SolarWinds Platform

The SolarWinds Platform is the core of the SolarWinds IT Management Portfolio. It provides a stable and scalable architecture that includes data collection, processing, storage, and presentation. The SolarWinds Platform provides common features, such as user accounts and groups, views, dashboards, reporting, alerting, and more that you can use across all SolarWinds Platform products and access from the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

Requirements

Review requirements. Check the hardware, software, and port requirements for the SolarWinds Platform server and SolarWinds Platform database. See SolarWinds Platform requirements.

Licensing

Manage licensing. Activate, add, upgrade, or assign licenses with the License Manager in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. Licensing differs among SolarWinds Platform products. See License SolarWinds Platform products in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

Get started

• Log in. Access your SolarWinds Platform product in a web browser and get to know the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. See Log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console and meet the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

• Manage user accounts. Create, edit, and maintain SolarWinds Platform Web Console user accounts - set user rights, reset passwords, limit access to network segments, and enable authentication with Active Directory. See Manage SolarWinds Platform Web Console user accounts in the SolarWinds Platform.

• Review events. Find out what is going on in your environment. See View events, alerts, traps, and syslogs in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console Message Center.

• Use the Log Viewer. See an overview of syslogs or SNMP traps in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. See View logs and events with the Log Viewer.

• Get alerts. Stay informed about issues in your environment. See Use alerts to monitor your environment with the SolarWinds Platform.

Visualize your data

• Generate reports. Present the status of the monitored environment. See Manage and view reports in the SolarWinds Platform.

• Review dashboards. Review Performance Analysis dashboards, also known as PerfStack™. See Troubleshooting environmental issues with Performance Analysis dashboards.

• View maps. View monitored objects on Intelligent Maps in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console, or use other map options to display objects with their location specified in the geocode format in a widget, or create maps with the Network Atlas tool. See Intelligent Maps for SolarWinds Platform products and View monitored objects on Worldwide map or on Network Atlas maps in the SolarWinds Platform.

Add and manage devices

• Add devices. Specify which devices to monitor and the information you need, then select the way you get this information - add single nodes, use Active Directory domain controllers to add nodes, or discover devices on your network automatically. See Discover and add network devices to SolarWinds Platform, Add a single node for monitoring to the SolarWinds Platform, Add nodes to SolarWinds Platform using Active Directory, or Discover your network for the SolarWinds Platform with the Discovery Wizard.

• Choose polling methods. Poll with ICMP, WMI, SNMP, or agents deployed on Windows, Linux, and UIX devices. See Poll devices with SolarWinds Platform Agents.

• Manage monitored devices. Edit properties, set the polling method for monitored devices, toggle monitoring on and off, or mute alerts for nodes. See Manage devices in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

Customize your SolarWinds Platform Web Console

• Customize the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. Customize dashboards, colors, logo, views, widgets and charts. Learn how to limit what objects users see on views, or specify what you want to see on views for specific device types. See Customize the SolarWinds Platform Web Console look, views, settings, charts, and maps in the SolarWinds Platform.

• Create custom properties. Create custom fields to associate with monitored network objects and display custom information for monitored devices. See Custom properties in the SolarWinds Platform.

• Create groups and dependencies. Organize how monitored data is presented in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console, and set up dependencies to better represent the relationships between network objects and account for constraints on the network. See Group objects and mirror network dependencies in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

• Set thresholds. Specify thresholds for monitored metrics, and customize general thresholds or use baselines. See Thresholds in the SolarWinds Platform.

• Use modern dashboards. Use the flexible modern dashboarding framework to improve the performance of your SolarWinds Platform Web Console. See Customize modern dashboards.

Monitor additional metrics and devices

• Monitor hardware health. Get insight into hardware issues on the network based on hardware sensors, such as fan status, power supply status, or temperature. See Monitor hardware health.

• Monitor virtual infrastructure. Monitor your virtual networks (VMware® ESX and ESXi servers, VMware vCenter®) in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. See Monitor virtual infrastructure.

• Monitor Quality of Experience. Use packet analysis sensors to see packet-level traffic information about key devices and applications on your network. See Monitor Quality of Experience metrics.

• Monitor cloud instances. Monitor cloud instances/VMs with your SolarWinds Platform, such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure. See Monitor cloud instances and VMs.

• Monitor containers. Monitor containers on Linux nodes. See Monitor containers in the SolarWinds Platform.

• Create custom monitors. Extend monitoring to metrics and devices not covered out of the box, especially specialized or non-standard hardware that exposes data over SNMP. Monitor a specific OID on top of existing device support with Universal Device Pollers, or define an entirely new device technology from scratch with Device Studio. See Create custom monitors in the SolarWinds Platform, Monitor custom OID statistics with Universal Device Pollers, and Monitor custom and unclassified devices with Device Studio pollers.

Scale and maintain your deployment

• Use High Availability. Use SolarWinds High Availability (HA) to provide failover protection for your SolarWinds Platform server and additional polling engines to reduce data loss. See High Availability in SolarWinds Platform products.

• Scale your deployment. Scale your deployment as needed. See Scalability Engine Guidelines.

• Optimize your deployment. Review the tips for optimizing your deployment. See Optimize and scale SolarWinds Platform products.

• Balance polling load. Specify nodes to be polled by individual polling engines. See Change polling engine node assignments in the SolarWinds Platform.

• Manage polling engines. Manage additional polling engines. See Manage polling engines in the SolarWinds Platform.

• Troubleshoot your database. Troubleshoot your SolarWinds Platform database. See Database maintenance in the SolarWinds Platform.

SolarWinds Platform products release notes