Documentation forNetwork Performance Monitor
Monitoring network performance is a key capability of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) and is available in the Essentials edition. Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is also available in a standalone module.

Polling Settings

The Polling Settings view establishes how often statistics are polled, and how long the data are maintained in the SolarWinds Platform database.

Changes to database maintenance and retention settings do not take effect until the SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor service is restarted.

Polling Intervals

Configure how frequently the polling engine requests information from devices.

Available options

SettingDefault valueDescription

Default Node Poll Interval

120 seconds

The interval for polling the status and response time of monitored devices.

Default Interface Poll Interval 120 secondsThe interval for polling the status of monitored interfaces.
Default Volume Poll Interval120 secondsThe interval for polling the status of volumes.
Default Rediscovery Interval30 minutes

The interval for polling the entire network to detect any re-indexed interfaces. Monitored network devices are also checked for IOS upgrades or EnergyWise support.

Rediscovery scans your network for changes to your monitored nodes. If you want to discover changes to your environment, schedule a network discovery to occur on a periodic basis and check the scheduled discovery results.

The minimum rediscovery interval is five minutes (in earlier versions, the interval was one minute). You cannot submit polling interval settings if the default rediscovery interval is not set to at least five minutes.

Default Asset Inventory Poll Interval1 dayThe interval for checking asset inventory. Relevant for SAM and SCM.

Lock Custom Values

SelectedSelect this option to keep any customized status polling interval settings.
Re-Apply Polling IntervalsButton enabled

Click Re-Apply Polling Intervals to apply the settings specified in this section to all objects in the database. Click Submit at the bottom of the page to use the current settings for new objects.

If you leave the page without submitting the changes, your settings will be applied to objects in the database, but will not be saved as default. For objects added to the database in the future, the default settings will be used. Not submitting the changes can result in different settings for objects that are already in the database, and different settings for newly added objects.

Polling Statistics Intervals

Configure the intervals on which Orion completes SNMP statistics polls.

Available options

Setting Default value Description

Default Node Topology Poll Interval

120 minutes Configure the interval for polling topology statistics for nodes.

Default Node Statistics Poll Interval

10 minutes Configure the interval for polling device performance statistics.
Default Interface Statistics Poll Interval 9 minutes Configure the interval for polling interface performance statistics. Available only if NPM is installed.
Default Volume Statistics Poll Interval 15 minutes Configure the interval for polling volume performance statistics.
Re-Apply Polling Statistics Intervals Button enabled

Click Re-Apply Polling Intervals to apply the specified values for selected entities in this section to all objects in the database. See the instructions above.

Click Submit at the bottom of the page to use the current settings for new objects.

If you leave the page without submitting the changes, your settings will be applied to objects in the database, but will not be saved as default. For objects added to the database in the future, the default settings will be used. Not submitting the changes can result in different settings for objects that are already in the database, and different settings for newly added objects.

Node Status Calculation

Select how the node status should be calculated.

Setting Default Value Description
Node Status Enhanced

Select Classic to calculate status for individual objects. The child status is displayed as a sub-icon on the node icon.

Select Enhanced to include child status and thresholds into the parent node status.

SolarWinds recommends that you pause triggering alerts before you switch node status calculation to Enhanced.

  • Click Alerts & Activity > Alerts, and click More > Pause actions of all alerts.
  • After you enable the feature, check active alert, tweak the alerts that should not trigger, and re-enable alert actions.
Interface Status Enhanced (default on fresh installs)

Introduced in 2022.4.

Select Classic to calculate interface status without reflecting configured interface thresholds (Interface Errors and Discards, Interface Percent Utilization) .

Select Enhanced to reflect configured thresholds (Interface Errors and Discards, Interface Percent Utilization) in interfaces status.

Dynamic IP Address and Hostname Resolution

Select the Default IP Address Resolution for dual stack objects on your network.:

  • IPv4 (default)
  • IPv6

Re-Apply Resolution Preference

Click to immediately apply the settings specified in this section on all objects in the database. Make sure you click Submit if you want to use the current settings for new objects.

If you leave the page without submitting the changes, your settings will only be applied on objects in the database, but will not be saved. For objects added to the database in the future, the saved settings will be used. Not submitting the changes might thus result in different settings for objects that are already in the database and different settings for newly added objects.

Database Settings

Configure the time of day when the database maintenance runs, and how long data are retained in the SolarWinds Platform database.

For details about retention settings for monitored cloud accounts, see Edit retention settings for cloud-related statistics.

Shortening retention periods can improve your database performance. However, if you increase retention periods, it can cause excessive overhead on your SQL server and introduce issues such as:

  • Increased I/O
  • Increased table sizes
  • Database maintenance issues where nightly maintenance fails to complete or runs indefinitely
  • Web performance issues
  • Chart loading issues

Consider your SQL environment resources, such as disk space and hardware configuration before you change the retention periods. See this SolarWinds support article for database best practices.

It can take more than 10 minutes to propagate some changes to SolarWinds Platform database settings.

Setting Default value Description
Archive Time 2:15 am Configure the time of day when the maintenance of the SolarWinds Platform database runs. See Database maintenance in the SolarWinds Platform.
Index Defragmentation Selected Select the box to enable database index defragmentation. Defragmenting the database helps troubleshoot performance issues.
Online Index Defragmentation Not Selected Select the box to enable online database index defragmentation.
Timeseries Index Defragmentation Only on Sunday Select when you want to run TimeSeries database index defragmentation.
Timeout for Index Defragmentation 3600 seconds Set a timeout for index defragmentation.
Enable/disable auto reset logging levels to logging defaults Selected

Select to automatically reset logging levels to defaults during Maintenance.

Auditing Trails Retention 365 days

Specify the number of days until the audit trails statistics are deleted from the database.

Detailed Statistics Retention

7 days Specify the time period in which all statistics collected in the SolarWinds Platform database are summarized into hourly statistics.
Hourly Statistics Retention 30 days

Specify the time period in which all statistics collected in the SolarWinds Platform database are summarized into daily statistics.

Daily Statistics Retention 365 days Specify how long daily statistics are kept in the SolarWinds Platform database. After the specified time, the daily statistics are deleted.

Container Detailed Statistics Retention

7 days

Specify when group statistics are summarized into hourly statistics.

Container Hourly Statistics Retention

30 days

Specify when hourly group statistics are summarized into daily statistics.

Container Daily Statistics Retention

365 days

Specify how long group statistics are kept in the SolarWinds Platform database.

Baseline Data Collection Duration

7 days

Specify the number of days that are included into the baseline.

Interface Baseline Calculation Frequency Only on Sunday

Specify how often the interface baseline calculation runs. This setting is specific for NPM.

Detailed Interface Availability Statistics Retention

7 days Specify the number of days until the detailed interface availability statistics in the SolarWinds Platform database are summarized into hourly statistics. This setting is specific for NPM.
Hourly Interface Availability Statistics Retention 30 days Specify the number of days until the hourly interface availability statistics are summarized into daily statistics. This setting is specific for NPM.
Daily Interface Availability Statistics Retention 365 days Specify the number of days until the daily interface availability statistics are deleted from the database. This setting is specific for NPM.
Delete Stale Interfaces Not selected If no new data is polled for an interface for a specified time and the SolarWinds Platform cannot remap the interface, delete the interface and all data connected with it. Stale interfaces are deleted one hour before the scheduled database maintenance.

Stale Interface Retention

7 days Specify the time interval (in days) after which stale interfaces are deleted from the SolarWinds Orion database.
Automatically Remove Unknown Volumes Not selected

Enable to automatically remove 'unknown' volumes with VolumeIndex equal to zero and with the NextPoll value older than set in Remove Unknown Volumes After.

This option is not supported for volumes on Linux Agent devices.

Remove Unknown Volumes After 7 days

Remove volumes which have no statistical data and have been 'unknown' for longer than configured days.

This option is not supported for volumes on Linux Agent devices.

Detailed Wireless Statistics Retention 3 days Specify the number of days until the detailed wireless statistics in the SolarWinds Platform database are summarized into hourly statistics.
Hourly Wireless Statistics Retention 14 days Specify the number of days until the hourly wireless statistics are summarized into daily statistics.
Daily Wireless Statistics Retention 180 days Specify the number of days until the daily wireless statistics are deleted from the database.
Detailed UnDP Statistics Retention 3 days Specify the number of days until the detailed UnDP statistics are summarized into hourly statistics. This setting is specific for NPM.
Hourly UnDP Statistics Retention 14 days Specify the number of days until the hourly UnDP statistics are summarized into daily statistics.This setting is specific for NPM.
Daily UnDP Statistics Retention 180 days Specify the number of days until the daily UnDP statistics are deleted from the database. This setting is specific for NPM.
Events Retention 30 days Specify the number of days until the all network events data are deleted from the SolarWinds Platform database.
Max Alert Execution Time 60 seconds Specify the time period until the alerts are disabled if they are not executed successfully. If the defined alert condition persists, Orion continues trying to execute the alert.
Alert Acknowledge URL Text Click here to acknowledge this alert Provide text that is displayed when alerts are available for acknowledgment over the web. When viewing an alert, click the text to acknowledge the alert.
Allow alert actions for unmanaged objects Not selected Select this option if you want the SolarWinds Alerting Engine to execute configured alert actions for unmanaged objects.

Enabling this option increases the processing load on both the SolarWinds server and the database server.

Discovery Retention 60 days Specify the number of days until all network discovery profiles are deleted from the SolarWinds Platform database. The retention starts when a discovery is first defined.

Downtime History Retention

7 days Specify the number of days until the downtime history is deleted from the database.
Enable/Disable Interface Data Obsolete after... Polls Selected

Select the box to display a warning message if interface data are not updated in a number of subsequent polls. Such interfaces are considered to be obsolete. Specific for NPM.

Interface Data Obsolete Poll Count 3

Specify the number of subsequent polls triggering the obsolescence message. For more information, see Why Is Interface Data Obsolete?

Network

Configure the way SolarWinds Platform products poll your network.

Setting Default value Description
ICMP Timeout 2500 ms Specify the time in ms after which all ICMP (ping) requests made by the Orion poller time out if a response is not received.
ICMP Data SolarWinds Status Query Provide a string to be included within all ICMP packets sent by the product.
SNMP Timeout 2500 ms Specify the time after which all SNMP requests made by the Orion poller time out if a response is not received.
SNMP Retries 2 Specify the number of retries the polling engine will conduct if a response to an SNMP poll request by the Orion polling engine is not received within the configured SNMP Timeout.
SNMP Encoding Auto Select how SNMP hex-encoded strings are encoded, for example ASCII or UTF-8. To apply the setting, restart the Collector, Job Engine, and Cortex services on each polling engine.
UCS API Timeout 240 s Specify the time period after which all API requests made for data from Cisco UCS Manager servers time out if a response is not received.
Perform reverse DNS lookup Selected Select this option if you want your product to complete reverse DNS lookups for monitored DHCP nodes.
Enable Downtime Monitoring Selected Clear the box to disable interface downtime monitoring, thus improving NPM performance.

Calculations & Thresholds

Configure the way Orion computes selected performance metrics.

Setting Default value Description
Availability Calculation (advanced) Node Status Specify the type of calculation for determining device availability. See Calculate node availability in the SolarWinds Platform.

Baseline Calculation (advanced)

Selected Select this option to throttle traffic to routers for initial baseline calculation. See Define baselines for nodes in the SolarWinds Platform.
Enable Auto Dependencies Selected Select this option to enable periodical auto dependency calculation.
Enable Agent IP Address Deduplication Not selected Select to enable SolarWinds Platform Agent node deduplication based on IP address.

Allow Secure Data On Web (advanced)

Not selected Select this option to see SNMP community strings in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. For increased security, confirm that this setting is cleared.
Node Warning Level 120 seconds Specify the time period after which devices that do not respond to polling display in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console as Down.
Counter Rollover Method 2

Configure how counter rollovers will be handled. See Handle counter rollovers in the SolarWinds Platform.

  • If you use 32-bit counters, select Method 1.

    This method detects a rollover, and calculates based on it.

    First, the method checks whether the device rebooted and reset its counters to 0. In this case, the last value is 0.

    When it is a real rollover, we take the maximum value of the 32 or 64 bit number, take the difference between the maximum and the last polled value, and add it to the current polled value: (MaxValue - LastPolledValue) + CurrentPolledValue

  • If you use 64-bit counters, select Method 2.

    When a rollover is detected, Orion drops the poll and takes a new sample within 20 seconds. The new data point is stored, throwing the first data point away.

    In memory, we have the value from the previous poll (A) and the LastPolledValue (B). Because B < A, we detect counter rollover. Orion drops the last poll and does a fast poll within 20 seconds. The value stored in the database is calculated as C-B.

    Orion fully supports the use of 64-bit counters, but these counters can exhibit erratic behavior in some implementations. If you notice peculiar results, disable the use of 64-bit counters for the problem device, and contact the device manufacturer.

Default Assigned IP Address Empty Specify a default IP address assigned to monitored nodes if DNS resolution fails.
Disable HTML Encoding for Polled Data Not selected Select the option if you want polled data not to be encoded. Enabling this option is less secure.

Hardware Health Polling

Setting Default value Description
Default Statistics Poll Interval 10 minutes

Specify the frequency for polling hardware health statistics in minutes.

Detailed Statistics Retention

7 minutes Specify the number of days after which detailed hardware health statistics in the SolarWinds Platform database will be summarized into hourly statistics.
Hourly Statistics Retention 30 days Specify the number of days after which hourly hardware health statistics will be summarized into daily statistics.
Daily Statistics Retention 365 days

Specify the number of days after which daily hardware health statistics will be deleted from the database.

Preferred Cisco MIB CISCO-ENITITY-SENSOR-MIB Select the default MIB for hardware health polling. For more information, see Monitor hardware health.
Store Hardware Health Sensors with All Sensor Statuses Not Selected Select to store hardware health sensors with all entity sensor statuses, such as unavailable or non-operational. By default, only sensors with OK status are stored.

Multicast Polling

Setting Default value Description
Default Route Table Poll Interval 10 minutes Specify the frequency for collecting multicast route data.

Routing Polling

Setting Default value Description
Default Neighbor Poll Interval 5 minutes Specify the frequency for polling Routing Neighbor data.
Default Routing Table Poll Interval 180 minutes Specify the frequency for polling Routing Table data.
Default VRF Update Poll Interval 180 minutes Specify the frequency for polling VRF data.

VeloCloud

Setting Default value Description
Poll VPN Tunnels Not selected

Enables polling of VPN Tunnels on VeloCloud devices.

Enabling this setting significantly increases the number of queries sent to VeloCloud devices.

When polling is disabled, already polled data will persist.

Wireless

These settings are relevant for NPM.

Setting Default value Description
The reverse DNS Timeout 0 Specify the reverse DNS timeout, in seconds.
Rogue AP Polling Selected Select this option if you want to poll rogue access points.

Wireless Heat Map

These settings are relevant for NPM.

Setting Default value Description
Map Generation Start Time 12:45 am Specify the time of day when wireless heat maps will be generated.
Default Client Signal Strength Poll Interval 5 minutes

Specify the time interval for refreshing the location of clients connected to wireless access points in wireless heat maps within the SolarWinds Platform Web Console (in minutes). For more information, see Display wireless heat maps for NPM in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

F5

These settings are relevant for SolarWinds NPM. See Network Insight for F5 BIG-IP load balancers.

Setting Default value Description
iControl Authentication Method Token-based Specify the iControl authentication method. Token-based authentication method has performance benefits.

Authentication

Setting Default value Description
WMI Authentication Mode Not selected

Default authentication mode.

Kerberos strict

This mode is forcing the use of Kerberos. SolarWinds Platform will always try to resolve the IP address and hostname and find the FQDN.

If the SolarWinds Platform fails to create a connection using the Kerberos authentication protocol a connection error will be logged and you can see it in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

Kerberos preferred

This mode tries to connect using Kerberos first. If the SolarWinds Platform fails to create a connection using the Kerberos authentication protocol, a connection error will be logged and SolarWinds Platform will try to connect using NTLM and IP address.

Default

This mode uses NTLM.

See Configure Kerberos for WMI authentication in the SolarWinds Platform.