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.

Create a NetPath service in NPM

A service is the destination to which you are mapping. It represents an application, and SolarWinds recommends deploying a service for the most important applications that your users rely on. This can be any TCP-based network service, such as salesforce.com, Microsoft Exchange, Office365, or a file server.

NetPath™ services are monitored by probes. Orion automatically installs a probe on each polling engine, and you can install a probe on any Windows computer. No other software is required on the path.

Create a new service

  1. Click My Dashboards > Network > NetPath Services.
  2. Click Create New Service.
  3. Enter the service details of the target destination of your network path. The service must be TCP-based.
    1. Enter a host name or IP address and port.

      SolarWinds recommends using the same information that your users access the application by. For example, if they access your internal site by a host name rather than an IP address, enter the host name in NetPath™. That way NetPath™ gets the same service as your users.

    2. Enter the probing interval in minutes.

      SolarWinds recommends starting with a 10-minute interval. See the Probing interval section below to learn how to adjust the probing interval.

    3. Click Next.
  4. Select an existing probe from the list, or Create a NetPath probe in NPM to use a new source.
  5. Click Create.

Probing interval

This value determines how often and how long information is polled from the network path. If the value is too low, NetPath™ does not complete the probe and the network path may not show all routes. If the value is too high, the information may not update as frequently as you like.

  • If you probe more frequently, the data updates quicker but accuracy is lost. If this happens, NetPath™ identifies it as an issue on the probe displayed in the graph.
  • If you probe less frequently, the data updates more slowly but the accuracy of the data increases.

SolarWinds recommends starting with a probing interval of 10 minutes, which is appropriate for most paths. You can adjust the value from there to suit your needs.

Is your network path internal? Does it contain fewer than 10 nodes? If so, you can decrease the interval for more frequent data updates.

Is your network path external and does it contain internet connections? Does it contain more than 10 nodes? If so, you can increase the interval for less load strain on the SolarWinds Platform server, your nodes, and the network. A larger value also saves storage space by writing less NetPath™ data to the database.