Documentation forSolarWinds Observability SaaS

Monitor device configurations

When a Network Collector or Platform-connected SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted poll configuration data, you can see the configurations in SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

  • Configuration Management - Overview: A tab in the network area overview and in the device entity details view.

  • Config Explorer: A tab in the network area overview lists all monitored configurations (startup and running configurations and their conflicts) that changed within the specified time frame.

Configurations are displayed only for "NCM nodes". If no configurations for a node are displayed in the Config Management tab, log in to the web console for your Network Collector or Platform-connected SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted and ensure that the node is an "NCM node". See Set up configuration monitoring (Network Collector) or Add nodes as NCM nodes.

Every 45 minutes, the system checks for outdated configurations. Configurations older than 30 days are deleted.

Review configuration changes and conflicts

  1. In SolarWinds Observability, click Network and then click Configuration Explorer.

  2. Use the filter and time drop-down to review configuration changes on monitored devices.

    The Config Explorer lists devices that received any metrics within the specified time. As a result, the list might include devices that do not have any config data as they received some metrics in the specified time.

    If there is a conflict of a startup and running config, you can see Conflict in the Startup vs Running column.

  3. Click the conflict to compare the startup and running config in an Inspector Panel.

View configurations

  1. In the Entity Explorer, find a device for which you are gathering configurations.

  2. Click the Config Management tab to see available configurations. They are saved and named after the time stamp when they were downloaded.

  3. To view a configuration, click the download time.

Compare configurations

  1. On the Config Management tab, select two items and click Compare.

  2. Review the changes and click Close to close the content comparison.

Download configurations

  1. In the Entity Explorer, find a device for which you are gathering configurations.

  2. Click the Config Management tab to see available configurations. They are saved and named after the time stamp when they were downloaded.

  3. To download a configuration, click the Download button.

    • To download the configuration the device started with, click Download Startup Config.

    • To download the configuration that is currently applied on the device, click Download Running Config.

      Downloading the configuration starts. Click the Events link in the message to follow the download progress.