Documentation forSolarWinds Observability SaaS

Monitor nodes on maps (Topology)

Review a visual representation of your network structure to improve troubleshooting and speed up the resolution of issues.

Click Network > Topology to see the all network devices in your organization on a map.

On Topology, you can do the following activities.

Review health score of network devices

The color of the hexagons reflects the health score of the devices. See Entity health score for details.

Selected devices are highlighted with a circle and all their connections are highlighted.

1 Network device with good health score. See Entity health score for details.
2 Network device with moderate health score.
3

Hover over the dot to see the bandwidth and utilization percentage of the connection.
4 Network device discovered but not monitored with SolarWinds Observability SaaS. The device is communicating with a monitored node. You might see its IP address or "Unidentified Node".
5 Network device with bad health score.
6 Icon indicating that there is an informational alert triggered for the network device.
7 Hostname or IP address of the network device.

Zoom in/zoom out

Zoom in to focus on problematic parts of your network environment.

See devices monitored by a Network Collector

Double-click on a group to see devices monitored by the collector and their connections to the rest of the environment. Devices are surrounded by a dashed line. The line color reflects the worst device health score in the group.

Double-click an expanded group to collapse it again.

Filter out or search for what you want to see

Use the search bar to search for network devices by an attribute and value.

You can configure what you want to see on Topology by using filters. Click the filter icon and select what you want to see on the map.

Examples

  • To only see devices with a specific state, select the state in the Health section.
  • To only see devices with alerts of a specific severity, select the severity in the Active Alerts section.
  • To only see devices exporting NetFlow, select Flow Sources in the Flows filter.
  • To only see specific connections, select L2 or L3 in the Connections box.
  • To only see devices by a specific vendor, in a specific location, or monitored by a specific Network Collector, select the item in the relevant drop-down box.

Show only monitored nodes

By default, topology maps show all nodes - actively monitored nodes, nodes that communicate with monitored nodes, and unidentified devices. Unidentified devices are nodes that were detected but could not be identified any more. If they communicate with monitored nodes, the topology map shows their IP address.

To change which nodes appear on the topology map, use the Nodes filter:

  • All nodes (default): Shows all nodes, including actively monitored nodes, nodes communicating with monitored nodes, and unidentified devices.

  • Identified nodes: Shows monitored nodes and nodes that communicate with them.

  • Monitored nodes: Shows only actively monitored nodes.

Show only nodes with a configuration backup

You can filter the topology map to show only nodes with a configuration backup.

  1. Open the filters panel and find the Configuration Management filter.

  2. Select Backed-Up devices to show only nodes with a configuration backup.

    The filter is only available if there are nodes that have a configuration policy enabled. The filter respects the selected time range (by default, Past hour). To find nodes with older backups, extend the time range.

View topology for a specific time

You can specify a time range for seeing the topology. Click the drop-down in the top right and select a date and time range you want to see nodes and interfaces for. The default range is Past hour.

If the required range is not available, select Custom and select the time on the calendar. To select multiple days, click the start date, hold the left mouse key, drag the selection, and release the button over the end date. Specify the start and end time below the calendar. The custom selection supports time ranges from the past six months.

Your time settings are stored if you switch to Network area overview tabs, such as Overview, Flows, VLANs, or Load Balancers.

Alerts do not respect the time range selection. They are displayed according to the trigger condition settings. On Topology, you can see acknowledged and muted alerts. Only cleared, disabled, or removed alerts are not displayed. See Alerts.

Group network devices

Use the Group by options in the top right to group devices by the Network Collector which gathers information about the devices, device location, or vendor.

Drag and drop

You can move nodes on the canvas. Connections between the nodes adjust automatically.

Display tooltips with basic details

Hover over a network device to display more details in a tooltip. Hovering over a device also highlights its connections to other devices.

Hover over a dot on a connection to display bandwidth and utilization of the connection in a tooltip.

Click network devices or connections to learn more

Click a network device to highlight its connections to other devices and to display more details in the Inspector Panel.

Click a connection to display information on endpoints and about the connection in the Inspector Panel. Each connection shows the connection statuses of interfaces on both sides of the connection (if available) - Out traffic in Mbps, Out utilization as a percentage, In traffic in Mbps and In utilization as a percentage

Out traffic is calculated as the sum of all out current traffic of interfaces on the node that are connected to the corresponding node on the other side of connection.

Click a shadow node to highlight connections to an unmonitored node. Clicking a connection only provides information available for monitored nodes.

Review devices with alerts

If a device hexagon has an additional status icon (critical, warning, or info), it means that there is an alert with the specified severity triggered for the device. If there are more alerts, the highest severity is reflected in the icon.

Get more details on the device, its neighbors, or alerts

Right-click a device and select:

  • View Details to display the entity details view.

  • View Neighbors to filter the Topology to only display the two next levels of neighboring nodes.

  • View Alerts (available only if there is an extra icon for the network device) to display the Alerts tab of the network device details and see more information on the alert.

Highlight flow data on topology maps

If you are monitoring flow sources, you can identify them by highlighting the nodes on the map. If the sources exported flows in the time frame specified for the map, the nodes will be identified by a blue circle that displays and disappears twice.

  1. Click Network > Topology.

  2. Click the vertical ellipsis and select Highlight Flow Sources.

    If the Highlight Flow Sources action is not available in the vertical ellipsis, there are no flow sources to highlight in the selected time period. Consider setting the time to Past 30 days and the Group by filter to None.

    Flow sources are visually highlighted by blue circles that blink two times around the nodes.

    Connections to flow sources are displayed as dashed lines.

    3. For details, click a flow source node to open the Inspector Panel and review Top Network Flow Endpoints graphs. For more details on flows, navigate to the device details page from the Inspector Panel.

Access configuration backups on the topology map

If a node on the topology map has a configuration backup, you can access the downloaded configurations in the Inspector Panel.

  1. Find the node with a configuration backup. See Show only nodes with a configuration backup.

  2. Click the node to open the Inspector Panel.

  3. In the Inspector Panel, click the Config Backups tab to view available configuration backups.

Save the map as a picture (PNG, SVG, JPEG)

To export the current topology view, click the Download button and select the format. Supported formats include PNG, SVG, and JPEG.

The map in the specified format is downloaded to your browser download folder.

Customize utilization thresholds for topology

You can configure the thresholds at which the utilization of a connection is considered to be in a warning or critical state. These states are visually represented by different colors on the topology map.

  1. Click the vertical ellipsis and select Edit Thresholds.

  2. Specify the thresholds and save your changes.

    • Warning: When utilization reaches the selected utilization percentage, connections are displayed in a warning state (yellow).

    • Critical: When utilization reaches the selected utilization percentage, connections are displayed in a critical state (red).