Install the Network Collector

Monitoring network devices requires a Network Collector or Hybrid Cloud Observability with enabled Platform Connect.

Check whether you already have a Network Collector deployed

1. Click Take Me to Agents on the Install Network Collector screen. This opens the Agents page listing all hosts with deployed plugins.

2. Find the host where you want to deploy the Network Collector and click it. This opens the Inspector Panel, Plugins tab.

   • If there already is a Network Collector deployed, you will see a network-collector (SiteCollector) plugin in the list.

   • If you are using the Platform Connect feature to get Hybrid Cloud Observability data to SolarWinds Observability, the plugin name is network-collector (CloudConnected).

Review Network Collector requirements and scalability information

• You can only install the Network Collector on a server with a supported Windows version. Network Collector requirements are the same as SolarWinds Platform requirements. See SolarWinds Platform on-prem requirements.

• If you plan extensive flow monitoring, SolarWinds recommends that you use a higher tier of SQL Server than MS SQL Express as the database or use a dedicated Network Collector for monitoring flow data. Review the SQL Express Limits.

• You can monitor up to 7,000 standard network devices per Network Collector. To observe more network devices, SolarWinds recommends you deploy multiple Network Collector instances to distribute the load.

  The scale can be influenced by the complexity of the network devices being monitored, such as the number of polled interfaces and/or volumes, and by polling capabilities of the Network Collector:

  • Standard network devices used for scalability testing were polled via SNMPv2 and had 15 monitored interfaces.

  • Network Collector polling capacity depends on the hardware of the server where the Network Collector is deployed.

    • To monitor up to 7,000 standard network devices, deploy the collector on a server with 16CPUs/32GB RAM (tested on Intel Xeon(r) CPU E5-2680 v3 @ 2.5GHz)
    • To monitor up to 5,000 standard network devices, deploy the collector on a server with 8CPUs/32GB RAM (tested on Intel Xeon(r) CPU E5-2680 v3 @ 2.5GHz)

• For flow monitoring, you can monitor up to 40,000 flows per second, or up to 4,000 inserts per second.

  See SolarWinds Observability System Requirements for details.

• For data in transit from the Network Collector to SolarWinds Observability, the Network Collector encrypts the data using the TLS 1.2 protocol with a 2048-bit RSA certificate.

Install the Network Collector

1. In SolarWinds Observability, click Add Data at the top.

2. On the Add Data dialog, click Network Device.

3. On Select Network Collector, select Deploy new Network Collector and click Next.

4. On Prepare Ingestion Token, select a token to identify the Agent when sending the data into SolarWinds Observability and click Next.

   • To create a new token, select Generate New Token and provide a name for the new token.

   • To use an existing token, select Use Existing Token and select a token from the list.

     Not sure? See Create a new or use an existing ingestion API token?

5. On the Install Network Collector screen, download the ISO file.

6. On the same screen, copy the API token value in step 3.

7. Log in to the server that will host your Network Collector and transfer the ISO file there.

   When installing the Network Collector on a VM, copy the installer to the VM. Mounting the ISO in the Hypervisor software and then sharing it with the VM is not supported. For a workaround, see SolarWinds Installer could not determine which product to install.

8. Mount the ISO file using the native Windows mounting features. You can double-click it or right-click the file and select Mount.

9. In the mounted DVD drive, launch the EXE file to start the installation wizard.

10. On the Installation Type screen, select Collector and click Next.

11. Paste the API token from the clipboard into the text box.

12. Review the EULA. If you agree, select the checkbox.

13. Review the installation options. You can change the folder for installing the Network Collector here.

14. Review the installation report. If it includes warnings, complete the suggested steps and click Re-check.

15. Click Install to start the installation.

16. When the installation wizard finishes, configure the Network Collector. You can use default options.

All activities necessary for providing data from the Network Collector to SolarWinds Observability are performed automatically. Just specify network devices you want to monitor.

See Troubleshoot Network Collector installation issues if necessary.

Add network devices for monitoring directly from SolarWinds Observability

Adding network devices directly from SolarWinds Observability requires Network Collector 2024.2.10. See Upgrade the Network Collector.

1. In SolarWinds Observability, click Add Data at the top.

2. On the Add Data dialog, click Network Device.

3. On Select Network Collector, select Use existing Network Collector and select the collector you want to poll the new network device by.

   You can only select a Network Collector version 2024.2.10 and later which is Connected. Earlier versions of the collector do not support adding devices and adding devices requires an active connection.

   If you don’t find a suitable collector, deploy a new one or upgrade an existing collector to 2024.2.10.

   

4. On Define Node, specify the network device you want to monitor in SolarWinds Observability and click Next.

   1. Type a hostname or IP address.

   2. If the device has a dynamic IP address that might change occasionally, select Dynamic IP Address. Selecting the box mean that the IP or hostname lookup must return a complete IP-hostname pair to continue.

   3. Optional: If you want to easily identify the device in SolarWinds Observability, specify a display name.

      

   4. Select how you want to poll the network device.

      Select ICMP to monitor the health by polling the device and comparing the results to predefined threshold values. ICMP pools device status, average response time, or packet loss percentage.

      Select SNMPv2 to get more details by querying the management information base and performance indicators tied to specific object identifiers

   5. If you select SNMP, specify the SNMP version, port, and specify SNMP credentials for polling.

      • To use existing credentials, select Existing and then select a credentials set from the list.

        

      • To use new credentials, select New and provide the display name and community string.

        

        Clicking Next tests the credentials.

5. On Choose Resources, select metrics and resources to be monitored on the devices and click Next. For example, you can monitor status and response time, topology, and selected interfaces.

6. On Summary, review the information and click Submit.

7. When the network device is added for monitoring, you will be redirected to the Network Overview and will see the new device within a couple of minutes.