Documentation forSolarWinds Observability

Data collection channels for host monitoring

In SolarWinds Observability, the host acts as the core infrastructure element on which you can monitor various metrics for applications, databases, and hosts.

Hybrid Cloud Observability users who use the Platform Connect feature, Hybrid Cloud Observability servers, AWS and Azure virtual machines, and self-managed hosts can be found as server, AWS EC2 and Azure VMs, and host entities, respectively, in several SolarWinds Observability explorers. All of these entities are also grouped under the host category.

You can use one or more of the following methods to collect data from hosts.

Get data from a server or integration using an OTel-based agent

  • Self-managed host entities are devices with a supported operating system. To monitor the host, install the SolarWinds Observability Agent with host monitoring enabled.

  • The SolarWinds Observability Agent is based on the OpenTelemetry (OTel) standard, giving you the flexibility to extend observability with logs and infrastructure application integrations.

  • The SolarWinds Observability Agent is used to collect deep observability data.

  • Installation on the host machine is light-weight, minimizing resource consumption.

  • Observed data reaches SolarWinds Observability fast, ensuring timely insights.

    See Add a self-managed host and Configure native OTel integrations.

Get basic data from cloud platforms

  • Cloud hosts are created when integrating your AWS or Azure cloud account with SolarWinds Observability.

  • Cloud accounts are integrated using the providers' API to perform shallow monitoring, providing native data on EC2 and Azure VM hosts.

  • The data gathered by SolarWinds Observability depends on the data available in the cloud account.

  • Integrating with cloud accounts is used to get a basic overview from a wide range of hosts.

    See Add an AWS cloud account, Add an Azure cloud account.

Get host data from Hybrid Cloud Observability using Platform Connect

Get host data for your network device using a Network Collector

  • When the Network Collector is installed on a server to monitor network devices, host data is sent to SolarWinds Observability alongside the network device information.

  • The SolarWinds Observability Agent is included as part of the Network Collector installation. It is installed with network monitoring enabled.

  • Used for collecting data on network devices and servers, can be extended to include application Databases Overview.

  • Suitable for comprehensive monitoring of on-prem or cloud-based environments.

  • Facilitates displaying network relationships on maps.

    See Network monitoring and Manage Network Collector and Platform Connect integrations.

Host monitoring options

  Using the Agent Integrating with cloud accounts Using Platform Connect Using the Network Collector
Entity type Self-managed host (Host in the Entity Explorer)

Entity name matches the cloud platform service name.

Cloud platform hosts can be found in several SolarWinds Observability explorers based on their cloud platform service name, but they are also grouped under the host category in the Entity Explorer.

Network devices

Network interfaces

Servers

Virtual devices, such as virtual Clusters, virtual datastores, virtual hosts, or virtual machines.

Server and Virtual device hosts can be found in several SolarWinds Observability explorers as servers or the virtual devices, but they are also grouped under the host category in the Entity Explorer.

Network devices

Network interfaces
Installation

Lightweight installation of the SolarWinds Observability Agent with many installation options, such as installer, Ansible, Chef, or Docker. See Add a self-managed host.

 Software installation is not required. Installed when enabling the Platform Connect feature. Network Collector installation.

Agent plugin

Plugins are pieces of software included in Agents. Plugins have different roles that define their function.

uams-otel-collector-plugin (hostmetrics-monitoring)

uams-otel-collector-plugin (<OTel-integration-name>)

 No agent installed.

network-collector (CloudConnected)

network-collector (SiteCollector)

See Install the Network Collector.
Agent Management Directly in SolarWinds Observability:
  • Version control
  • Restart the Agent
  • Stop/Start, Restart plugins running under the Agent

See Agents.

Limited centralized management and monitoring of multiple cloud hosts from a single location:

  • Enable/disable monitoring an account
  • View status

See Cloud Accounts settings.

Start, stop, or restart plugins in Agents.

See Agents.

Start, stop, or restart plugins in Agents.

See Agents.
Monitoring capabilities

Monitors metrics, volumes, processes, installed software, events, and attributes, such as host uptime, kernel architecture, kernel version, platform, platform family, platform version, and more.

Host monitoring is required for Database monitoring

See Host monitoring.

Native data monitored on EC2 and Azure VM hosts.

Optional real-time monitoring with API streaming to quickly detect and address issues as soon as they occur.

See AWS cloud platform monitoring and Azure cloud platform monitoring.

Monitors network metrics, server processes, storage information and assets, as well as virtual device data.

See Server monitoring with Hybrid Cloud Observability and Virtual device monitoring with Hybrid Cloud Observability.

Monitors metric, volume, port, and sensor data, flows, wireless data, VLANs, routing, load balancer data, SD-WAN data, or SD-WAN tunnel performance.

See Monitored elements and data relevant for network devices.
Licensing

Each monitored host would be counted as one host (part of the Network and Infrastructure subscription).

If the same host is monitored via the API, the data will be consolidated into a single entity.

Each monitored host would be counted as one host (part of the Network and Infrastructure subscription).

If the same host is monitored via the OTel Agent, the data will be consolidated into a single entity.

A commercial or temporary (provided by SolarWinds) Hybrid Cloud Observability license activated on a SolarWinds Platform server. If the same host is monitored via the API or Host Agent, the system would create an additional entity. See Entity duplication.
Extensibility

Additional monitoring can be enabled easily to add custom data (Logs, NGINX, Apache, ZooKeeper, Elasticsearch, Memcached, Redis,...)

See Monitor with OTel.

 Easily scalable to monitor large numbers of cloud hosts but only native data.   Software Templates
Diagnostics
  • Use the Admin Agent interface to see the host plugin status.
  • Download Agent and plugin logs from SolarWinds Observability for support use cases.
 Depends on what the cloud platform supports.
  • Use the Admin Agent interface to see the host plugin status.
  • Active diagnostics in the Hybrid Cloud Observability web console.
  • Use the Admin Agent interface to see the host plugin status.
  • Active diagnostics in the web console
Security Secure data ingestion channel Secure data by design Secure data by design Secure data by design
Data collection frequency Every 30 seconds Every 5 minutes (polling). For streaming, the data is sent on the go.

Depends on polling settings in Hybrid Cloud Observability

Push 5-6 minutes delay

Streaming

Depends on polling settings

Push 5-6 minutes delay

Streaming
Standardization Based on OpenTelemetry (OTel), consistent data, can be easily analyzed and compared Depends on the API supported by the host    
Interoperability Easy integration with other tools, such as tracing and logging systems Depends on the API supported by the host