Documentation forSolarWinds Platform

SolarWinds Platform High Availability requirements

This SolarWinds Platform topic applies only to the following products:

Hybrid Cloud Observability EssentialsHybrid Cloud Observability Advanced

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Both SolarWinds Platform High Availability on a single subnet and SolarWinds Platform High Availability over multiple subnets are available for all supported SolarWinds Platform product versions.

The products and product versions must match between your primary and secondary pool members.

Supported products for HA

SolarWinds Platform products

  • EOC

  • IPAM

  • LA

    Some devices do not support sending data to hostnames, which is a requirement for multiple subnets.

  • NTA

  • NCM

  • NPM

  • SAM

  • SCM

  • SolarWinds Observability Network Collector 2024.1

  • SRM

  • UDT

  • VMAN

  • VNQM

  • WPM

    WPM Player is not fully supported in a High Availability environment. SolarWinds recommends that you move the WPM Player to a different computer in the environment than the main SolarWinds Platform server.

 

The following products can be integrated with your SolarWinds Platform-based product. The integration module between products is supported under SolarWinds High Availability, but the stand-alone product is not supported.

  • Storage Manager

  • Virtualization Manager appliance

  • Engineers Toolset

  • Database Performance Analyzer on Orion

  • Patch Manager

Software and Hardware requirements for HA

SolarWinds strongly recommends that the hardware and software of the standby server matches the primary server. Using matching system specifications and installed software ensures the same performance in the event of a failover.

  • SolarWinds does not provide failover support for any database.
  • Some SNMP trap, syslog message, and flow data is lost while waiting for the secondary server to become active.
Hardware/
Software
Requirements for both servers
Operating System (on-premise)
  • Windows Server 2022
  • Windows Server 2019
  • Windows Server 2016
Hardware Must meet the minimum hardware requirements for the products you have installed on the primary server or closely match the primary server
Software Must meet the minimum software requirements for the products you have installed on the primary server or closely match the primary server
IP address version IPv4
Database connection Connection to the SolarWinds Platform database

If protecting an NTA environment, both servers must be able to connect to the separate NTA Flow Storage database.

Other (for virtual hostnames)

Windows or BIND DNS administrative server credentials

BIND version 9.3 and later or Windows DNS on Windows Server 2008 and later

  • You can use other DNS servers using your own scripts.
  • The primary and secondary server can be joined to a Windows domain
Cloud and hybrid solutions

HA is also supported in hybrid deployments, with one server on-premise, and the other one in a cloud.

Make sure that the following requirements are met.

  • Network connectivity between the active and standby servers on specified ports is ensured.
  • Changing or adding additional IPs to the network adapter is possible.

Review the current cloud requirements.

HA port requirements

Port Protocol Service/Process Direction Description
53 UDP SolarWinds High Availability Service outbound Used when failing over with a virtual hostname to update the virtual hostname's DNS entry and for periodic monitoring.
135 TCP SolarWinds High Availability Service bidirectional Used to remotely manage services including DHCP server or DNS server.
4369 TCP RabbitMQ bidirectional TCP ports 4369 and 25672 must be open between the main and secondary servers to allow RabbitMQ clustering between the two servers. These ports exchange EPMD and Erlang distribution protocol messages for RabbbitMQ. They do not need to be open in additional polling engine pools.
5671 TCP

SolarWinds High Availability

bidirectional Port 5671 must be open into the HA pool with the main SolarWinds Platform server from all SolarWinds Platform servers.
17777 TCP SolarWinds Installer bidirectional Used when installing the standby server software.
25672 TCP RabbitMQ bidirectional TCP ports 4369 and 25672 must be open between the main and secondary servers to allow RabbitMQ clustering between the two servers. These ports exchange EPMD and Erlang distribution protocol messages for RabbbitMQ. They do not need to be open in additional polling engine pools.

Networking requirements for HA

SolarWinds Platform High Availability does not support IPv6 addresses.

  • Members of the HA pool that includes your main SolarWinds Platform server must be able to resolve the short names of all the other servers.
  • All additional polling engines must be able to resolve the host names of each member of the HA pool that includes your main SolarWinds Platform server.
  • Additional web servers must be able to resolve the host names of all SolarWinds Platform servers.
  • Pool members must be able to resolve each other's host name.
  • Devices sending syslogs, SNMP traps, and NetFlow information to your SolarWinds Platform server must be configured to send the information to the VIP address or virtual hostname and receive requests from the pool.
  • Devices must be able to accept inbound connections from the source IP addresses.

Additional requirements for single subnet deployments

  • Both your primary and secondary servers must be on the same subnet.

  • Both pool members must have static IPv4 addresses set on the network adapter. You do not need dedicated NICs.

  • A virtual IP address must be available on the same subnet as the primary and secondary servers.

  • Devices must be able to accept inbound connections from the VIP address.

  • The latency of pool members to the SQL server should always be under 200 ms. SolarWinds recommends that the latency remains under 100 ms.

  • If you have deployed SolarWinds Platform High Availability in a single-subnet configuration, Windows DHCP Client service must be running. When it is not running, the VIP is not added to the active member.

    SolarWinds Platform High Availability does not use DHCP. The DHCP Client service is required by the operating system to support the secondary IP on the interface used by the VIP.

Depending on your network, you may have additional requirements for single subnet deployments. Up to three IP addresses per pool may be in use among the VIP, primary, and secondary servers because of how Windows calculates the source IP address from the HA pool. You can modify your devices to receive requests from all IP addresses or determine which IP address is used as the source IP address.

Additional requirements for multiple subnet deployments

  • Both your primary and secondary servers must be able to communicate with each other using the host names.

  • Your primary and secondary servers must use different host names and IP addresses.

  • The latency between each HA member can be up to 500 ms. Each member of the pool should have a geographical copy of the SQL database from the SQL Availability Group accessible with a latency under 200 ms, preferably under 100 ms.

You may need to modify firewall rules to allow traffic from pool members and to the VIP address or virtual hostname. For example, you may need to modify the NetFlow firewall rules to allow incoming TCP traffic on port 2055 to go to the VIP address.