Software monitoring

In SolarWinds Observability SaaS, the Software area within Infrastructure gives you more visibility into software applications and application components hosted on servers or other network devices on SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted. Use either Platform Connect to bring hosts and servers from SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted into SolarWinds Observability SaaS as host or server entities, or Network Collector to connect other on-prem devices. For instructions and more information about adding these nodes to your SolarWinds Observability SaaS Infrastructure, see Server monitoring or follow the instructions below.

Assign application or application component monitor templates

Before you can monitor your data in SolarWinds Observability SaaS, ensure that your applications and application components have monitor templates assigned to them in the Network Collector web console or SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted Web Console so that they are visible in SolarWinds Observability SaaS once connected. See Discover applications in your SAM environment and Use SAM application monitor templates and application monitors for instructions. You can also create custom monitor templates, or modify existing templates to suit your organization's needs.

Add server or network device entities for monitoring

You have the following options to specify the server or network device entities you want 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. .

Data for server or network device entities is collected via ICMP or WMI. Ensure you have credentials ready.

1. In SolarWinds Observability, click the Add Data drop-down arrow and select Infrastructure.

2. Select whether you want to add one or more entities:

   • Click On-Prem Infrastructure Devices to add a single server or network device entity.
   • Click Scan On-Prem Hosts to add multiple server or network device entities for monitoring.
   • Click VMware resources to add a VMware vCenter or VMware ESXi host individually to monitor the host and associated VMs and datastores.
   • Click Nutanix resources to add a Prism Element or Prism Central.

3. Complete the wizard. The steps depend on whether you are adding a single entity or scanning your network to add multiple entities.

   If you are adding a single entity:

   1. Select or deploy a Network Collector.
   2. Define the Hostname or IP, display name, and provide credentials for polling the data (new or existing credentials for WMI polling).
   3. Choose the resources to be monitored.
   4. See Add a network device for details.

   If you are adding a VMware vCenter or a VMware ESXi host:

   1. Select or deploy a Network Collector.
   2. Define the Hostname or IP for the entity and provide credentials (new or existing) for polling the data.
   3. Verify the data in the summary page.

   If you are adding a Nutanix resource:

   1. Select or deploy a Network Collector.
   2. Define the Hostname or IP for the entity and provide credentials (new or existing) for polling the data.
   3. Verify the data in the summary page.

   If you want to scan your network to discover multiple entities, see Discover network devices in SolarWinds Observability SaaS

Platform-connected SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted

If you have server or network device nodes in SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted that you want to monitor 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.

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.

After Platform Connect setup is completed, server or network device nodes are available as server or network device entities in SolarWinds Observability SaaS, as are many other SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted nodes.

Monitor applications and application components

When you have added the server or other network device for monitoring, and your applications and application components have monitor templates assigned to them, you can monitor the hosted applications and application components.

• High-level health information is available for analysis as widgets in the Software area overview, along with individual health data of all hosted applications and application components.

• Observe each of the application and application component entity details using the Entity Explorer details view.

Monitor metrics over API

Included in the Software monitoring area is the API Monitor tab. Configure API monitors to poll from cloud, on-prem services, devices and other entities over HTTP without the requirement of first adding hosts. For more information about creating API monitors, see Monitor custom metrics from HTTP endpoints via API.