Documentation forSolarWinds Observability SaaS

SolarWinds Observability SaaS release notes

These release notes describe the new features, improvements, and fixed issues in SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

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April 2025

The following new features, improvements, and fixed issues were made to SolarWinds Observability SaaS during April.

APM new features and improvements

Trace Summary added to Trace Details

Use Trace Summary to evaluate traced requests and view high-level information on the Root Request, as well as the Total Number of Spans and Errors contributing to the trace, to quickly understand the execution of requests at every step.

Request Selector for Trace and Execution Breakdown

Select specific requests and all requests within the same trace, improving visibility and analysis of the request flow. The Execution Breakdown then automatically highlights where the selected request spends the most time, including local code, cache calls, database queries, and remote services.

Instrumentation of APM Services through Kubernetes Operator

Effortless, zero-code service instrumentation is in beta for onboarding application services on Kubernetes via the OTel Kubernetes operator. Now available for Java and Python and other languages will be added in future releases.

SolarWinds Observability SaaS beta features - Features that are currently in beta and may change based on user feedback. All feature functionality is subject to change when the feature reaches maturity.

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Network new features and improvements

Extended orchestrator support

Added support for monitoring the following SD-WAN orchestrators, wireless controllers, and edge devices:

  • Arista Wireless Manager
  • Juniper Mist
  • Ruckus One
  • Ruckus SmartZone
  • VeloCloud

Other network improvements

  • Config Management tab was added to the network area overview. It lists devices with the latest config download for each type.

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Infrastructure new features and improvements

Storage monitoring

Added support for monitoring on-prem storage arrays and related storage entities, such as storage pools, LUNs, and NAS volumes, using the Network Collector.

AWS Control Tower

Added support for integrating SolarWinds Observability SaaS with multiple AWS accounts managed through AWS Control Tower.

AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) support

Added support for monitoring AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) entities.

Agent management services improvements

  • A GCP icon has been added to the Platform column on the Agents page.
  • INSTALLING_EXTERNAL_DEPENDENCIES status has been added.
  • Contents of the Agent modules tab can now be sorted to improve navigation.
  • A total number of errors occurring within the past hour is displayed in the Agent entity explorer.
  • MISSING_LOCAL_CONFIGURATION status has been added for Agents operating in locally managed mode that are missing the local_config.yaml file.

API Monitoring

Create and customize API monitors to collect and observe your numerical metrics from cloud and on-prem services, devices, or other entities. See Monitor custom metrics from HTTP endpoints via API.

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New features and improvements to explorers and analyzers

KPI+Time Series

Widget can be configured to display either the latest value or overall value.

Table Widget

Now links to the Entity Explorer where the full feature set of the Explorer is provided.

General settings improvements

Users may opt out of AI features by disabling them in settings. The Overview page will not show anomaly heat maps while AI features are disabled.

Metrics Explorer

Added metrics types Composite, Stored, and Built-In in Dashboards and Alerts to drop-down menus.

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March 2025

The following new features, improvements, and fixed issues were made to SolarWinds Observability SaaS during March.

DEM new features and improvements

Availability Schedules

Schedule email reports for availability monitoring on the Availability Schedules page. See Availability schedules.

Duplicate Synthetic transactions

Duplicate any Synthetic transaction with the Duplicate context menu option. Go to Digital Experience > Synthetic transactions and click the vertical ellipsis for your selection. Click Duplicate to copy your Synthetic transaction.

XPATH Selector support for Synthetic transactions

Synthetic transactions now support XPATH ( ) selectors. Any Synthetic transaction command with an element can use an XPATH ( ) selector instead of a CSS selector. See Synthethic transaction commands.

Configurable outages condition

Configure what counts as an outage for website and URI entities. Click Feature settings > Digital Experience to open Outage configuration. Select between the default and custom configurations.

Announcements

At the end of April, the synthetics.availability metric will no longer be available. You should begin transitioning your alerts, custom dashboards, and API data requests to use the composite.synthetics.availability metric. Instead of calculating availability as a percentage based on the proportion of successful tests, the new composite.synthetics.availability metric calculates availability based on the total amount of time a website or URI entity is available and acts as a 1:1 replacement for the requirements and use cases of synthetics.availability.

You will still have access to historical data from synthetics.availability metric. See Digital Experience metrics.

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APM new features and improvements

Display DBO data within Trace Details

  • Show related DBO information without leaving the Trace context.

  • Drill down to Query Details, including sample details when sampled, and visual plan.

  • View key performance metrics: average response time trend, deviation percentage, query response time and latency, and total query duration for queries executed within the scope of a trace.

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Network new features and improvements

Support for SD-WAN orchestrators and wireless controllers

  • Added support for monitoring SD-WAN orchestrators, wireless controllers, and edges for the following vendors: Aruba Central, Meraki, Prisma, Fortinet FortiManager, FortiEdge Cloud, and Extreme Networks Cloud IQ.

Updates for adding nodes and listing resources

  • Added status and description to screens for adding nodes and listing monitored resources.
  • Included additional information for nodes, such as icons and interface status, in the Add Node wizard and in the Monitored Resources dialog.
  • Improved user experience when adding nodes or listing monitored resources, such as automatic deselection of loopback interfaces, interface status information, and interface icons.

Support for Cisco ACI devices

  • Added an ACI tile with a list of detected ACI controllers to the Network area overview.
  • Added a Cisco APIC - Members widget on the Overview tab in network device details views for Cisco ACI devices. The widget displays the status of APIC members, grouped by member type.
  • Added a Members tab listing all ACI members to the network device details view for Cisco ACI controllers.

Tags in Add Node wizard

  • Added support for adding tags to network devices and on-premises hosts in the Add Node wizard.

ICMP layout for network devices and hosts

  • For network devices and on-premise hosts polled by ICMP, only tabs and widgets with data are displayed. Widgets that do not have data to display are hidden for a better overview experience.

Save orchestrator credentials

  • Added support for saving orchestrator credentials on the Network tab. Credentials can be reused for adding orchestrators.

Improved alert template

  • Improved the Thin AP is down alert template to use Thin Access Point entities in the trigger condition.

Topology

  • Added support for displaying flow data on topology maps.
  • Added support for exporting topology data into .SVG, .PNG, and .JPEG formats.
  • Added support for customizing utilization thresholds on topology maps.

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Infrastructure new features and improvements

Kubernetes Config Maps

Added support for managing Kubernetes Config Maps.

Compare feature for Kubernetes objects manifests

Added ability to view and compare different versions of Kubernetes objects manifests.

SWO K8s Collector configuration

Added possibility to view Helm configuration values for the SWO K8s Collector in the Collector widget on the Kubernetes Cluster details page.

Historical telemetry for Kubernetes entities

Added ability to see historical telemetry for Kubernetes entities.

Agent management services improvements

  • A warning is displayed when persistent storage is not detected.
  • Modules using Agents in locally managed mode are now displayed in the Modules tab.
  • A column with module status is now displayed in Agent explorer view.
  • The name editing functionality has been improved to ensure consitency of names throughout SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

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New features and improvements to explorers and analyzers

Other explorers and dashboards improvements

Smart search now supports Query V2, allowing users to create complex queries.

Metrics Explorer

Users can now group entities that belong to different entity types by selecting the “All” metric attribute.

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New features and improvements to general features

Delay alert triggering

  • The ability to delay alert triggering has been added, allowing users to specify the condition satisfaction interval before an alert is triggered

Other alerting improvements

  • Only entities active within the past 24 hours are considered when generating an alert scope. The time frame is editable.
  • Users can now see the reason for muting an alert, allowing them to distinguish between alerts muted manually and by a maintenance window.
  • The full payload can be customized when integrating with ServiceNow.
  • Active alerts and alert settings view filtering options have been aligned.
  • A Pingdom-specific Webhook has been added.

February 2025

The following new features, improvements, and fixed issues were made to SolarWinds Observability SaaS during February.

DEM new features and improvements

Pause Synthetic transaction monitoring

Pause monitoring for any selected Synthetic transaction. On the Synthetic transaction overview, click the vertical ellipsis for a Synthetic transaction and then click Pause Monitoring.

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APM new features and improvements

Traced Requests in Details widget on the Service Overview

View and compare the number of traced requests to the total number of requests for the service.

Other application performance improvements

  • Enhanced accuracy and precision of the Service Entity Health Score calculation.

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Database new features and improvements

  • Added predefined composite database metrics for system dashboards and alert templates.
  • Profiler results load progressively to return initial results faster.
  • Add tags during database onboarding with the headless installer.

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Network new features and improvements

  • Pause/resume collecting metrics for monitored entities.

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Infrastructure new features and improvements

Improved Kubernetes Cluster overview

Refactored the user experience of the Kubernetes Cluster Overview page by displaying more meaningful information.

Ingress and DEM integration

Added a possibility to monitor Kubernetes Ingress objects with SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

Adoption of the SolarWinds Observability Event Viewer for Kubernetes

Enriched customer experience with Kubernetes events by adopting the SolarWinds Observability Event Viewer in Kubernetes Detail pages.

Updated Kubernetes pricing

The SWO K8s Collector container and init containers are not counted in the subscription plan.

Link Kubernetes and Cloud Infrastructure components

Added a possibility to link Kubernetes nodes with AWS EC2 and AzureVM hosts, and create relationships between Cloud accounts and Kubernetes cluster entities.

Pause / Resume Software

Easily pause metrics collection of Software while conducting maintenance or other operations on a node, and resume collection when ready.

Virtualization: Polling Interfaces for ICMP nodes/servers via VMware API

VMware interfaces polled via VMware SDK (Performance manager) have been added to the polling as a new network interface vendor.

Other virtualization improvements

  • Hyper-V hosts are now available to add in the Add Data wizard.

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New features and improvements to general features

  • The content of an alert reset notification can now be customized.
  • Empty metrics can now be hidden in the alert creation wizard.

Other alerting improvements

  • Alerts can now be filtered by user acknowledgments.
  • Entity type filtering has been improved.
  • Notification error messages are now more descriptive and provide detailed information.
  • Application and Application Component entity types are now available as entity types in the alert creation wizard.
  • Entities that do not support a healthscore do not display a healthscore icon.

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January 2025

The following new features, improvements, and fixed issues were made to SolarWinds Observability SaaS during January.

DEM new features and improvements

Monitor website and URI outages

Monitor website and URI downtime and outages with Digital Experience availability monitoring.

Availability tab entity status and outages update

The Availability tab displays data for the entity status and number of outages for each entity.

RUM tab views

The RUM tab has new menu options with a list and grid view.

Other digital experience improvements

  • Digital Experience entities now display status ( Up, Down, Paused, Unknown, or In Maintenance) for entity health visualization instead of the healthscore.
  • The Availability metric is now calculated based on entity status.
  • There are new alerting templates for Website down or URI down statuses.
  • The Website: HTTP & HTTPS availability and URI: TCP & Ping availability reports now include new entity data including availability, downtime, and the number of outages.

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APM new features and improvements

Queries tab in Insights

View executed service queries, including the associated database instance and key performance metrics from within service details Insights.

Related Database Instance in Topology

Gain insights into the database instances used by a service and their key performance indicators (KPIs).

Common Related Entities tab in Topology

View in a single tab all entities related to a service, eliminating the need to navigate to multiple areas for different entity types.

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Database new features and improvements

IAM Authentication for AWS managed database instances

You can enable IAM authentication for MySQL and PostgreSQL AWS RDS database instances during onboarding.

Other database improvements

  • MongoDB internal queries are tagged and can be filtered out on the Profiler and Queries page.
  • You can add more columns to the tables in the Inspector Profiler dataset widget.

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Network new features and improvements

Support for monitoring Aruba SD-WAN orchestators and edge devices

Add Aruba orchestrators and edge devices for monitoring. See Add Aruba orchestrators, wireless controllers, and edge devices.

Access Point updates

  • Added State' and 'Native State' columns to the Access Point table.
  • Set up alerts for the Thin Access Point entity.

Network area overview updates

  • Network tiles were moved to a separate Network Devices tab.
  • Added new widgets and filters on the Network area verview page.
  • Added an option to toggle refreshing the overview.

Other network improvements

  • Configuration management: Download running or startup configurations in the Config Management tab.
  • In Dashboards and Groups views, the entity selector includes the name of parent devices for Network Interface entities.
  • Network discovery profiles scheduling: Schedule discovery profiles to execute on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or custom basis.
  • Cloning scheduled discovery profiles: Clone and adjust network discovery profiles.
  • Performance analysis for network devices: Click Analyze Performance for a device to open PerfStack for a detailed performance analysis.
  • Download RDP for hosts: Download RDP for Windows-based hosts with a known IP address to download to simplify RDP connections.

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Infrastructure new features and improvements

Add Host/Add Agent wizard improvements

A new summary step for the Add Host/Add Agent wizard was added:

  • The step is divided into three separate sections - Agent Details, Host Details, and Logs details.
  • Both Agent and Host details include additional information, such as Agent/Host lists, or Agent/Host Details buttons.
  • Additional actions were expanded to include monitoring database performance and adding integrations.

Other hosts improvements

  • Filters on the Agents: you can select multiple items in the Plugin Type filter.
  • The No plugins status was added to the Plugins Status filter to be used for SolarWinds Observability Agent without any plugins.
  • When you uninstall the SolarWinds Observability Agent on Windows, SolarWinds Observability credentials are removed.
  • Support for Instance Metadata Service Version 2 (IMDSv2) on AWS EC2 machines was added

Integrations

The DNS Query Telegraf integration has been added to the Add Data wizard. When you add the integration, a DNS Query entity is available the Entity Explorer.

Support for the Exec Telegraf integration has been added. Follow the instructions in the Add Data wizard to deploy Exec manually. When you add the integration, Exec data can be viewed in the Metrics Explorer.

The PHP-FPM Telegraf integration has been added to the Add Data wizard. When you add the integration, PHP-FM data can be viewed in the Metrics Explorer.

SolarWinds OTel Collector, SolarWinds distribution of the collector, is now available on GitHub. See SolarWinds OTel Collector.

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Legal notices

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