Documentation forSolarWinds Platform Self-Hosted

Discover your network for the SolarWinds Platform with the Discovery Wizard

This topic applies only to the following products:

SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted

IPAM — LA — NAM — NCM — NPM — SAM — SCM — UDT — VMAN — VNQM

Transcript

Use Network Sonar Discovery to find and add devices to monitor in your environment. The wizard guides you through identifying network ranges, configuring credentials, and running or scheduling discovery. You can choose a simple workflow for quick setup or an advanced configuration for greater control in larger or more complex deployments.

Before you begin

  • Enable the networking devices you want to monitor for SNMP.
  • Enable Windows devices for WMI.

The first time you discover your network, SolarWinds recommends adding a limited number of edge routers or switches, firewalls and load balancers (if you have them), and critical physical or virtual servers and hosts.

Add nodes with high latency one at a time.

Start the Network Sonar Wizard

  1. If the Discovery Wizard does not start automatically after configuration, click Settings > Discovery Central.

    Not sure what to monitor? Review suggestions and new features in the Discovery Central.

  2. On Discovery Central, review available features. Click Add Data for Network Discovery, and select Discover My Network.

    You can launch the wizard using the Add Data or Configure options for multiple features that require adding nodes for monitoring.

  3. On Network Sonar Discovery, click Add New Discovery.

    This launches the simplified Network Sonar Wizard for you to specify the network, SNMP credentials, WMI credentials and then run or schedule the discovery. This option includes everything you need to discover devices on your network.

    To use more advanced features, such as configuration monitoring, use agents to poll your network, or specify monitoring or discovery settings, enable the advanced discovery.

Simple Discovery

Use simple discovery when you are getting started or need a quick way to add devices. It works best for smaller or initial deployments with limited IP ranges or subnets. Default settings and a guided workflow make setup fast and straightforward.

  1. 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 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 Addresses

    Use this option for a limited number of IP addresses that do not fall in a range.

    Since a network discovery job can take a long time to complete, SolarWinds recommends using this option when you are first starting out.
    Active Directory

    Use this option to scan an Active Directory Domain Controller.

    Using Active Directory for discovery is particularly useful for adding large subnets because the discovery can use the devices specified in Active Directory instead of scanning every IP address.

  2. On the SNMP panel:

    1. If all devices on your network require only the default SNMPv1 and SNMPv2 public and private community stings, click Next.

    2. If any device on your network uses a community string other than public or private, or if you want to use an SNMPv3 credential, click Add Credential and provide the required information.

  3. 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.

  4. On Discovery Scheduling, enter a name and description for the discovery. You can use the default name.

  5. Review frequency options and change it if appropriate. You can run the discovery once, every hour, every day, or use custom settings (Advanced).

    By default, new discoveries are scheduled to run every month, first Sunday of the month. The default frequency is Advanced.

  6. Select Yes, run this the discovery now, and then click Discover.

    Discovery can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the number of network elements the system discovers.

Advanced Discovery

Use advanced discovery when you need more control or are working in a larger, more complex environment. It lets you configure agents, configuration, virtualization, and monitoring settings. If you have multiple polling engines deployed, you can select the one to run the discovery on.

  1. On the Network panel, toggle Advanced Network Sonar Wizard on. This adds multiple steps to the wizard.

  2. If you have deployed multiple polling engines, select the engine you want to use for scanning the network.

  3. Use the following scanning options.

    Option Description
    IP Ranges

    Use this option when you want 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 Addresses

    Use this option for a limited number of IP addresses that do not fall in a range.

    Since a network discovery job can take a long time to complete, SolarWinds recommends using this option when you are first starting out.
    Active Directory

    Use this option to scan an Active Directory Domain Controller.

    Using Active Directory for discovery is particularly useful for adding large subnets because the discovery can use the devices specified in Active Directory instead of scanning every IP address.

  4. If the Agents panel appears, you enabled the Quality of Experience (QoE) agent during installation. The QoE agent monitors packet-level traffic. If there are any nodes using agents, select the Check all existing nodes check box.

    This setting ensures that any agents you deploy, including the one on your SolarWinds Platform server, are up-to-date. If there are no nodes using agents, you can leave this option unchecked.

  5. If the Configuration panel appears, add SSH or Telnet credentials. These are necessary for performing configuration backups and restores, monitoring configuration changes or checking compliance. See Protocols NCM uses to transfer configurations.

  6. On the SNMP panel:

    1. If all devices on your network require only the default SNMPv1 and SNMPv2 public and private community stings, click Next.

    2. If any device on your network uses a community string other than public or private, or if you want to use an SNMPv3 credential, click Add Credential and provide the required information.

  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.

  8. On the Monitoring Settings panel, review the device polling defaults.

    • Include ICMP-only nodes: Devices reachable only via ICMP are considered for monitoring. To change this, disable the toggle.

    • Preferred Polling Method: Select the polling method for monitoring discovered devices. If the devices don’t support the preferred method and it fails, the other method is used. Default option: SNMP.

    • Allow duplicate nodes: To import all physically independent nodes, including nodes with duplicate IP addresses, select the box.

    • Monitoring setup: Choose how to select what to monitor - manually or automatically.

      Manually set up monitoring

      Select this option to review discovered devices and choose what to monitor in the Network Sonar Results wizard. This approach gives you more control over what is included or excluded. Devices are not imported until you complete the results wizard.

      Automatically monitor (default)

      Select this option to define monitoring settings in advance. The wizard automatically selects and imports devices based on those settings. See Automatically add discovered nodes to SolarWinds Platform.

      1. Click Define monitoring settings and review the default options for adding interfaces, volumes, applications, ports, and server configuration.

      2. Click Finish.

  9. On the Discovery Settings panel, review the default retries and timeouts, and then click Next.

  10. On Discovery Scheduling, enter a name and description for the discovery. You can use the default name.

  11. Review frequency options and change it if appropriate. You can run the discovery once, every hour, every day, or use custom settings (Advanced).

    By default, new discoveries are scheduled to run every month, first Sunday of the month. The default frequency is Advanced.

  12. Select Yes, run this the discovery now, and then click Discover.

    Discovery can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the number of network elements the system discovers.