developed for future product
releases.
l Be notified of User Experience sessions where you can share your experiences, and help make
SolarWinds products better.
l Influence the direction of a product by submitting feature requests and voting for other users'
feature requests.
l Read blogs about SolarWinds products and about general IT topics.
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Discover
This section contains the following discovery topics:
l What should I monitor?

l Discover your servers and applications
l Add discovered servers and applications to SolarWinds SAM
l Add a single node for monitoring
l Advanced discovery
l Configure Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring
What should I monitor?

Discovery is a term used to describe the process SolarWinds Orion uses to identify network elements.
During discovery, SolarWinds Orion scans the network for application servers and applications that you
can you can add to the SolarWinds Orion database for monitoring.
SolarWinds SAM can monitor an application, or it can be configured to monitor a custom collection of

application components, process monitors, and performance counters. Depending on your needs,
SolarWinds can assess the status of every aspect of your application, and the health of the application as a
whole.
SAM also monitors Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud instances and Microsoft Azure VMs. With access to
your cloud services account, SAM can poll cloud service APIs for cloud metrics and status. This data
aggregates and displays through the Orion Web Console to monitor, manage, and troubleshoot issues in
your cloud environment.
SolarWinds recommends adding a limited number of applications and servers to begin monitoring and
gauging performance, including Microsoft Exchange, IIS, SQL, Linux, and Unix. After monitoring, alerts, and
reports are set up, continue adding more applications and servers to expand your infrastructure
monitoring.
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Discovery checklist
When you run the Discovery Wizard, you will be asked to provide IP addresses and credentials for the
devices you want to monitor. SolarWinds recommends that you gather this information before running the
Discovery Wizard.
Determine the devices to monitor.
Determine the protocol used to monitor your devices: SNMP or WMI. See Monitoring overview for
details.
Gather IP ranges or individual IP addresses you want the system to scan as it discovers your
network.
Collect SNMP v1/2c community strings and SNMP v3 community strings and credentials of the
devices you want to monitor.
Obtain login credentials for each monitored device, including
l VMware host credentials. The system requires read-only permissions.

l Windows credentials: domain or local admin.
For AWS cloud monitoring, add an AWS IAM user account (up to 10) and Account Access Key ID
and Secret Access Key for access. The account should include the following permissions:
l ec2:DescribeInstances
l ec2:DescribeAddresses
l ec2:DescribeVolumes
l ec2:DescribeVolumeStatus
l cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics
l autoscaling:DescribeAutoScalingInstances
For additional management actions, add the following permissions to the AWS IAM user account:
l ec2:StartInstances
l ec2:StopInstances
l ec2:RebootInstances
l ec2:TerminateInstances
To set up permissions and AWS cloud accounts, see Learn more about Amazon EC2 credentials
for cloud monitoring.
For Microsoft Azure cloud monitoring, configure Azure to interact with the Orion Platform before
adding an Azure cloud account to the Orion Web Console. Each account requires sufficient Azure
Active Directory (AD) and subscription permissions to add an AD app in the Azure Portal so the
Orion Platform can retrieve status and metrics for VMs. IAM permissions must also be set up.
Visit the SolarWinds Success Center and review Configuring Microsoft Azure for cloud
monitoring in the Orion Platform for details.
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Monitoring overview
You can configure an application or template to collect data through a preferred polling method as agent
or agentless.
Monitoring with Orion agents
An agent is software that provides a communication channel between the Orion server and a Windows or
Linux computer. Products install plugins on agents to collect the data that the agents send back. Orion
agents are available for Windows and Linux. For requirements and information, see Monitoring with Orion
agents in SAM.
Monitoring with SNMP
To monitor devices using SNMP, you must enable SNMP on those devices because it is not enabled by
default. SNMP is primarily used to monitor network devices, for example, routers, firewalls, and switches.
To enable SNMP, consult the device vendor documentation.
When configuring SNMP-enabled network devices for monitoring, note these details:
l Steps to enable SNMP communications differ by device; consult the documentation provided by your
device vendor.
l For correct device identification, monitored devices must allow access to the SysObjectID.
l Unix-based devices should use the version of Net-SNMP (5.5 or later) that is specific to the Unix-
based operating system in use.
l If SNMPv2c is enabled on a device, NMPv2c is used to poll the device for performance details by
default. To poll with SNMPv1, disable SNMPv2c on the device to be polled.
l SolarWinds SAM can monitor VMware ESX and ESXi Servers versions 4.0 and later.
l Linux/Unix servers are generally monitored with SNMP and SSH Script Monitors that require user
credentials.
VMware Tools is not required on virtual machines (VMs) running on monitored ESXi and ESX servers,
but additional details such as IP addresses are made available if VMware Tools is installed on VMs
hosted by monitored ESXi and ESX Servers.
Monitoring with WMI
If monitoring Windows servers, use Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), which is usually
enabled on Windows devices by default. Capable of gathering more data than SNMP, WMI is the preferred
polling method because some SolarWinds SAM features are not available if you use SNMP.
Agentless monitoring using WMI is not recommended when the poller and the device are separated by a
firewall. To overcome this limitation, SolarWinds provides an optional agent that allows you to securely
monitor Windows servers and applications by WMI. If you want to use SNMP for Windows, then you must
install and configure an SNMP agent.
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Deciding between SNPM and WMI
SNMP is typically used to monitor servers and network devices without agents. For Windows servers, WMI
usually provides better metrics than can be obtained through SNMP monitoring alone. For many Windows-
based servers and applications, agentless monitoring via the WMI gateway provides strong monitoring
capabilities.
The availability of some features depends on which Orion Platform modules are in your
environment, as well as which product versions you're using. For example, NPM supports polling via
WMI, SNMP, and agents. However, interface polling via WMI and Agent is not supported unless you
have a SAM license. You must use SNMP as a polling method to obtain interface data in an NPM-
only installation. For details, see Polling methods used by Orion.
The following table describes the pros and cons of monitoring with SNMP vs. WMI:
SNMP WMI
Bandwidth, CPU, memory Uses more bandwidth, CPU,
usage on the host/poller and memory than SNMP per poll.
Monitoring across Requires an agent for secure

firewall/NAT-ed WAN monitoring over one port.
connection
Windows mount points Cannot collect Windows mount point

and application metrics statistics or application level metrics.
To learn more, see the following the SolarWinds Customer Success Center articles:
l Feature availability based on monitoring methods

l How do I choose a polling method to use in SAM?
l WMI vs. SNMP polling
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Discover your servers and applications

Check out this video on discovering your servers and applications.
Discovery is a term that describes the process SolarWinds Orion uses to identify application servers and
applications. Before you begin:
l Ensure that you determine what to monitor.

l Enable Windows devices for WMI. For information on enabling WMI, search
https://technet.microsoft.com/.
l Enable the networking devices you want to monitor for SNMP.
The first time you run the Discovery Wizard, SolarWinds recommends adding a limited number of
application servers, including Exchange, IIS, SQL, Linux, and Unix. The examples in this guide focus on
monitoring IIS and the operating system of your application server, but the same steps are applicable to
monitoring any application.
After discovery, if the status of a node is Unknown, you may need to check settings in SolarWinds
SAM. See Troubleshoot Unknown Nodes for details.
1. If the Discovery Wizard does not start automatically after configuration, click Settings > Network
Discovery.
2. Click Add New Discovery, and then click Start.
3. On the Network panel, if this is your first discovery, add a limited number of IP addresses.
As you scale your implementation, you can use the following scanning options.
Option Description
IP Ranges Use this option when you want Orion to scan one or more IP ranges.
If you have many IP ranges to scan, consider adding multiple discovery jobs rather
than including all ranges in a single job.
Subnets Use this option to scan every IP address in a subnet. SolarWinds recommends
scanning at most a /23 subnet (512 addresses max).
Scanning a subnet returns everything that responds to ping, so we recommend only
scanning subnets where the majority of devices are objects you want to monitor.
IP Use this option for a limited number of IP addresses that do not fall in a range.
Addresses Since a network discovery job can take a long time to complete, SolarWinds
recommends using this option when you are first starting out.
Active Use this option to scan an Active Directory Domain Controller.

Directory Using Active Directory for discovery is particularly useful for adding large subnets
because Orion can use the devices specified in Active Directory instead of scanning
every IP address.
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4. The Agents panel appears. The QoE agent monitors packet-level traffic. If there are any nodes using
agents, select the Check all existing nodes.
This setting ensures that any agents you deploy, including the one on your Orion server, are up-to-
date. If there are no nodes using agents, you can leave this option unchecked.
5. On the Virtualization panel, to discover VMware vCenter or ESX hosts on your network, enter the
credentials, and click Next.
6. On the SNMP panel, to monitor an SNMP-enabled device, enter the credentials, and click Next.
7. On the Windows panel, to discover WMI or RPC-enabled Windows devices, click Add New Credential
and provide the required information.
SolarWinds recommends that you monitor Windows devices with WMI instead of SNMP.
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8. On the Monitoring Settings panel, SolarWinds recommends manually setting up monitoring the first
time you run discovery. This allows you to review the list of discovered objects and select the ones
you want to monitor.
When you scale monitoring, you can configure discovery to automatically start monitoring objects it
finds.
9. On the Discovery Settings panel, click Next.

10. Accept the default frequency and run the discovery immediately.
Discovery can take anywhere from 5 minutes to several hours, depending on the number of
application servers involved.
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Add discovered servers and applications to SolarWinds SAM
After the Network Sonar Wizard discovers your network, the Network Sonar Results Wizard opens, allowing
you to import network elements into SolarWinds SAM. Discovered elements do not count against your
license count; only elements that you import into the Orion database count against your license.
When you run discovery manually, the system automatically selects all network elements to be monitored.
You must clear the check boxes for elements you do not want monitored. This example highlights Windows
devices with IIS.
Before you begin, ensure that you Discover your servers and applications.
If discovering your network for the first time, SolarWinds recommends monitoring a small number
of critical servers.
1. Make sure that only the device types you want to monitor are selected, and click Next.
After discovery, if the status of a node is Unknown, you may need to check settings in
SolarWinds NPM. See Troubleshoot Unknown Nodes.
2. Ensure the interfaces you want to monitor are selected, and click Next.
SolarWinds recommends that you do not monitor WAN, QoS, multi-port, and virtual NIC interfaces.
SolarWinds SAM only discovers interfaces on WMI nodes.
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3. Ensure the volume types you want to monitor are selected, and click Next.
SolarWinds recommends that you do not monitor compact disks and removable disks.
4. Select the applications to monitor, and click Next.

In this example, Microsoft IIS is selected and will be configured for monitoring.
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5. Review the list of elements to be imported, and click Import.
6. On the Results tab, click Finish.

7. Click My Dashboards > SAM Summary.
The SAM Summary view widgets may take several minutes to populate with data.
Add a single node for monitoring

As an alternative to using the Network Sonar Discovery wizard, you can add individual nodes for
monitoring.
Adding a single node offers more detail in monitoring and is the recommended approach when you
have a node with high latency. Do not include nodes with high latency in a discovery job.
As you add a single node for monitoring, you can:
l Select the statistics and resources to monitor.

l Identify how often the node status, monitored statistics, or topology details are updated.
l Add custom properties.
l Edit alert thresholds.
To add a single node for monitoring:
1. Log in to the Orion Web Console as an administrator.

2. Click Settings > Manage Nodes, and then click Add a Node.
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3. Specify the node, and click Next.

a. Provide the host name or IP address.
b. Select the polling method, and provide credentials.
4. Select the statistics and resources to monitor on the node, and click Next.
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5. Review and adjust the device properties.
a. To edit the SNMP settings, change the values, and click Test.
b. To edit how often the node status, monitored statistics, or topology details are updated, change
the values in the Polling area.
For critical nodes, you may need to poll status information or collect statistics more
frequently than the default polling intervals.
Change the polling intervals if polling the nodes takes too long.
c. Enter values for custom properties for the node.

The Custom Properties area will be empty if you have not defined any custom properties for
the monitored nodes. See "Add custom properties to nodes" in the SolarWinds Getting Started
Guide - Customize.
d. To adjust when the status of the node changes to Warning or Critical, edit alerting thresholds
for the metric. Select the Override box and set thresholds specific for the node.
6. Click OK, Add Node.

The node will be monitored according to the options you set.
Advanced discovery
Check out this video on managing discovery jobs and performance.
At this point you have completed an initial discovery. Now you can add discoveries to include other
segments of your IT environment.
Discovery jobs do not impact polling. Polling is prioritized first.
l Multiple jobs. SolarWinds recommends building as many discovery jobs as needed to scan your
network. Initially, run the jobs immediately so you can see everything on your network, and then
schedule the jobs to run periodically. Dividing the discovery into multiple jobs makes it easier to be
selective about what to monitor, and decreases the amount of time each job runs. When you have a
large environment, consider dividing discovery jobs by:
o Credentials - the more credentials you have, the longer it takes for the discovery job to
complete. Place the most common credentials at the top of the list.
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o IP address range - use a range that consists of fewer than 2,000 IP addresses. In a range,
unresponsive IP addresses slow down discovery.
o Latency - run discoveries for remote offices separately so that you can adjust the timeout
threshold.
o Polling engine - if you have multiple polling engines, configure a discovery for a specific polling
engine.
l Discovery ranges. Although you can discover specific nodes, SolarWinds recommends using a
range of IP addresses or subnets for a more complete picture of your network. None of the
discovered elements count toward your license total or affect system performance until you begin
monitoring. You can add multiple IP ranges or subnets to the same scan, but you cannot include IP
ranges and subnets in the same scan.
l Discovery thresholds. If you run a discovery and nodes you expect to see are not found, you may
need to adjust the timeout and retry thresholds. In an environment with high latency, the default
values may not be high enough. Only adjust these values after an initial scan. The higher the
threshold value, the longer the discovery job takes to complete.
l Polling engine. If you have multiple polling engines, you will see an option to select a polling engine.
The polling engine you select runs the discovery job and monitors your network. SolarWinds
recommends that you limit a poller to 12,000 elements, so be careful not to overload one polling
engine. If you have a large environment with significant differences in latency, position the polling
engine close to the monitored objects.
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l Schedule intervals. Schedule your discovery jobs to run periodically to identify new devices that
were added to your network. Unless you work in a dynamic environment where new devices are
frequently added to your network, SolarWinds recommends scheduling discovery daily. You can also
select Advanced from the Frequency drop-down menu to create a custom frequency. The schedule
interval you choose depends on how often you want to scan for changes to the network and the size
and performance of your deployment.
l Scheduled results. A manual, scheduled discovery only finds network elements, but does not
automatically start monitoring. You must select what you want the system to monitor. If the
scheduled job locates nodes that you do not want to monitor, select those nodes and click Add to
Ignore List. Ignoring hides elements from the results list the next time the discovery job runs.
Scheduled discovery profiles should not use IP address ranges that include nodes using
DHCP.
Configure Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring

Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring provides visibility into your Amazon Web Services (AWS) and/or Microsoft
Azure cloud infrastructure.
Unlike application and server discovery jobs, adding cloud instances and VMs to the Orion Platform is not
an automated process. For example, before you can monitor Azure VMs, you must configure Azure to
interact with the Orion Platform and add a cloud service account in the Orion Web Console.
The following table outlines cloud monitoring requirements. See the SAM Administrator Guide for details.
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FUNCTIONALITY REQUIREMENTS
Monitor AWS cloud metrics To create an AWS account, see the Amazon documentation. For details
on setting up permissions and AWS cloud accounts, see Learn more
about Amazon EC2 credentials for cloud monitoring.
Credentials required to add AWS accounts to the Orion Platform and
deploy Orion agents to instances include:
l Access Key ID
l Secret Access Key
Monitor Azure cloud metrics Follow the steps in Configuring Microsoft Azure for cloud monitoring in
the Orion Platform.
Credentials required to add Azure accounts to the Orion Platform or
deploy Orion agents to VMs include:
l Subscription ID
l Tenant/Directory ID
l Client/Application ID
l Application Secret Key
After creating and configuring a cloud account, follow these steps to add the cloud account to the Orion
Platform.
1. Log into the Orion Web Console.

2. Click My Dashboards > Cloud to access the Cloud Summary page.
3. In the Getting Started widget, click Monitor my Cloud Instances.
4. Select a Cloud Service Provider.
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5. Click Monitor AWS or Monitor Azure, depending on which provider you selected.
6. On the Cloud Settings tab, enter a Display Name for the account and provide account credentials.
7. If the SolarWinds Orion server requires a proxy server to connect to certain websites, click "Are you
behind a proxy?" to configure proxy settings.
8. (Optional) Click Test Connection.
If an error occurs, verify account credentials and confirm that accounts are configured for the
Orion Platform.
9. (Optional) Toggle Auto Monitoring off for instances/VMs added later, either manually or via
automated discovery.
10. Click Continue to complete the wizard.
With access to your cloud services account, Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring polls cloud service APIs for
cloud metrics and status. This data aggregates and displays through the Orion Web Console so you can
monitor, manage, and troubleshoot issues in your cloud environment.
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Monitor
This section includes instructions on how to configure monitoring:
l Understand the relationship between applications and templates

l Monitor Internet Information Services (IIS)
l Monitor your Operating System
l Configure hardware health monitoring
l Monitor hardware health
l Monitor cloud instances and VMs
l Plan to scale monitoring
l Investigate application performance with Performance Analysis
Understand the relationship between applications and

templates
In SolarWinds SAM, an application is a collection of component monitors inherited from a template. A
component monitor queries for values returned by a process, counter, status, or script. SolarWinds SAM
uses the data received to display vital statistics concerning the health of the system.
Templates provide blueprints for the applications to be monitored. You can customize templates, and use
only the component monitors you need to monitor a specific environment. SolarWinds SAM provides the
following types of templates:
l AppInsight application templates are preconfigured templates that provide detailed information. If
you have business-critical Exchange, Microsoft IIS, or Microsoft SQL instances, use the AppInsight
templates to monitor these applications. These templates have their own mechanism of discovering
elements of an application dynamically. They also have special licensing.
l If you have other business-critical applications, apply one of the many preconfigured application
templates that ship with SolarWinds SAM. SolarWinds recommends deploying a single template,
making necessary edits to customize it to your environment, and then deploying the edited template
on all similar applications. You can also obtain a template from the thwack community for an
application not shipped with SAM.
l If you have a custom, homegrown application that you need to monitor, you can build a custom
template.
The following illustration explains the template and application relationship. If you make a change at the
template level, the applications based on that template will be affected. Conversely, if you make a change
at the application level, only the individual application will be affected.
This inheritance relationship is beneficial if you need to make a lot of changes. For example, rather than
making one change to 100 applications (and therefore 100 changes), you can change one item that will
affect all 100 applications based on that template.
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Monitor Internet Information Services (IIS)
SolarWinds SAM includes AppInsight Applications that provide a level of detail beyond what other
templates can provide, allowing you to monitor virtually every aspect of your application. The AppInsight
for IIS application provides:
l Control over web sites and application pools

l Separate, detailed metrics on each website or pool, instead of just a summary level
l Monitoring log space usage on each website individually, ASP.NET requests monitoring
l SSL expiration monitoring
If the system did not scan for AppInsight for IIS during discovery, you can add it to monitored servers
running IIS.
This example shows how to apply the AppInsight for IIS application template to a Windows node.
Add AppInsight for IIS to a node

1. From the web console, navigate to the Node Details page of any WMI node running IIS.
You must know which nodes are running IIS.
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2. From the Management resource, click List Resources.
3. Select Microsoft IIS to enable AppInsight for IIS data collection, then click Submit.
List resources shows all monitorable features of a node.
4. Click the All Applications resource to verify the addition by clicking the Applications.
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5. Enter your IIS credentials when prompted, and click Configure Server.
For troubleshooting information, see Troubleshooting AppInsight for IIS.
View IIS application data

SolarWinds SAM displays IIS data in views. The type of view determines the level of detail. For example, the
AppInsight for IIS details view provides a rollup of information about that IIS server, including statistics
about all the sites on the server, application pools, and connections.
Navigate to the AppInsight for IIS details view

1. From the web console, locate the All Applications resource by clicking My Dashboards > Home.
2. Expand the AppInsight for IIS tree by clicking >.
3. Click an IIS application to view.
From the Applnsight for IIS details view you can view the status and details for Sites, Applications Pools,
and Performance Counters by clicking elements in each of these resources.
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Navigate to the website details view

From the AppInsight for IIS details view, click a website in the Sites resource. The Sites resource shows
every site hosted by that server.
Navigate to the application pools view

From the AppInsight for IIS details view, click an application pool in the Application Pool resource. The
Application Pool resource show the memory and CPU usage of each site on the server.
Navigate to the performance counter details view

From the AppInsight for IIS details view, click a performance counter in any resource. For example, click
ASP.NET > Requests Rejected.
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Expert knowledge for AppInsight performance counters
General information is provided for a selected counter, in addition to possible problems and
troubleshooting steps, where applicable. Find expert knowledge on the performance counter details page.
AppInsight for IIS can help you monitor and troubleshoot IIS. However, a software monitoring solution
cannot detect failed hardware issues, such as insufficient RAM or a failed cooling fan. To detect hardware
issues, you also need to enable hardware health monitoring.
Monitor your Operating System

SolarWinds SAM provides a number of out-of-the-box application templates that you can use to monitor
business-critical applications. You can assign these templates as-is to nodes, or create copies to modify
settings or add and modify component monitors.
SolarWinds recommends deploying a single template, making necessary edits to customize it to your
environment, and then deploying the edited template on all similar applications. To find and add
additional templates, import templates shared by other users through THWACK. SAM provides import
options for THWACKexports and directly from files.
The following example shows how to apply the Windows Server 2003-2012 template to monitor a Windows
2012 OS.
The Windows Server 2003-2012 template monitors the following components:
l Service: Distributed Transaction Coordinator

l Service: Security Accounts Manager
l Service: Remote Registry
l Total Available Memory (MB)
l Page File Usage
l Disk Queue Length
l Virtual Memory
l % Processor Time
l Service: Server
l Service: Plug and Play
l Pages per second
l Logical Disk: Average Disk Queue Length
l Physical Disk: Average Disk Queue Length
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Before you begin

l Ensure you have both WMI access and Windows Administrator credentials on the server you want to
monitor.
Windows Performance Counters use Remote Procedure Call (RPC) for communication which uses
TCP port 445. If testing fails once the template has been assigned to a node, you can use the WMI
protocol.
Apply a template to a node

1. From the Web Console, click Settings > All Settings > SAM Settings.
2. Under Application Monitor Templates, click Manage Templates.
3. Locate the template and click Assign to Node.
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4. Select the Windows nodes you want to monitor for the operating system on the left pane, click the
green arrow to move it to the right pane, and click Next.
5. Choose the credentials, and click Assign Application Monitors.
6. On the Finish panel, click Done.

It will take several minutes for the initial poll to complete and resources to display data.
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View the application data

Click My Dashboards > SAM Summary to view the All Applications resource. The All Applications resource
is an excellent method for at-a-glance monitoring with hover-over information and icons status to provide
a quick overview of data. When software has been ruled out as the problem, check the hardware health.
Configure hardware health monitoring

SolarWinds SAM monitors hardware health information such as fan, power supply, memory, CPU, and so
on, on the following types of hardware:
l VMware hosts
l HP ProLiant™
l Dell PowerEdge™
l IBM X-Series™
l HP C7000 and HP C3000 BladeSystems
l Dell M1000e Blade Enclosure
For SolarWinds SAM to monitor hardware health information, the Hardware Monitoring Agent, provided by
the software manufacturer, must be installed, configured, and enabled on each system. Once enabled
server-side, you must either:
l Run a discovery so that SolarWinds SAM can detect that the Hardware Monitoring Agent has been
enabled. SolarWinds recommends this approach if you have multiple nodes where the Hardware
Monitoring Agent has been enabled, or if you are not already monitoring those nodes.
l Go to the Node Details page, select List Resources, then check the Hardware Health option.
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To configure hardware health monitoring:
1. In the Orion Web Console, click My Dashboards > Home.

2. In the All Nodes resource, click the node you want to monitor.
3. On the Management resource, click List Resources.
4. Select Hardware Health Sensors, and click Submit.
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Monitor hardware health

SolarWinds SAM monitors hardware health information such as fan, power supply, memory, CPU, and so
on, on the following types of hardware:
l VMware hosts
l HP ProLiant™
l Dell PowerEdge™
l IBM X-Series™
l HP C7000 and HP C3000 BladeSystems
l Dell M1000e Blade Enclosure
For SolarWinds SAM to monitor hardware health:
l The Hardware Monitoring Agent, provided by the software manufacturer, must be installed,
configured, and enabled on each system.
l You complete the steps outlined in Configure hardware health monitoring
You may need to log in with an administrator account to perform this action.
1. On the Web Console, click My Dashboards > Home, and then locate the Hardware Health Overview
resource.
2. To view a status, click its label.
3. Click the node you want to review.
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4. Review the Current Hardware Health resource. Sensors listed as Critical should be investigated.
Monitor cloud instances and VMs

Cloud service platforms provide on-demand computing resources to third-party organizations over the
Internet. As organizations migrate systems to the cloud to distribute workloads, deliver applications, and
expand resources for growing databases, infrastructure can become difficult to map in sprawling
environments, leading to lost resources or hidden instances.
To support hybrid environments, the Orion Platform can retrieve data from the Amazon Web Services
(AWS) and Microsoft Azure cloud service platforms to track availability, performance, applications, and
more for instances and VMs. Examples of data gathered include status, storage capacity, memory usage,
and IP addresses.
After configuring cloud accounts, you can use the Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring feature to:
l Manage hybrid environment metrics and status through a single console so you can compare
performance, locate bottlenecks, and better plan capacity and resource allocation.
l Track end user and business context for performance by gathering extended metrics that provide
visibility into cloud and on-premises systems.
l Dynamically monitor cloud instances and VMs to better handle resource churn during provisioning.
Instances and VMs can be removed as needed to support expanding environments or performance
peaks.
l Determine usage trends and troubleshoot issues. Captured metrics over time provide historical
references to track trends for resource consumption (such as CPU spikes and lulls) and help
determine when those trends become issues.
l Use cloud monitoring data, Orion alerts, and the Performance Analysis dashboard (PerfStack) to
review historical performance and pinpoint when significant usage changes began to trigger issues.
For example, add a series of EC2 cloud instances for an AWS account for the east coast. Select My
Dashboards > Cloud to review overall AWS infrastructure data and cloud details. Use the Cloud Instances
Status Summary and Cloud Server Infrastructure resources to review status and health at-a-glance. To
quickly review cloud status, metrics, and node management details, hover over any cloud instance name in
the Orion Web Console.
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The tooltip provides quick information for the cloud service and status.
When managed as a node, the tooltip provides enhanced data.
Cloud instances encountering issues display in the following resources with linked instances and nodes to
investigate:
l Active Cloud Alerts lists all active alerts affecting monitoring and managed cloud instances.
l Cloud Applications with Problems lists all applications with issues on cloud instances managed as
nodes in SAM.
Select a cloud instance or VM to view its Details page. Exceeded thresholds are highlighted in warning and
critical values, charts, and graphs with hover-over points to compare collected data and linked alerts.
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The following resources provide important data to determine issues, as well as track performance and
usage trends:
l Active Alerts lists all active alerts affecting the cloud instance.
l Min/Max/Average of Average CPU load displays average CPU load collected and calculated for the
cloud instance.
l Min/Max/Average of Network Utilization provides a chart of the minimum, maximum, and average
bits per second transmitted and received over a cloud instance for a custom period of time.
Plan to scale monitoring

You installed and configured your Orion product, discovered part of your IT environment, and have
monitoring statistics displayed in Orion Web Console views. As you continue the deployment, consider the
following questions:
l Are there any gaps in your monitoring coverage?

l Is there an essential device whose failure could affect your environment?
l Are there less important devices or applications that you want to monitor?
l Are there other groups or locations that you might want to monitor?
As you deploy monitoring across your environment, you can:
l Add discoveries to include other segments of your IT environment.

l Add individual nodes for monitoring. This is the recommended approach when you have a node with
high latency.
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Investigate application performance with Performance

Analysis
With complex networks consisting of cloud, hybrid IT, virtualization, storage area networks, and so on,
multi-faceted IT issues can be difficult to pinpoint and diagnose. When an issue surfaces, for example a
badly performing application or server, the investigation can take significant time to locate the core issue.
The problem could be in storage, network connectivity, user access, or a mix of resources and
configurations.
To investigate the issue, create troubleshooting projects with the Performance Analysis (PerfStack™)
dashboard that visually correlate historical and real-time data from multiple SolarWinds products and
entity types in a single view.
With Performance Analysis dashboards, you can do the following:
l Compare and analyze multiple metric types in a single view, including status, events, and statistics.
l Compare and analyze metrics for multiple entities in a single view, including, nodes, interfaces,
volumes, applications, and more.
l Correlate data from across the Orion Platform on a single, shared time line.
l Visualize hybrid data for on-premises, cloud, and everything in between.
l Share a troubleshooting project with your teams and experts to review historical data for an issue.
For SAM, the possibilities are endless for application analysis and hybrid environments:
l Visually walk through historical data for applications in your environment

l Verify resource allocation issues in hybrid environments for a specific application
l Correlate application data from templates, component monitors, hardware health, and more into a
single view
Want to learn more? See the SAM Administrator Guide.
The following example shows you how to identify a root cause for a Windows Server 2012 application
performance issue. In this scenario, the application performance has degraded to the point where users
encounter slower responses and access. As you review the Windows Server 2003-2012 template
dashboard, you find triggered alerts. These alerts notified your application owner, who escalated the issue
to system and network administrators.
Rather than digging into the alerts and multiple Node Details pages to troubleshoot the issue, create a
new troubleshooting project to investigate the issue.
1. In the Orion Web Console, select My Dashboards > Home > Performance Analysis.
This opens the Performance Analysis, or PerfStack, dashboard to build charts and graphs using
metrics pulled from monitored applications and servers in the Metric Palette. Each chart can hold
multiple metrics to directly correlate data.
2. In the New Analysis Project, click Add Entities.
Entities include all monitored and managed servers, applications, devices, services, and more in the
Orion Platform.
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3. Select Entities and click Add selected items.
To get started, you need to locate and add the Windows 2012 application in distress. In the search
field, enter Windows to get a list of all monitored nodes, component monitors, and more with
Windows in the name or type. Expand and select Types or Status to filter the list.
From the list, we find the application monitor watching Windows Server 2003-2012 Services and
Counters. Select and add to the dashboard Metric Palette.
Interested in all associated nodes, applications, servers, and more to this selected node? Click
the related entities icon. All related entities display in the Metric Palette providing more
options for metrics possibly causing issues.
4. Select the Windows 2012 node to view and select metrics to drag and drop onto the dashboard. You
can drag them into the same chart to compare values between metrics.
To start investigating, pull a series of metrics for the IOPS throughput for the server. For this
scenario, add the following metrics to investigate latency and connectivity:
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l Logical Disk Average: Disk Queuing

l Average IOPS Read
l Maximum IOPS Write
l Maximum IOPS Read
l Average IOPS Write
l IO Latency Write
l IO Latency Read
l IOPS Total
The charts and graphs display with data and alerts for the Last 12 hours of metrics.
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5. Add more metrics from the virtual and storage layers to investigate and confirm any bandwidth
spikes.
For example, add metrics for the IO latency from the virtual and storage layers to locate issues:
l IO Latency Write
l IO Latency Read
l IOPS Total
l Throughput Total
Analyzing the data, the issue looks to be a noisy neighbor. Basically, another server, service, or
application is consuming higher bandwidth, disk I/O, CPU, and other resources causing issues for
this specific application.
This information gives your network and system administrators a direction for further investigation
and resolving latency issues. To resolve, they can reallocate resources or move the high-consumption
application to another location.
6. Click Save and give the project a name.
The project saves as a dashboard with the selected metrics in the set date and time range.
When saved, the URL becomes a sharable link. Copy and share the link to the saved dashboard in
tickets or emails sent by the system and network administrators and the product owner. They can
access the link to review the gathered data and troubleshoot.
After reallocating resources and making network changes, reopen the dashboard to verify changes
and new usage trends for polled metrics.
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Alerts and reports

This section includes information on working with preconfigured alerts and reports:
l How alerts work

l Manage and use alerts
l How reports work
l Run a preconfigured report
l Create a custom alert
l Create a SAM custom report
How alerts work

An alert is notification that there is a problem with a monitored element. Orion comes with hundreds of
predefined alerts for common problems such as a node or application going down, SSL certificate
expiration, website failures, and many other problems.
Many predefined alerts are enabled by default, so if there are problems, you are alerted as soon as you
Discover your servers and applications and Add discovered servers and applications to SolarWinds SAM.
SolarWinds recommends that you identify who will receive warning or critical alerts.
l Alerting on an application: SolarWinds SAM provides many preconfigured application alerts that

notify you if the status of an application has changed (for example: up, down, or unknown) based on
whether a component monitor has reached a warning or critical threshold. One alert can notify you
about a warning, critical, down, or unknown state for the application.
l Alerting on a component: If you create an alert for each component monitor in your application
template, you will receive one alert for each component that exceeds a threshold. Alerting on a
component monitor can be beneficial if you have custom scripts where you must be notified if the
output of the script crosses a specific threshold.
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By default, alerts appear in the Active Alerts resource on the Orion Home page.
To see all alerts, you can click the All Active Alerts button in the Active Alerts resource, or you can click
Alerts & Activity > Alerts. On this page, you can:
l Acknowledge an alert that you are working on

l Click on any alert to go to the Alert Details page for more information
l Click Manage Alerts to enable/disable, add or edit any alert.
You can create your own alerts, either by duplicating and editing a predefined alert, or by creating a
custom alert. Alerting is very powerful and can be complex, with multiple trigger conditions, reset
conditions, and actions.
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Manage and use alerts

SAM includes out-of-the-box alerts with preconfigured triggers, actions, and settings to automatically start
monitoring and triggering against events. These alerts provide immediate notifications through the Orion
Web Console as SAM monitors applications, servers, and other nodes.
These alerts allow you to configure additional options for actions including sending an email with event
and alert information and resetting manually or automatically according to specific settings. You can also
create copies of preconfigured alerts to customize and add triggers, conditions, actions, and more.
List preconfigured, enabled alerts

SolarWinds SAM ships with 21 preconfigured, enabled alerts, and a number of disabled alerts that you can
enable and make operational as needed.
To see the list of preconfigured, enabled alerts:
1. Click Alerts & Activity > Alerts

2. Click Manage Alerts.
3. In the Group by field, select Enabled.
4. In the Type field, sort by Out-of-the-box.
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5. Review the list of preconfigured, enabled alerts.
Enable and disable alerts

To enable or disable alerts, on the Manage Alerts page, click On or Off in the Enabled column.
Action types
You can configure an alert to trigger one or more actions, such as:
l Send an email
l Send a page
l Manage a virtual machine (for example, power on/off)
l Log the alert to send a file
A complete list of alert actions is available on the Add Action dialog box that you see when you configure
an alert.
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Configure the default email action

A common alert action is to send an email. To send an email, Orion requires a designated SMTP server that
you configure.
1. Click Settings > All Settings, and in the Alerts & Reports section, click Configure Default Send Email
Action.
2. In the Default Recipients section, enter recipient email addresses, separated by a semicolon.
3. Under the Default Sender Details heading, provide the default Name of Sender and the default Reply
Address.
4. Under the Default SMTP Server section:
a. Provide the Host name or IP Address of the SMTP Server and the designated SMTP Port
Number.
For example, 192.168.10.124, port 25.
b. If you want to use SSL encryption for your alert emails, select Use SSL.
Selecting SSL automatically changes the SMTP port number to 465.
c. If your SMTP server requires authentication, select This SMTP Server requires Authentication,
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and then provide the credentials.
d. Click Use as Default.
Manage active alerts

When an alert triggers, any associated alert actions also trigger, and the alert appears on the All Active
Alerts page and in the SAM Summary Page. Through the Orion Web Console, you can view the details of
alert, the monitored element that triggered the alert, and take action.
1. To view the alert details, click the alert.
The Active Alert Details page appears.
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2. To view the details of the network object that triggered the alert, click an object.
The details page of the selected object appears.
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3. To acknowledge an alert:
a. Click Acknowledge.
b. Enter a note and click Acknowledge.

When acknowledged, the alert will not trigger again.
Create a custom alert

Alerts give you the ability to trigger actions and notifications according to monitored events and metrics. In
this example, an alert is configured to trigger and send an email to an IIS Administrator when an IIS
application goes into a warning or critical state.
1. In the Orion Web Console, click Settings > All Settings > Manage Alerts.
2. Select an alert, and click Duplicate & Edit.
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3. On the Properties panel, enter a name and any other properties, and click Next.
In this example, a group of IIS administrators is identified as the responsible team.
4. On the Trigger Conditions panel, select an object to alert on, and then complete the trigger condition
fields.
In this example, the first trigger condition tests for node status (Down), the second and third
conditions test for application thresholds, and the fourth condition specifies the applications to alert
on (indicated by 5 Objects).
5. On the Trigger Actions panel, click Add Action.
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6. Select send an Email/Page, and click Configure Action.
7. Modify the alert to email the IIS administrators.
This is an example of creating a custom alert, as opposed to using a predefined default alert
that comes with SolarWinds SAM. You can define additional alerts that can be customized to
email specific users or email groups.
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8. You can optionally add and configure an action to log the event to the NetPerfMon event log.
9. Enter the required information for each action, click Next, then continue through the wizard.
10. Edit the Reset Actions to send an email to the default recipients, then click Next.
11. Continue through the wizard, review the Summary, then click Submit.
The Manage Alerts page indicates the alert was created successfully.
How reports work

Reports provide a bridge between detailed views (which provide point-in-time information) and alerts
(which tell you there is a problem). Reports can contain detailed, current state information, or they can
contain historical data.
You can run an ad-hoc report, or schedule reports to be sent to you automatically, as a PDF, a web page, or
email. For example, use a schedule when you want to receive the Asset Inventory report every Monday
morning.
SolarWinds recommends that you identify who needs to receive performance or status reports, and
how often they should receive them.
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Reports populate when:
l You Discover your servers and applications and Add discovered servers and applications to
SolarWinds SAM.
l There is enough data to include in the report. Depending on the polling interval and data type, some
reports do not populate immediately. For example, it takes two weeks for baseline reports to
populate.
SolarWinds provides predefined reports for each Orion module. Click Reports > All Reports to see the
available predefined reports.
On the All Reports page, click a report to view it.
You can create your own custom reports by either editing an existing report or creating a report from
scratch. Reports can combine any number or type of Orion resources, including charts, tables, and gauges.
You can customize the size of the report, the layout, and add a logo and a footer.
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Run a preconfigured report

This example shows how to run and schedule the Asset Inventory preconfigured report. The Asset
Inventory dashboard allows you to maintain a current and detailed inventory of your environment's
hardware and software. Automatic inventory data collection benefits those interested in tracking asset
depreciation, gathering information for insurance purposes, or managing and maintaining your
infrastructure.
Enable Asset Inventory data collection

You must enable Asset Inventory data collection before you generate the Hardware Asset Inventory report.
1. In the Orion Web Console, click Settings > Manage Node.

2. Click Add Node.
3. On the Choose Resource panel, click Asset Inventory.
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Generate the report
The following example illustrates how to generate an asset inventory report.
1. In the Orion Web Console, click Reports > All Reports.
2. Locate the report, and click the report title.
The system generates the report.
Schedule a report
1. On the Web Console, click Reports > All Reports.
2. Click Manage Reports.
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3. On the Report Manager tab, select a report, then click Schedule Report > Create New Schedule.
4. Configure the properties, frequency, and actions as needed in the wizard.
5. When completed, review the summary, and click Create Schedule.
Create a SAM custom report

You can combine any Orion Web Console resource or chart into a report. In this example, a custom report
for IIS servers is created by modifying a predefined report, then adding a few more resources for a
complete picture of your IIS servers. To create this custom report, you will first need to create a custom
property to identify nodes running IIS.
This report provides information about:
l IIS servers with disks approaching 100%

l Capacity for all disk volumes from the last seven days
l The percentage of disk space used for all disk volumes from the last seven days
l IIS instances with problems
l Availability of IIS Nodes
l Nodes with problems
Create a custom property to identify nodes running IIS

1. On the Web Console, click Settings > All Settings > Manage Custom Properties.
2. Click Add Custom Properties.
3. On the Select Object panel, select Nodes, and click Next.
4. On the Choose Properties panel, in the Property Name field, enter Type.
5. In the Format field, select Text.
6. Select Restrict values, and in the Value 1 field, enter IIS.
You can enter more values to identify other server types. This example uses just the IIS server
type.
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7. For Usage, select everything except Asset Inventory, and click Next.
8. On the Assign Values panel, click Select Nodes.

9. Select the nodes to which you want to assign the property, and click Add.
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10. In the list of Selected Nodes, click Select All, then click Select Nodes.
11. Select IIS from the drop down menu, and click Submit.
Create the IIS application server issue rollup report

1. On the Web Console, click Reports > All Reports > Manage Reports, and locate Disks Approaching
100% Capacity - This Month.
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2. Select the report, and click Duplicate & Edit.
3. Enter the report name, for example, IIS Application Server Issue Rollup.
4. For the resource in the first default row, click Edit Chart, rename the chart to IIS Servers with Disks
Approaching 100% Capacity, and click Submit.
5. In the From field, select Last 7 Days.
6. Click Edit.
7. Click the plus sign (+), and click Add Simple Condition.
8. Click Select Field, and then locate and select Node > Nodes Custom Properties > Type.
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9. Click Add Column.
10. Select IIS from the drop-down menu, ensuring the query reads Type is equal to IIS.
11. Add another simple condition, and locate and select Percent Used under Volume Current Statistics.
12. Click Add Column.
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13. Select the is greater than operator and enter 70.
The query should read: Percent used is greater than 70.
14. Click Add to Layout.
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15. For the resource in the second default row, in the From field, select Last 7 Days.
16. Click Add Content.

17. In the Group By field, select Classic category.
18. Select SAM Application Summary Report, and click Applications with Problems.
19. Click Select and Continue.
20. On the Layout Builder panel, click Edit Resource, and in the Title field, enter IIS Instance with
Problems.
21. Add the following SWQL filter: Application.Name='Microsoft IIS'
22. Click Submit.
23. Click Add Content > Classic Category > Summary Reports > Availability of Each Node.
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24. Click Select and Continue.
25. Click Edit Resource, and in the Select a Time Period field, select Last 7 Days.
26. In the Filter Nodes (SQL) field, enter: type='IIS'.
27. Click Submit.
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When complete, your report should look similar to the following:
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Templates
This section guides you in creating and sharing templates:
l Create a template for an application

l Share application monitor templates on THWACK
Create a template for an application

SolarWinds SAM provides pre-built templates that allow you to monitor over 200 applications. You can use
the pre-built templates as is, you can modify them, or you can create a template.
Creating a template allows you to monitor uncommon components or applications that are not included in
the pre-built application templates provided with SolarWinds SAM.
You have two options for creating templates:
l Create a new template and add component monitors as needed

l Create a copy of an existing template
The following example shows how to create and assign a template that contains the file size component
monitor. You can add as many component monitors to a template as you need.
Create a template to monitor file size

1. On the Web Console, click Settings > All Settings.
2. In the Product specific settings group, click SAM Settings.
3. Click Create a New Template, and enter a name.
4. Click Add Component Monitors > Manually add Component Monitors.
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5. Select the File Size Monitor component, and click Add.
6. Enter the path and the file to monitor.
7. Enter warning and critical threshold values, and click Submit.
Apply the template to a node

1. On the Web Console, click Settings > All Settings.
2. In the Product specific settings group, click SAM Settings.
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3. Click Manage Templates, select the template, and click Assign to Node.
4. Select the node from the left pane, click the green arrow to move it to the right pane, and click Next.
5. Choose the credentials, click Assign Application Monitor, and click Done.
Import and export templates in SAM

SAM integrates with the SolarWinds community site, THWACK, so SAM customers can share templates. You
can export custom templates created for applications and custom scripts to THWACK to help other
customers. Exporting templates creates an XML file with an .apm-template extension and adds the
template to a repository accessed by SAM.
SAM automatically connects with THWACK to list all available templates for import. You need a THWACK
account to download and install templates into SAM.
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Export a template
Templates can take about 5 minutes to export to THWACK. If exporting multiple templates, allow
time for SAM to complete the export.
1. On the Web Console, click Settings > All Settings > SAM Settings, and click Manage Templates.
2. Browse or select for a template in the list.
3. Click Import Export > Export to THWACK.
4. Enter your THWACK account credentials when prompted.

If you need an account, click Create Account and follow the steps.
A message displays with the template exporting to THWACK. The template packages into an XML file
with an extension .apm-template.
Import a template
2. Click the Shared Templates on THWACK tab.
3. Search or browse the templates. Select a template file and click Import.
To view details about a template, click the link for the content exchange area on THWACK.
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5. The template imports into the Orion Web Console. In the dialog box, click View Imported Templates.
A list displays of all imported templates.
If you import a template with the same name as an existing template, the name of the
imported template is modified by appending n to the name, where n is an integer.
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Share application monitor templates on THWACK

If you create a template that you think might be useful to other SolarWinds users, you can share it via our
online IT community, THWACK.
Want THWACK points? Uploading a template to THWACK awards 50 points with an additional five
points are awarded every time you download a template.
You need a THWACK account to export and import templates into SAM. To share a template, create a user
account at thwack.com. You may need to check your internal corporate policy on sharing company
information publicly before posting to THWACK.
Export a template
You can export custom templates you create for applications and custom scripts THWACK to help other
customers. Exporting templates creates an XML file with an .apm-template extension and adds the
template to a repository accessed by SAM.
Templates can take about 5 minutes to export to THWACK. If exporting multiple templates, give SAM
time to complete the export.
2. Browse or select for a template in the list.
3. Click Import Export > Export to THWACK.

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A message displays with the template exporting to THWACK. The template packages into an XML file
with an extension .apm-template.
Import a template
SAM automatically connects with THWACK to list all available templates for import. Browse and review the
descriptions of available templates to find exactly the ones you need for your monitored applications.
2. Click the Shared Templates on THWACK tab.
A page opens and populates with available templates from THWACK.
3. Search or browse the templates. Select a template file and click Import.
To view information per template from the authors, click the link for content exchange area on
THWACK.
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5. The template imports into the Orion Web Console. In the dialog box, click View Imported Templates.
If you import a template with the same name as an existing template, the name of the
imported template is modified by appending (n) to the name, where n is an integer.
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Thresholds
This section provides guidelines for editing thresholds:
l How thresholds work

l Edit a global threshold
l Edit a local node threshold
l Edit a local component monitor threshold
l Edit an application template threshold
How thresholds work

Alerts are triggered when a monitored value exceeds a threshold. Orion comes with predefined static
thresholds for most statistics, but you can override these thresholds and customize them on a per-object
basis.
Orion provides two threshold levels: critical and warning. A value that crosses a warning threshold
appears yellow, and a critical threshold appears red.
If you want to change the predefined value for a threshold, you can add a static threshold or let the system
calculate a dynamic baseline threshold.
l Static threshold. a constant value that you set for your threshold. For example, the warning
threshold for response time might be 500 ms, and the critical value might be 1000 ms. You should be
familiar with the performance of that object to know what a reasonable value for a static threshold
is.
l Dynamic baseline threshold. data for a statistic are collected for a week, and then used to
calculate mean and standard deviation. The warning and critical threshold values are defined as 2
and 3 standard deviations above the mean, respectively. For example, if the mean value for packet
loss for a specific node is 0%, the warning threshold for packet loss would be 3% (+2 standard
deviations) and the critical threshold would be 4% (+3 standard deviations). Dynamic baseline
thresholds are the most accurate way to define thresholds for a specific device.
Baselines are calculated once, after data has been collected for a week. You can recalculate baselines on
demand.
Edit a global threshold

thresholds for most statistics, but you can override these thresholds and customize them on a per-object
basis.
The following statistics have built-in global thresholds, which is a threshold that applies to every
monitored node in Orion:
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l Average CPU load

l Disk Usage
l Percent memory Used
l Percent Packet Loss
l Response Time
To edit a global threshold:
1. In the Orion Web Console, click Settings > All Settings.
2. In the Thresholds & Polling group, click Orion Thresholds.
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Edit a local node threshold
thresholds for most statistics, but you can you can override global thresholds on a per-node basis. For
example, one node might have a lower response time requirement than another, so you can set the
threshold values accordingly.
The following example shows how to modify the Memory Usage threshold.
1. On the Node Details page, in the Management resource, click Edit Node.
2. In the Alerting Threshold section, click the Override Orion General Thresholds check box.
3. Change the threshold values:
a. If you are entering a static threshold, type the Warning and/or Critical values.
b. If you are using a dynamic threshold, click Use Latest Baseline Thresholds.
c. To understand the baselines calculated, click Latest Baseline Details.

d. Click Apply thresholds.
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You can edit multiple thresholds simultaneously by opening to the Manage Nodes page, multi-selecting
the nodes you want, clicking Edit, and changing the thresholds.
Edit a local component monitor threshold

Alerts are triggered when a monitored value exceeds a threshold. Each component monitor has its own
predefined thresholds that are inherited from the template that was used to create it. You can override
these thresholds on each individual component monitor, and use either static thresholds or dynamic
baseline thresholds instead.
1. Go to the Application Details resource, and click Edit Application Monitor.
2. Expand the component monitor whose threshold you want to change.
3. Click the Override Template button.
a. If you are entering a static threshold, enter the Warning and/or Critical values.
b. If you are using a dynamic threshold, click Use Latest Baseline Thresholds.
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c. To understand the baselines calculated, click Latest Baseline Details.
d. Click Apply thresholds.
You can edit multiple thresholds simultaneously by multi-selecting component monitors, clicking Multi
Edit, and changing the thresholds.
Edit an application template threshold

Alerts are triggered when a monitored value exceeds a threshold. Each component monitor has its own
predefined thresholds that are inherited from the template that was used to create it. You can override
these thresholds on each individual component monitor, or you can edit the thresholds on the application
template. Changes you make to a template threshold propagate to all component monitors that the
template is applied to.
1. In the Orion Web Console, click Settings > All Settings.
2. In the Product Specific Settings group, click SAM Settings.
3. In the Application Monitor Templates group, click Manage Templates.
4. Select a template, and click Edit.
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5. Expand the component monitor that you want to change.

a. If you are entering a static threshold, type the Warning and/or Critical values.
b. If you are using a dynamic threshold, click Use thresholds calculated from baseline data.
You can edit multiple thresholds simultaneously by multi-selecting the component monitors, clicking Edit,
and then changing the thresholds.
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Properties and groups
This section contains information for adding custom properties and groups:
l Why use custom properties?

l Add custom properties to nodes
l Create groups
Why use custom properties?

Custom properties are user-defined fields, such as country, building, asset tag, or serial number, that you
can associate with monitored network objects.
Every object you monitor includes a list of default properties used to describe the device, such as IP
address, host name, MAC address, and so on. You can also create custom properties and use them to
create special alerts, reports, views, and groups. Applications can also have custom properties.
Read the Creative ways to use custom properties and the Custom properties and how to use them
THWACK community posts to learn how some of our customers use custom properties.
Want to learn more? Watch the Streamline your monitoring operation with custom properties
training.
Frequently used custom properties include:
Site
While the Location property is available by default and returns the city specified in the device’s
settings, you may need more granular location information.
Examples: Rack_Number, Closet_Location, Building_Name, Building_Floor, Building_Acronym
Use: Create groups of items in the same location, build maps, or route alerting information.
Function or Type
SolarWinds recommends organizing your objects by the type or its function.
Examples: Core_Network, WAN_Interface, Wireless, Server, Domain_Controller, VPN, Windows Servers,

Linux Servers, Email Service
Use: Apply special alerting criteria depending on the type of element. For example, if any Core_
Network element has problems, escalate the case immediately.
Owner
You can use multiple custom properties to specify who is responsible for an element to help route
alerts or create reports.
Examples: A group owner name, such as Networking, SQL_Admins, AD_Admins, or a specific owner.
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Uses:
l Define a Contact Email and On_Call_Phone for owners. If there is a problem with a node, the
alert can be routed to the correct person.
l Provide a custom view for owners to see their devices and create custom reports, showing only
devices they are responsible for.
Service level
Some monitored elements, such as core routers, switches, and applications, may be important
enough for someone to be notified any time of the day when there is a problem.
Examples:
l Mark nodes as Critical, and configure alerts to notify.

l With service levels, this custom property can help you specify whether it is 24x7, a business
day, or test node, and alert appropriately.
Customization checklist
Before you customize your environment, answer the following questions:
How would you like to logically organize your devices? For example, Location, Site, Lab, and Rack?
Function?
What data type is each custom property? For example, boolean, integer, drop-down options only,
free-entry text?
What are your owner groups? For example, who is responsible for the Windows servers, Linux
servers, devices, applications, and so on?
What are the sites and locations you want to report and alert on?
Do you need to distinguish between high impact objects that must be addressed first (for
example, production) and low impact objects that are of lesser priority (for example,
development)?
Are there any overrides for specific objects you require for alerting?
Are there any devices, servers, applications, and so on that you want muted (continue to collect
data but not see alerts)? Do you want to stop alerts during different periods of the day or night?
This Cutting Down on Alert Noise post provides information on reducing alert noise.
Do you want to associate any assets with a purchase date, PO number, vendor contact
information, and so on?
Are there any fields you will need to add to allow for integration with other systems? This Orion
SDK post provides more information.
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Tips
l You can use custom properties to define alerts, reports, and web console views. Use multiple
properties together with 'AND' and 'OR' operators for powerful filtering and definition options.
l For each custom property, decide how you are going to use it and how it will work in your
environment. For example, instead of a comment on an interface that reads "WAN Link interface -
critical interface," try two different Yes/No values, such as "Critical Interface" and "WAN link," which
could each apply to multiple interfaces. This approach makes it easier for you to filter reports and
alerts. When used together (Critical = true AND WAN link = True), it still applies to that
interface.
Add custom properties to nodes

Custom properties are user-defined fields, such as country, building, asset tag, or serial number, that you
can associate with monitored network objects.
This example shows how to create the Device_Owner custom property and assign it to multiple nodes. You
can use this example to create an application owner, business service owner, or server type owner.
For examples of how other SolarWinds users implement custom properties, see this THWACK post.
1. Click Settings > All Settings, and in the Node & Group Management grouping, click Manage Custom
Properties.
2. Click Add Custom Property.
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3. Select an object type, and click Next.
4. Provide the required information, and click Next.
5. Select Restrict Values, add values for the property, and click Next.
6. Click Select Nodes.
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7. Select the nodes for the custom property, and click Add.

9. Specify the value of the custom property, and click Submit.
To assign other values for the custom property to nodes, click Add More, and repeat steps 6-9.
10. Repeat steps 1 - 9 to create the Email_Address custom property.

The selected nodes now have a responsible person (Owner) and email address assigned to them.
The custom properties can be used for creating alerts and reports.
You can see all custom properties assigned to a node in the Custom Properties for Nodes resource on the
Node Details view.
You can also apply custom properties by directly editing the node properties.
Create groups
A group is a collection of monitored objects. For example, you can group nodes from the same location,
group all your WAN interfaces, or group all devices owned by a certain department. Or, you can group all
Windows servers, or SQL servers, or web servers. You can then create alerts and reports or restrict access
for the group.
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The example below shows how to create a NY IT Department group and add five nodes to it.
1. Click Settings > All Settings, and in the Node & Group Management grouping, click Manage Groups.
2. Click Add New Group.
3. Provide the required information, and click Next.
4. Select the monitored objects that fit the group definition, and click Add to Group.
Select a custom property in the Group by list.
5. Click Create Group.

The new group appears in the Manage Groups list.
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Click the group to display the Group Details view.
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Custom views
This section contains information on adding custom views to your dashboard:
l How custom views work

l Create a view and add resources, or widgets
l Edit a resource
l Edit a view
l Create a custom table resource
l Customize menu bars
l Add your logo
How custom views work

Orion Web Console views are configurable pages of network information that can include maps, charts,
summary lists, reports, events, and links to other resources. Summary views provide data about multiple
objects. Detail views provide more information for a specific object.
For example, the default Summary view displays an overview of all monitored nodes. Clicking on a node in
the Summary view opens the Node Details page for that node, where you can see all of the statistics
monitored for that device.
Customize views
Customizing views can include the following activities:
l Create a view and limit it to show nodes of a group.

l Add or remove resources.
l Create subviews to further organize resources for a device.
l Change the position of resources and change the layout of columns.
l Add the view to the menu bar of a user so that the view is easily accessible, and set the view as the
home page.
To customize views and maps, the user must have the following privileges set to Yes:
l Allow Administrator Rights

l Allow Account to Customize Views
See "Create Users" in the SolarWinds Getting Started Guide - Get Started.
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Plan what should be on a view before you create it.
OPTION ACTION
Identify objects to see on the view. Select the appropriate object type, such as nodes, interfaces,
groups, applications, and so on.
View information for all objects of the Select a Summary view.

selected object type.
View details for a selected object. Select a Details view.
Select information about the objects Select resources.

you want to see.
Divide the information into several Enable Left Navigation.

tabs.
Optimize the view for large screens or Create a Network Operations Center (NOC) view.
mobile devices.
Limit what devices should be displayed Add a limitation.

on the view.
Access the view from the Menu Bar. Add the view into the menu bar.
Create a view and add resources, or widgets

Views are configurable pages of network information that can include maps, charts, summary lists, reports,
events, and links to other resources. Summary views provide data about multiple objects. Detail views
provide more information for a specific object.
This example shows how to create the New York IT Department Summary view and add the following
resources, or widgets:
l Active Alerts
l Hardware Health Overview
l Top 10 Nodes by Current Response Time
l Custom Table
Create a view
Check out this video on creating a new view.
2. Click Add New View in the Views grouping.
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3. Name the view, and select the view type.
4. Click Submit.
You have now created an empty view. The Customize view page opens automatically. Add resources that
contain the information you want to see or immediately add the view to a dashboard.
Add resources, or widgets

Check out this video on adding and customizing resources, or widgets.
1. On the Customize page, click + next to the column that you want to add the resources, also known as
widgets.
To open the Customize view page, click Settings > All Settings > Manage Views. Select the view,
and click Edit.
2. Select resources in the middle pane, and click Add Selected Resources.
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You can limit offered resources by criteria in the Group by list, or search for a resource, or
widget, in the Search box.
3. Use the arrow icons next to the columns to move resources between columns.
4. Click Done.
The view is now be populated with the widgets you selected.
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Edit a resource
The Orion Web Console provides different resources that you can add to a view, and each resource has an
Edit button, so you can change things such as the title, and other features. Different types of resources
have different things you can edit.
The example below shows how to sort and filter objects in resources.
Change resource name and number of displayed objects

To change a resource name, click Edit, and adjust the Title.
To change the number of objects in Top N resources, click Edit, and change the Maximum Number to
Display.
Sort objects in widgets

The following example shows you how to sort a tree widget according to properties.
1. Click Edit in the widget.
2. Select a property in the Level 1, 2, and 3 lists.
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3. Define how you want to display objects that do not have the selected property.
When completed, nodes in the resource are grouped according to the selected properties.
Filter objects displayed in a widget

You can use custom SWQL filters to define what objects a widget should display, hiding any irrelevant
objects.
In this example, the Applications widget is filtered to include only IIS applications.
1. Click Edit in the widget.

2. Enter a SWQL query.
Click Show Filter Examples to display examples of SWQL queries, and node and interface
properties that can be used in the query.
3. Click Submit.
Edit a view
You can modify views to suit your needs, including adding and changing columns, moving resources, and
creating subviews to help you manage the information that appears on the view.
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This example shows how to create an AppStack subview and add an AppStack resource.
(missing or bad snippet)
1. On the view, click the Customize Page icon.

2. Click Add tab.
3. Enter the tab name, and click Update.

4. Select an icon, add resources, and click Done.
To drag and drop widgets, click Preview, and then add the widgets.
You can access the subview with the resources from the view menu.
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Add subviews using Enable Navigation
1. On the Customize view, select Enable Left Navigation.
To open the Customize view page, click Settings > All Settings > Manage Views. Select the view,
and click Edit.You can also click Customize Page > Page Settings on the view.
2. Click Add Tab.

3. Type a name for the new tab, and click Update.
4. Select an icon, and add resources.
5. Click Done.
You can access the subview with the resources from the view menu.
Limit objects on the view

Check out this video on adding view limitations.
You can limit the monitored elements that are included in a view, which limits the contents of all the
resources on the view. You can also limit some resources by using a SWQL query on the resource.
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The example belows shows how to limit a view to display only monitored elements owned by the NY IT
Department.
1. On the Customize view, click Edit in the View Limitation area.
2. Select a type of limitation, and click Continue.
3. Configure the limitation as instructed.
4. Click Submit.

The view now only displays objects defined by the limitation.
Now you have created the New York IT Department view. To make it accessible for users, you must first
add it to a menu bar, and assign the menu bar to the users. You cannot see the view without making it
accessible first. See Customize menu bars.
Create a custom table resource

Resource data can be displayed as pie charts, bar charts, line charts, tree views, and tables. The example
below shows how to create a custom table composed of the Node, Status, Device Owner, and Email
Address Columns.
1. Locate the blank custom table widget on the New York IT Summary view added in Create a view and
add resources, or widgets.
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2. Click Configure this widget.
3. Enter a title, and click Select Data Source.
4. Select the object you want to report on, for example, Node.
5. Define a condition that specifies the type of nodes to include, for example, all nodes owned by the
New York IT Department.
6. Click Add column, select properties, and click Add Column. This example includes the Device_Owner
and Email_Address custom properties.
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The custom table resource populates with the node status, the owner, and a contact email address.
Customize menu bars

Check out this video on customizing the menu bar.
My Dashboards provide menu bars with shortcuts to Orion Web Console views. The default menu bars
include Home, and a menu bar for each installed Orion Platform product.
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Click My Dashboards to show the default menus.
You can customize views and labels offered in default menus for individual users.
If you do not need to see all items in menu bars, and prefer navigating to display items in a menu
bar, click My Dashboards > Collapse.
When you have a list of items you want users to access from My Dashboards, create a menu bar.
1. Click My Dashboards > Configure.

2. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click New Menu Bar.
3. Name the menu bar.
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4. Drag views from the Available items column into Selected items.
5. Click Submit.
The new menu bar is created. You can now assign it to users who will see the items in My Dashboards.
The items users see in My Dashboards and in Alerts & Activity are specified in their user accounts.
Improve performance by setting the Home Page View to a view with a limited number of resources
on it.
1. Click Settings > All Settings in the menu bar.

2. In the User Accounts grouping, click Manage Accounts.
3. Select a user, and click Edit.
4. Scroll down to Default Menu Bars and Views, and select top menu bars from the lists.
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5. Select Yes for the items the user will see in the Alerts & Activity menu bar.
6. Select an item and use the arrows to change the order of menu bars. Select an item from the list to
specify the default Home page view.
7. Click Submit.
The user can now use the specified links in My Dashboards and Alerts & Activity menu bars.
Add your logo

You can customize the Orion Web Console to display your logo at the top of every page.
1. Create a graphic to replace the SolarWinds logo.
The recommended logo size is 250 x 50 pixels. The maximum allowed size is 900 x 500 pixels.
2. Place your graphic in the images directory.

The default location of the directory is C:\Inetpub\SolarWinds\NetPerfMon\.
4. In the Product Specific Settings grouping, click Web Console Settings.
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5. Ensure the Site Logo box is selected, and click Browse to navigate to your logo.
6. Click Submit.
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Reduce alerting noise
This section includes techniques for reducing alert noise:
l Complex trigger conditions

l Alerts with multi-element triggers
l Use duration in the alert trigger
l The 'Do Not Alert' alert
l Send alerts to specific contacts
l Alerts with device-specific thresholds
l Single alert when multiple devices go down
l Define object dependencies
l Event correlation alerts (Y after X)
Complex trigger conditions

Use the Advanced options in the trigger conditions to create complex conditions, such as alerting when an
IIS application goes into a warning or critical state.
Complex conditions are generally enabled by users who are comfortable with building normal trigger
conditions, or who have trialed alerts using the normal trigger conditions and require more control over
the trigger conditions to better refine the environmental conditions that trigger an alert.
Do not use complex conditions until you have tested the trigger conditions individually. Creating an
alert with complex conditions without testing it may prevent you from receiving important alerts.
How condition blocks are evaluated

The condition blocks are evaluated at the same time. If they are all true based on the conditions, the alert
triggers. For example, condition A, B, and C must be true in order for the alert to trigger.
(Condition A) & (Condition B) & (Condition C)

Condition blocks are evaluated using variations of AND, so the trigger condition in each section must be
met.
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A condition block can be evaluated at a different time than other condition blocks. For example, if you want
to be alerted if the backup system is active for more than an hour, you can choose to wait an hour after the
primary condition block, where the application going down is the trigger condition, before evaluating
whether the backup system is still active.
Aggregate alerts
With complex conditions enabled, you can choose to trigger alerts only when multiple objects meet the
trigger condition.
After you have enabled complex conditions, the following option is available in your trigger condition:
This setting then combines all alerts that would be sent for each object into a single alert.
Do not use this setting until you are confident that the trigger condition is correct. This setting can
prevent important alerts from triggering.
Alerts with multi-element triggers

You can use complex conditions to trigger alerts when objects meet separate trigger conditions at the
same time. For example, if you have two applications on two separate servers, you can still manage if you
lose one application. However, if you lose both applications, you need the system to send a critical alert.
Complex conditions should be used with caution. SolarWinds recommends testing each trigger
condition individually before combining them.
On the Trigger Conditions panel, expand Advanced options, and select Enable complex conditions.
With a standard alert, you can create an alert for each of the two applications. With a complex condition,
you can create a single alert where the application would have to fail on both Server A and Server B to
generate an alert.
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In this example, the primary trigger condition is written for Server A.
Click Add Section and write a trigger condition for Server B.
In this example, both conditions must resolve to TRUE in order for the alert to fire, but do not have to relate
to each. The condition blocks are evaluated at the same time. If they are all TRUE based on the conditions,
the alert triggers. You can add additional conditions to configure granular and complex alerts.
Using condition blocks is a great way to reduce alerts. Instead of receiving an alert for each element, you
can receive a single alert.
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Use instance names

In the example above, a specific node name is selected in the condition. This works well if the alert has a
very limited scope. Another approach is to use instance names in the condition.
Use duration in the alert trigger

Using durations for alerts is a great way to reduce the total number of alerts you receive. There are times
when you want an alert to trigger as soon as the condition is detected. Other times, you may only want the
alert to trigger when a condition exists for more than a certain amount of time.
For example, your Exchange service usually runs at 80% RAM and 75% CPU. Occasionally, the RAM and CPU
utilization spikes to over 90%, and after 5 minutes, returns to a normal level. In this scenario you want to
be notified of prolonged spikes, so you configure an alert to trigger when CPU and RAM utilization is
greater than 90% for more than 15 minutes. This setting ensures that you are notified when the service
requires attention, and allows enough time for a technician to intervene before the service goes down.
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The following example illustrates an alert that includes duration. Ensure that you select the Condition
must exist check box and enter a duration.
The 'Do Not Alert' alert

You can use custom properties to suppress alerts from being triggered when an object goes down. In this
case, include a custom property in the alert condition that stops the alert from being fired.
1. Click Settings > All Settings.

2. In the Node & Group Management group, click Manage Custom Properties.
3. Click Add Custom Property.
4. Create a Boolean (Yes/No) custom property called AlertOnThis.
6. Select all of the nodes on the system.
7. Click the green arrow to move all selected nodes to the right.
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8. Set the AlertOnThis property to Yes.
9. For devices for which you do not want to receive an alert, set the custom property to False.
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10. Define the alert to trigger when the AlertOnThis custom property is equal to Yes and the Node
Status is equal to Down.
If you use the AlertOnThis custom property, every alert must include the AlertOnThis check.
Otherwise, all nodes will trigger alerts regardless of how this custom property is set.
Send alerts to specific contacts

When you have people or groups that are responsible for different monitored objects, you might only want
them to receive alerts for objects for which they are responsible.
1. Create a custom property called ContactEmail.

2. Enter the email address for each monitored object.
3. Create an alert that sends an email when an object goes down.
4. On the Trigger Action page in the Alert builder wizard, add an Email action. Because you want the
recipient of the email to be variable depending on who the ContactEmail is, you need to add a
variable to the Recipients section.
The variable ensures that your alert email is only delivered to people who are listed in the
ContactEmail custom property.
The To: field does not have an Insert Variable button, so if you have labeled your custom
property something other than ContactEmail, open the Message section, click Insert
Variable to find the custom property, and cut and paste the variable into the To field.
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Alerts with device-specific thresholds

You can set different alert thresholds per device, interface, or other monitored element. For example, it is
acceptable to you if most of your nodes reach a 90% threshold for CPU load, but you want a few nodes to
alert when they reach a 70% threshold. You can set CPU thresholds locally on a node, and then create a
generic alert that notifies you when a threshold has been reached.
1. Begin by creating the actual trigger condition with a double value comparison.
a. Click the plus sign.
b. Select Add Double Value Comparison.
The trigger condition fields expand, and you can enter a double value comparison trigger.
2. Include the threshold in the trigger condition.

An alert will be triggered when the threshold value is reached.
Single alert when multiple devices go down

There are situations when multiple devices go down, and instead of getting an alert for each device, you
only want to receive one alert that notifies you that something is wrong. A multiple device alert is closely
related to a dependency alert, where Orion detects a down status for a network element because an object
in front of the network element is down. For example, if a router goes down, Orion detects that all servers
behind the router are also down because Orion cannot communicate with the servers. But, the servers
behind the router are still physically up, they are just reported as down. In this case, the alerts triggered
can be numerous and inaccurate. You can create a dependency between the router and servers so that
when the router goes down, only a single alert is triggered.
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With a multiple devices go down alert, the devices reported as down are actually down. For example, you
have an application monitor for your Custom Corporate System that monitors 15 services. Each service may
go down briefly for various valid reasons. However, when more than 10 services are down, you know
something is wrong and you need to take action. The following alert checks the up and down status of all
components, but only alerts when 10 or more components are down at the same time.
Use groups
You can also use groups to alert you when multiple devices go down. In this approach, create a group and
assign related devices to it. In this scenario, an alert is only triggered when all devices in the group are
down, and not just a subset of devices. Using groups saves you time when configuring alerts, and is also
useful when you have load balanced devices and you only care when all the devices are down, not just
when some are down.
Define object dependencies

On your network, there are objects that are dependent on other devices to function. For example, all
monitored objects behind an edge router are dependent on that router for connectivity. If the router has
problems or goes down, any dependent devices will also appear to have problems, and you will receive
status alerts about those devices as well.
However, if you define those nodes as being dependent on the edge router, you will not get false alerts
about the status of dependent nodes when the parent object has issues.
Another example is when several IIS servers rely on the same SQL server for their database backends. If
you define those nodes as being dependent on the edge router, or the IIS servers as being dependent on
the SQL server, you will not get false alerts about the status of dependent nodes when the parent object
has issues.
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When you use dependencies, consider the following:
l Dependencies themselves do not prevent alerts from being triggered. Instead, dependencies
prevent the child objects from going down, and as a result, down node alerts are not triggered. By
using dependencies, status alerts are prevented from triggering, but all other alerts are triggered.
l A child object can have several parents, and the child's status only turns to Unreachable if all
parents in all defined dependencies go down.
In this example, you will create a dependency between an IIS server and its SQL database backend.
Creating this dependency means that if the SQL database goes down, any IIS server alerts will be
suppressed, although the IIS application will continue to be monitored.

2. In the Node & Group Management grouping, click Manage Dependencies.
3. Click Add New Dependency.
4. Select the parent object or group, and click Next.
page 127
5. Type a Dependency Name, select the child entities, and click Next.
6. Review the settings for the dependency. If there are active alerts on child objects, they are listed on
this view.
7. Click Submit.
The dependency appears on the Manage Dependencies page.
You can also display the dependency on custom views in the Orion Web Console.
Event correlation alerts (Y after X)

You may have some conditions you want to alert on if Y happens after X. For example, you might want to
receive an alert if there is a problem with your failover. In this example, if node A goes down, the alert
waits 5 minutes, and then checks that node B is up. If node B is not up, the alert is triggered.
Make sure to select a And then after value, which is located between the alert sections.
page 128
Then, in the secondary section, configure the actual trigger condition so that Node Name is equal to Node
B and Node Status is equal to Down.
page 129
Agents
This section includes information on deploying agents:
l How agents work

l Agent resource consumption
How agents work

An agent is a software application that provides a communication channel between the Orion server and a
monitored computer. Agents are used as an alternative to WMI or SNMP to provide information about
selected devices and applications. These agents provide the following advantages:
l Polling hosts and applications behind firewall NAT or proxies.

l Polling node and applications across multiple discrete networks that have overlapping IP address
space.
l Secure, encrypted polling over a single port.
l Support for low bandwidth, high latency connections.
l Polling nodes across domains where no domain trusts have been established.
l Full, end-to-end encryption between the monitored host and the main poller.
After deployment, all communication between the Orion server and the agent occur over a fixed port,
using 2048-bit TLS encryption. The agent protocol supports NAT traversal and passing through proxy
servers that require authentication.
If an agent is used, all SAM application data is collected by the agent. You can override this behavior at
both the application and template level to use another polling method. For example, if you assign an
application template that uses a User Experience Monitor and you do not want to measure response time
locally from the server where the application is installed, you can switch the application to poll without
using an agent.
Agent Communication can be deployed as either Agent Initiated or Orion Server initiated:
l Agent initiated communication: The agent initiates communication with the server on the default
port of 17778. This port must be opened on the server firewall so the agent can connect. No change
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to the agent firewall is required.

l Orion Server initiated communication: The agent waits for requests from the server on the
default port of 17790. This port must be opened on the firewall of the agent computer so the server
can connect. No change to the server firewall is required.
The following reports are configure for use with Orion agents:
l Agent Inventory
l Agent Plugin Version
Tip: Use Orion Server-initiated communication in DMZ environments or cloud scenarios such as
Azure. Use agent-initiated communication with a proxy to poll multiple computers within a single
Azure cloud service.
Agent communication modes

Communication modes determine how the agent and the Orion server communicate. This is frequently
influenced by where the device you want to monitor is on your network.
Server-initiated communication
This communication method is also known as a passive agent.
Any communication between your Orion server or additional polling engines and the agent is initiated by
the Orion server itself. To allow communication from the Orion server, the firewall service running on the
monitored device or the network firewall must allow incoming connections through port 17790. If the agent
is configured to use another port, update the firewall rules to allow incoming connections from the other
port.
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Agent-initiated communication
This communication method is also known as an active agent. In active mode, there are no listening ports
on the agent.
Any communication between your Orion server or additional polling engines and the agent service is
initiated by the agent service itself. Update your firewall rules to allow outgoing connections through port
17778 to enable communication between the agent and the Orion server. Open port 17791 if the agent is
on Windows 2008 R2.
You cannot use agent-initiated communication through a proxy using NTLM authentication if the
agent is running on a Linux/Unix-based device.
This communication method is most useful when the agent is installed on a network separated from your
Orion server by one or more NAT devices, and you have no easy way to connect the two.
Deploy an agent with the Add Node wizard

This is the recommended method to deploy an agent to a node. The Orion server deploys the agent
software to the target node, installs the software using the credential you select, and adds the node to the
Orion server as a monitored node. After the agent is installed, it operates under a local account.
The Orion server must be able to communicate with the remote node. To monitor Linux-based
devices, TCP port 22 (outbound) must be open on the Orion server or additional polling engine and
open (inbound) on the deviceyou want to monitor.

2. Under Node & Group Management, click Manage Nodes.
3. Click Add Node.
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4. In the Polling hostname or IP address field, enter the IP address or fully qualified domain name
(FQDN) of the device you want to manage.
5. Select Windows & Linux Servers: Agent as the Polling Method.
6. Select the operating system type of the remote computer.
7. Choose a credential from the list, or enter new credentials, and then click Next.
l These credentials are only used to connect to the remote computer and install the agent
software. After the agent is deployed, the credentials may change with no impact to the
deployed agent.
l The credentials must have administrator or root-level privileges. On Linux-based
devices you can connect with one credential set and then use another credential to use
su or sudo for package installation. Most Linux distributions require the user's
password when using sudo. Other distributions, such as SUSE, may require the root
password. Depending on your Linux distribution, enter the required credential for the
Include Credentials with Elevated Privileges to install the package.
l For Linux-based nodes, you can choose to add SNMP credentials to collect SNMP data
for Asset Inventory and Hardware Health from the remote node.
8. Click Start Install on the Install Agent Software window.

9. Choose the resources to monitor on the agent, and click Next.
10. Add application monitors on the agent, and click Next.
11. Change properties or keep the defaults, and click OK, Add Node.
When installation is successful and communication between the agent and the Orion server is successful,
the agent is listed on the Manage Agents page.
Agent resource consumption

An agent is a software application that provides a communication channel between the Orion server and a
Windows or Linux computer. Agents are used as an alternative to WMI or SNMP to provide information
about your selected key devices and applications.
A single polling engine can support up to 1,000 agents. The following table details agent resource
consumption.
CPU 0.24% on average under normal operating

condition
Memory Between 10 and 100 MB depending upon the

number and types of jobs
page 133
Bandwidth The agent consumes roughly 20% (on average)
of the bandwidth consumed by the WMI
protocol for transmission of the same
information
For example, Agent: 1.3 KBPS versus WMI at 5.3

KBP
Storage 100 MB
Agent settings
The Agent Settings page provides access to all of the settings and tools needed to install and manage
agents. Additional agent settings can be found in the Control Panel.
On the Web Console, click Settings > All Settings > Agent Settings.
l Manage Agents: Opens the Manage Agents page so you can add a new agent, edit, update, or
reboot an existing agent.
l Download Agent Software: Opens the Agent Downloads page so you can mass deploy or manually
install an agent.
l Define Global Agent Settings: Opens the Global Agent Settings page so you can allow automatic
agent registration or allow automatic agent updates.
page 134

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GETTING STARTED GUIDE

Server & Application Monitor

Last Updated: Tuesday, September 18, 2018

© 2018 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

SOLARWINDS DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, CONDITIONS, OR OTHER TERMS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,

Navigate your environment 10

Explore your SolarWinds SAM environment 11

Management actions for nodes, applications, and components 13

Introduction to the AppStack environment 14

How user accounts work 17

Enable Windows Authentication with Active Directory 19

Authenticate users through MSAPI 19

Change account passwords 20

Access the Customer Portal 21

Create your user profile 21

Explore the Customer Portal 22

Set up additional Customer Portal user accounts 23

Engage with the SolarWinds community 23

Create a THWACK account 23

Explore the THWACK site 24

What should I monitor? 25

Discover your servers and applications 29

Add discovered servers and applications to SolarWinds SAM 32

Add a single node for monitoring 34

Configure Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring 38

Understand the relationship between applications and templates 41

Monitor Internet Information Services (IIS) 42

Add AppInsight for IIS to a node 42

View IIS application data 44

Navigate to the AppInsight for IIS details view 44

Navigate to the website details view 45

Navigate to the application pools view 45

Navigate to the performance counter details view 45

Expert knowledge for AppInsight performance counters 46

Monitor your Operating System 46

Before you begin 47

Apply a template to a node 47

View the application data 49

Configure hardware health monitoring 49

Monitor hardware health 51

Monitor cloud instances and VMs 52

Plan to scale monitoring 54

Investigate application performance with Performance Analysis 55

Alerts and reports 59

How alerts work 59

Manage and use alerts 61

List preconfigured, enabled alerts 61

Enable and disable alerts 62

Configure the default email action 63

Manage active alerts 64

Create a custom alert 66

How reports work 69

Enable Asset Inventory data collection 71

Generate the report 72

Create a SAM custom report 73

Create a custom property to identify nodes running IIS 73

Create the IIS application server issue rollup report 75

Create a template for an application 82

Create a template to monitor file size 82

Apply the template to a node 83

Import and export templates in SAM 84

Share application monitor templates on THWACK 87

How thresholds work 90