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.

NetPath requirements for NPM

Review the following requirements for NetPath™:

Probe computer

Probes are the source of network paths, and the paths are discovered by probes.

You create a probe on a source computer, which must meet the following requirements:

TypeRequirements

Operating system

(64-bit only)

Windows Server 2019

Windows Server 2016

Windows Server 2012 R2

Windows Server 2012

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Windows 10 Professional and Enterprise

Windows 8.1

Windows 8

Windows 7

Windows 10 Home edition is not supported.

CPU cores

2 CPU cores for 20 paths

+1 CPU core per 10 additional paths

Hard drive space1 GB
RAM2 GB

Ports and other firewall settings

Open the following ports on your firewall for network connectivity used by NetPath™. Review other firewall settings.

Ports

You may also need to open the following ports:

  • NPM ports for communication between polling engines.
  • Agent ports when deploying probes on remote machines using agents.

PortProtocolService or ProcessDirectionSourceDestinationDescription
User configuredTCPSolarWinds Agent or JobEngineWorkerOutgoingNetPath™ probeEndpoint service

Any ports of the monitored services that are assigned to the probe.

Used by the NetPath™ probe to discover service status.

43

443

TCP

SolarWinds.BusinessLayerHost

(Main server only)

OutgoingMain polling engine

BGP data providers and announcements, such as:

  • http://whois.arin.net/ui/
  • https://stat.ripe.net/
Used by NetPath™ to query BGP information about the discovered IP addresses.

Other firewall settings

Setting ProtocolService or ProcessDirectionSourceDestinationDescription

Allow ICMP type 11

(ICMP Time Exceeded)

ICMPSolarWinds Agent or JobEngineWorkerIncomingNetworking devices along your pathNetPath™ probeUsed by the NetPath™ probe to discover network paths.

Database storage

When calculating the size requirements in SQL Server for NetPath™, you must account for the probing interval and the complexity of the network path from the probe to the monitored service. The complexity of the path is divided into three groups:

  • Internal: services with fewer than 10 nodes between the probe and the monitored service.
  • Intermediate: multiple paths ending in a single endpoint node. Examples are github.com, linked.com, and visualstudio.com.
  • Complex: multiple paths (over 20) ending in multiple endpoint nodes. Examples are google.com and yahoo.com.

This table provides an estimate in megabytes (MB) of the amount of storage consumed by SQL Server over a 30-day period (the default retention time) when monitoring a single service.

Interval (in minutes)Internal (in MB)Intermediate (in MB)Complex (in MB)
152011051615
23256451145
3200445915
4170350750
5135265480
1080175470

Example storage requirement calculation

Your monitoring setup contains the following:

  • Five internal monitors with a one-minute interval.
  • Three intermediate monitors with a five-minute interval.
  • Four complex monitors with a ten-minute interval.

The total storage requirement for SQL Server can be calculated as:

(5 × 520) + (3 × 265) + (4 × 470) = 5275 MB over a 30-day time period.

Cloud environment

When you place a probe in a public cloud, consider the following additional requirements:

ProviderRequirements
Amazon
  • Security group must be enabled on instances that host NetPath™ probes to allow inbound ICMP packets.
  • Probing services that host on Amazon Web Services (AWS) instances within the same cloud networks may not work.
Azure
  • Private Internet Protocol (PIP) must be enabled on instances that host NetPath™ probes.
  • Probing may work within VNET, but may not work if the path crosses the Azure Load Balancer.

Scalability

The scalability of NetPath™ depends on the complexity of the paths you are monitoring, and the interval at which you are monitoring them.

In most network environments:

  • You can add up to 100 paths per polling engine.
  • You can add up to 1,000 paths per SolarWinds Platform instance.
  • You can add 10 - 20 paths per probe.

    NetPath™ calculates the recommended path count based on the performance of each probe, and displays it each time you deploy a new path to the probe.