Entities in SolarWinds Observability
An entity is an item you can monitor with SolarWinds Observability, such as a website, database, host, cloud platform service or resource, Kubernetes cluster or node, service, or network device. Entities are added to SolarWinds Observability through the Add Data dialog and provide valuable telemetry that gives you insight into the health and performance of your environment.
Monitored aspects of a single entity, such as a website or trace, are automatically linked whenever possible.
Available entities
The following entity types can be monitored in SolarWinds Observability.
Databases
Monitoring area: Database Monitoring
Entity type(s): Database instance
Databases supported: MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server
Websites and URIs
Monitoring area: Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM)
Entity type(s): Website, URI
Protocols supported: HTTP, HTTPS, TCP/IP, and ICMP (ping)
Applications and services
Monitoring area: Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Entity type(s):
- Service
Service languages supported: .NET, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python, and Ruby
Service monitored elements: Transactions
AWS cloud platforms
Monitoring area: Infrastructure Monitoring
Entity type(s):
- AWS API Gateway
- AWS ApplicationELB
- AWS Aurora Cluster
- AWS Aurora Instance
- AWS Auto Scaling Group
- AWS CloudFront
- AWS EBS
- AWS EC2
- AWS EFS
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk
- AWS ELB
- AWS Lambda
- AWS NAT Gateway
- AWS RDS
- AWS S3
- AWS Transit Gateway
- AWS VPN
AWS entities can be found based on their service name in several SolarWinds Observability explorers, but some are also grouped under the host category.
AWS service availability: The cloud platform entities available depend on the services enabled in SolarWinds Observability when integrating your AWS account, as well as the services enabled in the AWS Console. Entities are not created for all AWS services, but data may still be collected if the service is enabled in the AWS Console.
Azure cloud platforms
Monitoring area: Infrastructure Monitoring
Entity type(s):
- Azure App Service
- Azure Blob Storage
- Azure Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
- Azure Cosmos DB
- Azure Event Hubs
- Azure Files
- Azure FrontDoor
- Azure Functions
- Azure Key Vault
- Azure Service Bus
- Azure SQL Database
- Azure Virtual Machines (VM)
- Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets
Azure entities can be found based on their resource name in several SolarWinds Observability explorers, but some are also grouped under the host category.
Azure resource availability: The cloud platform entities available depend on the resources enabled in SolarWinds Observability when integrating your Azure account, as well as the resources enabled in the Azure Resource Manager. Entities are not created for all Azure resources, but data may still be collected if the resource is enabled in the Azure Resource Manager.
Hosts and servers
Monitoring area: Infrastructure Monitoring
Entity type(s):
- Self-managed host
- Servers (monitored with Hybrid Cloud Observability)
The term host is also used as an entity category that includes self-managed hosts, servers monitored with Hybrid Cloud Observability, and cloud services/resources that provide hosting capabilities. In several SolarWinds Observability explorers and dashboards, AWS and Azure entities are grouped alongside self-managed hosts under the Hosts category.
OpenTelemetry integrations (OTel)
Kubernetes (K8s)
Monitoring area: Infrastructure Monitoring
Entity type(s):
- Kubernetes cluster
- Kubernetes node
Entity relationship: When a K8s cluster is monitored, the nodes within the cluster are automatically monitored as individual child entities.
Monitored elements: Namespaces, pods, deployments, stateful sets, daemonsets
Network devices
Monitoring area: Network Monitoring
Entity type(s): Network device
Monitored elements: Interfaces, sensors, volumes, and (if configured) flows
Hybrid Cloud Observability entities
Monitoring area(s): Network and Infrastructure Monitoring
Entity type(s):
- Server
- Network device
- Virtual cluster
- Virtual host
- Virtual machine
- Virtual datastore
Add entities for monitoring
Define entities you want to observe.
- In SolarWinds Observability, click Add Data at the top.
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In the Add Data dialog, click the entity type, platform, or integration you want to monitor.
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Follow the instructions in the Add Data dialog to create your entity.
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To view data collected for the newly configured entity in the Entity Explorer, click the name of the entity type in the confirmation dialog in the lower-left corner. It may take a few seconds for data to appear for the newly created entity. See Entity Explorer for details.
Click to view detailed instructions for each entity type, platform, or integration.Monitor groups of entities
An entity group allows you to monitor a collection of entities simultaneously. For example, you can create an entity group to group all websites by customer or to group all services in a single environment.
Use the Entity Explorer to see a list of your observed entity groups. When you click an entity group, the details pane shows common widgets that display the overall health of the group and active alerts for group members. On the Members tab, you can view a list of each entity within the group in a view similar to the Entity Explorer main page, possibly alongside high-level status information for each entity. Click a member of the group to view additional details for the entity.
You can create an entity group using the Add Data button at the top or by selecting entities within Entity Explorer.
View entity data
To explore your high-level and detailed information about any or all of your observed entities, see the Entity Explorer or your area overview. When you select an entity in the Entity Explorer, widgets in the entity details view show the entity's health score, health history, and other key metric data. See Troubleshooting SolarWinds Observability if you do not see your entity's data.
To view descriptions of the key metrics for each entity in SolarWinds Observability, see Metrics for SolarWinds Observability entities.
Dashboards may be automatically created (depending on the entities monitored) or can be manually created and customized by members of your organization. New widgets can be created based on any monitored metric and added to a custom dashboard.
You can analyze your entity's telemetry data with the following:
- Logs Explorer — for logs and log events that have been sent to SolarWinds Observability.
- Metrics Explorer — for detailed metrics.
- Traces Explorer — for a high-level overview of your traces, as well as detailed metrics for each service's trace.
- Queries Explorer — for observed queries and their related metrics, raw query samples, and full query details.
- Profiler — for useful information about your monitored databases, including the most time-consuming and frequently executed queries in your database.