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.

Monitor Meraki wireless infrastructure in NPM

Add Meraki organizations to NPM as external nodes, poll information from the cloud and display polled data in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

What does NPM monitor for Meraki infrastructure?

Meraki infrastructure provides centralized management of end devices, such as wireless devices, switches, or security appliances, as a cloud service. Physical devices act as thin Access Points (APs), managed by the cloud system. Physical devices are installed at physical locations and assigned to customers.

In NPM, Meraki objects are mapped to wireless entities.

Meraki Model How do you see Meraki objects in Orion?
Organization Controller
Access Point Thin Access Point
Client Client

Metrics with limited support

  • SSID information: SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted only polls SSID information for access points to which clients are connected.

Requirements

Add Meraki organization to NPM

To monitor Meraki infrastructure with NPM, add the Meraki organization to the SolarWinds Platform database as an external node.

Each Meraki organization monitored with NPM uses a node license.

  1. Log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console as an administrator.

  2. Click Settings > Manage Nodes, and click Add a Node.

  3. In Polling Method, select Orchestrators: API.

  4. Under Orchestrators, select Meraki Devices.

    The Polling Hostname or IP Address is disabled and api.meraki.com is used as the default host name for Meraki networks. If your Meraki organization has a different domain suffix, such as api.meraki.cn or api.meraki.ca, go to Advanced configuration, and change the MerakiCloudName.

    1. Log in to Advanced configuration. See Access the Advanced Configuration.
    2. Search for MerakiCloudName on the Global tab.
    3. Change the MerakiCloudName to your organization and save your changes.

  5. Provide the API Key you generated in the Cisco Meraki Dashboard.

  6. If you have multiple organizations registered, click Get Organization List, and select the organization. If you have one registered organization, it is selected by default.

    Polling Meraki organizations uses the global HTTP proxy settings. To change the defaults, click the Configure your HTTP proxy link.

    By default both wireless information and SD-WAN metrics are polled. If you do not want to poll one of the items, clear the appropriate box. See Monitor SD-WAN for Meraki organizations with SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted.

  7. Review and adjust the device properties.

    1. Review your API key, organization, and proxy settings.

    2. To edit how often the node status, or monitored statistics are updated, change the values in the Polling area.

      For critical nodes, you may need to poll status information or collect statistics more frequently than the default polling intervals.

    3. Enter values for custom properties for the node.

      The Custom Properties area is empty if you have not defined any custom properties for the monitored nodes. See "Add custom properties to nodes" in the SolarWinds Platform Administrator Guide.

    4. To adjust when the status of the node changes to Warning or Critical, edit alerting thresholds for the metric. Select the Override box and set thresholds for the node.

  8. Click OK, Add Node.

The Meraki organization is now monitored as a wireless controller node. After the first poll, you can see the data from the device in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

On the Manage Nodes view, click the added node to see the node details in the Wireless Controller view, or drill down into thin access points listed on the view.

Monitor Meraki organizations

Click My Dashboards > Network > Wireless to see monitored Meraki organizations in the Wireless Overview and to view monitored controllers, access points, and clients.

To find access points on a controller, select Controllers in the Group by list.

Click a wireless access point to see details of the access point, such as the controller details, thin access point details, active wireless clients, and wireless clients connected in the past.

Click the controller name to see the wireless controller details, such as node details or list of thin access points.

Edit Meraki organizations

Edit Meraki polling details, custom properties or alerting thresholds in the same way as other nodes in NPM.

When you add a Meraki organization to NPM, you can no longer change the polling method from the UI.