Documentation forSolarWinds Observability SaaS

Storage monitoring

In SolarWinds Observability SaaS, storage arrays are monitored alongside infrastructure entities. Using Platform Connect, you can bring storage arrays monitored with SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted into SolarWinds Observability SaaS as storage array entities.

Requirements

  • To use a Network Collector, you need Network Collector 2025.1.1 and later

  • To use Platform-connected SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted, you need the SRM add-on license and you need to enable the Storage Observability when configuring the Platform Connect.

  • SolarWinds Observability SaaS supports almost the same arrays as SRM. See Supported arrays (A-H) and Supported arrays (I-Z).

    Some storage entities, such as NetApp Storage Virtual Machines, and some details monitored by SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted are not supported by SolarWinds Observability SaaS. Storage monitoring support may be extended in the future.

Add storage entities for monitoring

You have the following options to specify the storage arrays to monitor:

  • Network Collector
  • Platform-connected SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted

Network Collector

The Network Collector is a tool that collects data from your entities and sends it to SolarWinds Observability SaaS. The Network Collector was originally designed to collect data for network devices, but its features have been extended to support other entities, such as storage arrays. See Add a network device

  1. Log in to your Network Collector Web Console using an account with administrator privileges.

  2. Click Settings > All Settings, and then click Add Storage Device in the Getting Started section.

  3. Select the array type and click Next.

  4. On Choose Data Source, configure the provider.

    Required steps depend on the array you are adding. See details for your array type and provider in Add arrays to SRM.

  5. Click Test Connection to verify your settings.

  6. On Choose Data Targets, select storage arrays to monitor and click Next.

  7. Verify the settings and click Finish.

After the first poll, the details are sent to SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

Platform-connected SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted

If you have storage arrays in SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted and want to monitor them in SolarWinds Observability SaaS, set up Platform Connect to stream data from SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted to SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

To use Platform Connect, a commercial SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted license must be activated on your SolarWinds Platform server.

To monitor storage arrays, you also need a SRM add-on license.

  1. Copy or create an API token (Ingestion type), found in the settings area of SolarWinds Observability SaaS. See API Tokens for details.

  2. In the SolarWinds Platform Web Console settings, open Platform Connect. Follow the on-screen prompts to install and configure the SolarWinds Observability Agent, entering the API token created earlier. See Connect SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted to SolarWinds Observability SaaS with Platform Connect for details.

  3. On the Configure Agent screen of the Platform Connect wizard, ensure that Storage Observability is enabled.

After Platform Connect setup is completed, storage arrays are available in SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

Get an overview of monitored storage entities

For an overview of monitored storage array entities, click Infrastructure > Storage.

The Overview tab displays health score distribution for all storage entities and sub pages for storage arrays, storage pools, LUNs and NAS volumes with summary capacity widgets for all entity types.

Some metrics, such as capacity-related details, are only polled every 6 hours: If you cannot see data, you might need to change the time setting to at least "Past 6 hours".

The Entities tab displays a list of main storage entities with the most important performance and capacity metrics. Click the tile with entities you want to review.

Click an entity to display more details about it.

Review details for individual storage array entities

Click a storage entity to display the details page for it. The details page may include the following tabs.

Only tabs relevant for the selected storage entity are displayed.

  • Overview: This tab shows the most important details, such as HS, IOPS, and throughput performance metrics. It includes widgets for row and usable capacity summary, and summary widgets for child entities (Pools, LUNs, NAS volumes). The Overview also includes:

    • Additional details for physical disks include disk size or disk status.

    • Additional details relevant for the array include vendor, model, serial number, vendor status, or firmware.

  • Performance: This tab displays performance metrics, such as IOPS, throughput, and cache hit ratio. It is also available for storage pools, LUNs, and NAS volumes.

  • Sensors: This tab displays a summary of all hardware health sensors for the storage array, including their status and values (if available).

  • Storage Pools: This tab displays details about storage pools in the array.

  • LUNs: This tab displays details about storage pools in the array.

  • NAS Volumes: This tab displays details about NAS volumes in the array.

  • File Shares: This tab lists all file shares hosted on the storage array or NAS volume with the most important metrics and attributes, such as file share type, used and free capacity. Click a file share to see more details in the Inspector Panel , such as the file server IP addresses or capacity summary.

Details pages for storage pools, LUNs, and NAS volumes

Similar to storage array details page, these pages display the most important capacity and performance metrics together with entity meta data and additional details, such as RAID type and Provisioning type (Thick/Thin).

For storage pools, there are also entity pages with LUNs and NAS volumes on the respective pool.

Alert on storage array entities

You can create alerts on all relevant entities and their metrics/attributes using out-of-the-box templates.

  1. Click Alerts > Alerts Settings and click the Templates tab.

  2. Filter the templates to only display templates relevant for storage monitoring. In the search field, enter this filter and review available templates.

    entityType:[StoragePool, StorageArray, StorageLUN, StorageVolume]

  3. Customize a template to create the alert you need. See Create a metric or attribute value alert.