Pingdom to SolarWinds Observability SaaS Migration FAQ

SolarWinds is proud to introduce the next generation of Pingdom, now integrated into SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience. Building upon our commitment to empowering your website monitoring since 2014, we've expanded upon the website monitoring features from Pingdom to bring you a new experience beyond website monitoring into full-stack digital observability. Now, you can contextualize data from the entire delivery chain. In your migrated account within SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience, you'll find core Pingdom features, like website availability testing, real user monitoring (RUM), and uptime checks, alongside additional features within our comprehensive Digital Experience solution.

After migrating your Pingdom account to SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience, you can extend your visibility beyond website performance, providing a unified suite of digital monitoring tools. Our goal is to provide a smooth transition. This topic will guide you through these changes, enabling you to leverage SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience quickly.

Why is my account being migrated?

SolarWinds Observability SaaS moves beyond monitoring individual URLs to provide full digital experience observability for your website and infrastructure. With SolarWinds Observability SaaS, you get a comprehensive overview of the status of your website, and you can view all aspects of your website in a single place. Add infrastructure, application, database, and network monitoring to get a full picture of the entire environment supporting your website.

What do I need to know, coming from Pingdom?

Digital experience monitoring in SolarWinds Observability SaaS tracks the performance and availability of external websites using synthetic monitoring methods or monitoring real user activity and experiences.

Just like in Pingdom, websites and URIs can be monitored using synthetic methods. Probes periodically connect to the website or URI and perform tests that verify the availability and report its uptime, whether the SSL/TLS certificate will expire, and response times from the uptime tests. See Synthetic monitoring for details about the synthetic availability tests.

Real user monitoring (RUM) in SolarWinds Observability SaaS is accomplished in a way similar to Pingdom. When adding a website and selecting RUM, you will be provided a script to place into the HTML of your website. When a visitor accesses your website, the JavaScript sends data collected from the browser to SolarWinds Observability SaaS. This data may include details about the user, such as where they are located or what browser they use, and details about their experiences interacting with the website, such as page load times. See Real user monitoring for more details about collecting RUM data.

Synthetic transactions in SolarWinds Observability can be used to test the functionality of your website like you did with Pingdom. Create step by step processes to automate and test your website functionality to make sure that your website is performing like it should. See Synthetic transactions.

What do I need to configure manually?

We migrated most of your account from Pingdom to SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience by replicating your checks and alerts to support a smooth transition. However, there are a few elements that you need to manually recreate to start using SolarWinds Observability as your website monitoring solution. Please review the following steps to update your account.

Add RUM to a new Website entity

To configure Real User Monitoring (RUM) on a new SolarWinds Observability website entity, you can click Add Data > Real User Monitoring in the Add Data wizard. See Real User Monitoring.

Add RUM to an existing Website entity

Add RUM to websites entities that were migrated from Pingdom.

1. Click Digital Experience > Availability.

2. Click the desired website entity, to continue to the Entity Explorer.

3. Click the vertical ellipsis on the upper right screen, and then click Edit.

4. Click the Real User Monitoring toggle in the basics section. Click Next.

5. Modify any availability settings. Click Next.

6. Copy the RUM code, and add the script immediately before the </body> tag on your page or site. Click Next.
   

   Note: If you are adding RUM to a website migrated from Pingdom where RUM was configured, and you want to keep RUM monitoring on Pingdom, paste the SolarWinds Observability RUM snippet after the pingdom snippet.

   If you want to replace Pingdom RUM monitoring with SolarWinds Observability RUM, replace the Pingdom snippet with the SolarWinds Observability RUM snippet.

7. Review the website entity summary. Click Save.

What should I whitelist?

Whitelist Probes

You should whitelist our probes like you did in Pingdom. Click here for a list of probe IPs.

User agent headers

You should whitelist our user agent headers. The Request header used for Availability checks in SolarWinds Observability is listed below.

solarwinds/1.0 (www.solarwinds.com/solarwinds-observability)

The Request headers that will be used for Synthetic Transactions is listed below.

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) SolarWindsTransactionBot/1.0 Safari/537.36 Chrome/134.0.0.0

Webhooks

You should whitelist our webhook IP addresses to avoid any issues with alerting.

NAT Egress IP ranges

18.221.35.160/32

18.218.254.94/32

13.59.250.176/32

Manage users in Pingdom and SolarWinds Observability

Invite new users to SolarWinds Observability

When you are migrated to SolarWinds Observability, the migration only takes place once. Users that are in Pingdom are migrated to SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience. If you want to add new users to Pingdom and SolarWinds Observability, you will need to do so in each product separately after the migration has completed.

We are planning to synchronize adding users to Pingdom and SolarWinds Observability as one action, and this will be available in a future release.

Set up SAML for SolarWinds Observability users

If you had SAML configured for users in Pingdom, those users can verify their SAML connections with the existing SAML IDP after the migration has completed.

Set up a new SAML IDP for SolarWinds Observability

SolarWinds recommends creating a new IDP for SolarWinds Observability, and adding new users to the IDP so they can authenticate through it. See Configure SAML.

SolarWinds recommends moving existing Pingdom users to the new SAML created for SolarWinds Observability to future proof product access.

Pingdom migration timeline

Here's a breakdown of the key steps you'll encounter during the migration process. When your account reaches each stage, you will receive an email notification with clear action items outlined.

Migration Notice and Billing moved to SolarWinds Customer Portal

At this stage, we will alert you that we are working on migrating your account to SolarWinds Observability SaaS Digital Experience with replicated checks and alerts. While the migration process is in progress, you may continue logging into Pingdom to manage your website monitoring. Billing has been moved to the SolarWinds Customer Portal login, and you will get a separate email with login information. Please note: your payment plan will remain unchanged as a part of this migration.

Access SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience

Next, you will be alerted that your SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience platform is ready to explore. To access your account, click the Access Pingdom's Next Gen button within your Pingdom account. During this stage, you will have a 30-to-60-day transition period to give you ample time to familiarize yourself with the SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience interface.

Pingdom Account Post-Migration

Lastly, we will notify you when your Pingdom account has only 30 days of active monitoring remaining. Following the end of the 30-day notice, your Pingdom account will transition to a read-only state, allowing you to continue viewing your historical monitoring data. At this point, all active monitoring must occur within the SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience platform. Our goal is to provide a smooth transition as you familiarize yourself with your SolarWinds Observability Digital Monitoring Experience.

SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience Product Experience

Websites

A website entity in SolarWinds Observability SaaS allows you to monitor and collect data from many aspects of your website, such as the availability (uptime) of a specific URL or the user experience (RUM) of all or some of the pages in your site. All of the data collected for your website is now available in one consolidated place. You no longer have to look at the results of your website’s checks separately. See Add a website.

URIs

A URI entity in SolarWinds Observability SaaS allows you to monitor the availability (uptime) of specific domains, URLs, or IPs using protocols other than HTTP and HTTPS. All of the data collected for your URI is now available in one consolidated place. You no longer have to look at the results of your URI’s checks separately. See Add a URI.

Synthetic transactions

Synthetic transaction monitoring with SolarWinds Observability SaaS provides a way to automate and test website interactions synthetically so that you can be sure your website is performing as intended. See Add a Synthetic transaction.

Outages

Monitor your website entity downtime and outages with Digital Experience. Digital Experience measures an outage after a monitored entity fails two consecutive Availability checks in any given region. See Outages.

Digital Experience Data

To see an overview of all Digital Experience Monitoring data collected for your websites and URIs or locate a specific website or URI entity, click Digital Experience in the side navigation. See Digital experience monitoring for more information about viewing a website or URI entity.

Use the Metrics Explorer to examine Digital Experience data deeper, looking at metric history or grouping metric data by website or URI name or attribute. See Website and URI metrics.

Alerts

Create alerts right from SolarWinds Observability templates.

1. Click Alerts > Alert Settings >Templates.

2. Filter by the Digital Experience entity you are setting up the alert for (Website, URI, Synthetic transaction).

3. Click the vertical ellipsis to the right of the desired alert template, and then click create alert.

4. Configure the alert details, type, condition, actions and review the summary. Click Create to save your alert.

After adding a website or URI for monitoring, you can create an alert for any metric(s) collected for your entity. See Alerts for information about creating alerts.

Differences between Pingdom and SolarWinds Observability

Coming from Pingdom, you may notice that some of the features you are familiar with look and sound a little different in SolarWinds Observability. We have outlined those differences in the table below so you can familiarize yourself with the features.

Pingdom Feature	SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience Feature
Uptime Checks To monitor a website using the Uptime Checks feature in Pingdom, you can add a website by selecting the Web option to choose between HTTP(S) or HTTP Custom monitoring.	Website Availability monitoring In SolarWinds Observability, you can add websites by navigating to the Add Data button and selecting Website Availability tab, where you can monitor sites using HTTP or HTTPS protocols.
TCP Port and Ping checks To get a response from a target system using TCP port and Ping checks in Pingdom, go to Uptime Checks, then select the Network option and choose the type of check you want to monitor.	TCP Port and Ping checks In SolarWinds Observability, we refer to these as URIs. You can add TCP port or Ping checks directly by navigating to the Add Data button and selecting the type of check you want to monitor.
Email Reports You can configure email reports for your respective checks.	Availability Schedules Set up an email availability report through Availability schedules. See Availability schedules.
Transactions Create transactions to automate test functionality of your website.	Synthetic transactions Create Synthetic transactions to test your website functionality.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is happening to my Pingdom account?

Nothing at first. Over the next 30-60 days, we will move you to the next generation of Pingdom, SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience Monitoring.

Where can I access my invoices?

Once migration has begun, invoices will be accessible through the SolarWinds Customer Portal. You will receive login instructions from customerservice@solarwinds.com. Contact us via this email to be resent instructions or for any billing inquiries.

Why are we making this change?

Based on your feedback, we’ve built a new platform that takes advantage of Pingdom's best capabilities and provides additional functions, including a machine-learning engine. SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience is the next generation of Pingdom, and it's been coming for a long time.

What is Digital Experience?

Digital experience monitoring tracks the performance and availability of external websites and URIs using synthetic monitoring methods or monitoring real user activity and experiences. In Pingdom, you created individual checks to monitor a single aspect (for example, your website’s uptime) of a website or URI. Now in SolarWinds Observability SaaS, create website or URI entities to monitor and collect data from many aspects of your website (for example, the availability of a specific URL).

The Digital Experience area overview, available in the left pane, consolidates all of the data collected for every aspect of your monitored websites and URIs. You can then drill in to see a summary of a single website or URI’s data and view other details about the selected entity. All of the test results that were available in separate uptime checks, transaction checks, page speed checks, and Real User Monitoring pages can be found in one simple location in SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

Where will I access my historical data?

Historical data will be accessed by logging into your Pingdom account. After the transition period of 30-60 days when you will have access to both Pingdom and SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience, you will be notified when your Pingdom account will move to read-only mode so you can review your records. Historical data will not be moved over as a part of this migration.

We are very busy, and we love Pingdom as it is; what do I need to do for this migration?

We are doing everything we can to make the transition to the next generation product easy for you. We will replicate your Pingdom account so during the migration process you can use your existing account while becoming comfortable with the next generation product.

When are you making the change to SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience?

We are not rushing it, because we want to give you as much time as you need to get comfortable with our new, powerful next-generation product. Approximately 30-45 days from the first email we sent you, we will inform you that we’ve replicated your account, and you will have 30-60 days to use both, make sure all is good, and finally, at the end of approximately 90 days, you will no longer use Pingdom, but we will make it available for a time so you can get to your historical data.

How much is this going to cost me?

Your payment plan will not change as a part of this migration. When we migrate your account, we will also move the billing to SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience, but it will be for the exact amount you are paying today.

How do I log into the SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience?

Sign in to Pingdom like you always do, then on the top right of the screen click Access Pingdom's Next Gen.

Where are my Uptime checks?

Click Digital Experience > Availability to view all of your migrated uptime checks.

Pingdom uptime checks are a part of SolarWinds Observability SaaS Digital Experience monitoring. A website or URI entity was created for each migrated uptime check.

Why am I missing some of my data?

If you are missing any of your pingdom configuration or if any data are missing please contact us at pingdomng-questions@solarwinds.com for the fastest resolution.

Does my test data expire?

Digital Experience monitoring retains metric related data for 18 months and event related data for 1 month.

What Digital Experience features are available in SolarWinds Observability SaaS?

HTTP and HTTPS availability (synthetics) monitoring and real user monitoring (RUM) are available for websites, and URI entities can have TCP and Ping availability (uptime) monitoring. Synthetic Transaction Monitoring is available for monitoring customer flows (Transaction monitoring in Pingdom).

Can I create uptime check in SolarWinds Observability SaaS?

Yes, uptime checks are available, but the way you create one is a little bit different. SolarWinds Observability SaaS focuses more on the entity you are monitoring, such as a website or URI. When creating your entity, you define what you want to monitor for that entity, such as its availability (known as uptime in Pingdom) for a region or regions.

Will my changes sync between Pingdom and SolarWinds Observability SaaS?

No, this migration was a one time action to bring your Pingdom configurations to SolarWinds Observability SaaS. Changes made in Pingdom after you initiated the migration will not automatically apply to SolarWinds Observability SaaS and vice versa.

Can I migrate again if I've made more changes in Pingdom?

No, this migration is a one time action that cannot be repeated.

Can I configure MFA in SolarWinds Observability?

Yes, you can configure MFA in SolarWinds Observability. See Set up MFA.

Can I configure SAML in SolarWinds Observability?

Yes, you can configure SAML in SolarWinds Observability. See Configure SAML.

I whitelisted Pingdom probes, do I need to whitelist SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience probes?

Yes, you should whitelist the SolarWinds Observability Digital Experience probes and domain IPs like you did in Pingdom. Click here for a list of probe IPs.

I had RUM configured for my website(s) in Pingdom, do I need to update the RUM snippet to get RUM data in SolarWinds Observability?

Yes, you will need to update the RUM code snippet on your website(s) to continue getting RUM data in SolarWinds Observability. See Real User Monitoring.

I get email alert notification in Pingdom, will I get email notifications from the same sender in SolarWinds Observability?

No, in Pingdom the sender email for alerts is no-reply@pingdom.com. In SolarWinds Observability, the sender email for alerts is no-reply@my.cloud.solarwinds.com. Make sure to add no-reply@my.cloud.solarwinds.com to your safe senders list.

Where can I find more information?

For an in-depth guide to everything Digital Experience in SolarWinds Observability SaaS, see Digital experience overview.

Use SolarWinds Observability beyond website monitoring

Migrating to SolarWinds Observability SaaS Digital Experience from the original Pingdom platform gives you the foundation to evolve past website monitoring to access visibility into your user's complete digital journey. With SolarWinds Observability SaaS Digital Experience, website availability utilizes private probes, extending your monitoring reach deep within your infrastructure to monitor the health of internal applications. You'll also benefit from expanded alerting options, including receiving alerts via Microsoft Teams, Slack, Service Now, and more, ensuring the right teams receive actionable insights precisely when and how they need them.

SolarWinds Observability SaaS Digital Experience offers additional tools that provide granular control over your testing, allowing you to select specific geographic locations to monitor website availability and performance. This city-level precision provides critical intelligence into regional variations, enabling you to swiftly pinpoint and resolve localized issues, ultimately delivering a consistently exceptional digital experience that drives user satisfaction.

As we move through this migration, your feedback is crucial. SolarWinds THWACK online community provides a direct avenue to connect with our product team. By engaging in discussions, sharing your insights, and submitting feature requests on THWACK, you directly contribute to the evolution of this next generation of Pingdom. Click here to engage with us in the THWACK community.