Add a cloud account to the SolarWinds Platform

Before proceeding, make sure the cloud account is configured for the SolarWinds Platform. Be sure to have your cloud account credentials handy.

Cloud Discovery with a SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted License

With a SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted license, cloud discovery finds cloud resources to monitor. You add a cloud account and choose how resources are monitored, including automatic discovery of new resources as your environment grows.

1. In SolarWinds Platform Web Console, click Settings > Cloud Discovery. This opens the Manage Cloud Accounts page.

2. Click Add Cloud Account.

3. Choose your cloud provider (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform) and click Next.

4. In Cloud Account Display Name, type a name for the account you want to see in the web console.

5. Based on the selected provider, enter your cloud access credentials, and click Next.

   If you are not certain the credentials you entered are correct, you can click the Test Connection button to test them before continuing.

   If an error occurs, verify account credentials and confirm that accounts are configured for the SolarWinds Platform.

   AWS

   For an AWS account, provide the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key. See How to quickly find and update your access keys in AWS documentation.

   For required permissions, see Establish AWS IAM permissions.

   Azure

   For an Azure account, provide the following credentials, available in the Azure Portal:

   • Subscription ID
   • Tenant/Directory ID
   • Client/Application ID
   • Application Secret Key

   For tips on finding Azure credentials in the Azure Portal, see the article Configure Microsoft Azure for cloud monitoring in the SolarWinds Platform.

   Azure uses different terms for the same credential:

   SolarWinds Platform Web Console reference	Microsoft Azure reference	Notes
   Subscription ID	Subscription ID	Used by Microsoft to manage billing. Grants access to the Azure Portal. Governs access to and use of Azure services. Each deployed resource is linked to only one subscription.
   Tenant/Directory ID	Directory ID Tenant ID	Linked to an Active Directory (AD) app that enables the SolarWinds Platform to access Azure. See Get a Tenant ID in the Azure Portal. (© 2019, Microsoft Corp., available at https://docs.microsoft.com, obtained on January 23, 2019)
   Client/Application ID	Client ID Application ID	Used to grant permissions. Often called the Client ID in external applications. See Getting an Application ID and authentication key. (© 2019, Microsoft Corp., available at https://docs.microsoft.com, obtained on January 23, 2019)
   Application Secret Key	Application Secret Key Authentication Key Client Secret Client Secret Key	See Getting an Application ID and authentication key. (© 2019, Microsoft Corp., available at https://docs.microsoft.com, obtained on January 23, 2019) When you generate a secret Key in the Azure Portal, record it immediately. Otherwise, you will need to a generate a new key later.

   GCP

   For a GCP account, provide the following credentials, available in the Google console.

   See .

6. On API Polling options, review your options. You can keep the defaults and click Next.

   • (Optional) Disable automatic API polling for instances/VMs currently linked to the account, as well as for future instances/VMs launched for the account.

     To avoid exceeding polling limits, consider toggling Enable API Polling off when adding a cloud account to block polling for new instances launched and then discovered for an account. You can enable monitoring for individual instances later.

   • (Optional) Change the default polling frequency — 5 minutes.

   • (Optional) Click Manage Alerts to configure alerts for the account. See Manage cloud monitoring alerts.

     Depending on your account permissions, you may not have access to this option.

7. On Monitored Regions, ensure all regions you want to monitor are selected and click Next.

   You can filter instances/VMs that appear by state, region, availability zone, platform, or OS. If an instance/VM is shutdown or not accessible, this icon appears: .

   By default, all new instances/VMs related to a cloud user account are monitored and the default polling frequency is 5 minutes.

   After an account is added, the SolarWinds Platform begins polling all instances or VMs linked to the new account for status and metrics every five minutes. Click Dashboards > Cloud to display the Cloud Summary page and review instances/VMs for the new account.

   If you selected Google as the provider, be aware that all discovered regions are monitored, regardless of your selection. Region-specific monitoring will be added in a future version.

8. On the Monitored Resources page, select resources you want to monitor.

   • Monitor all supported resources: Automatically monitors all currently supported and future resources.

   • Monitor entities by tags: Monitors all entities with a specific tag. Select this option and add the tag. Supported only in SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted.

     If Monitor entities by tags is chosen as the Resources Monitoring Method for your Azure cloud account but no tags are provided, all entities will be monitored.

   • Monitor selected entities: Select individual entities to monitor. Expand the relevant cloud component and select resources to monitor.

     • Network — Select network resources, such as GCP Network, Azure ExpressRoute, Load Balancers or Virtual Network Gateways.

       If DNS scanning is available, you can adjust the DNS scanning interval.

     • Storage — Select cloud storage to monitor.

     • Compute — Select instances, services, or virtual machines to monitor.

       

       How to select virtual machines for monitoring

       Select Virtual Machines to monitor all currently detected and future virtual machines. To change this:

       1. Click Edit.

       2. To prevent newly launched machines from being added for monitoring, toggle Automatically monitor any future entities off.

       3. Select only the VMs to monitor.

          

       4. Click Monitor.

     • Database — Select databases to monitor.

9. Click Finish. Your resources will be added for monitoring.

10. After setup, you will be redirected to the Manage Cloud Accounts window, where you can add or edit cloud resources.

    Now you can view your cloud resources in the web console (My Dashboards > Cloud > New Cloud Summary). See Explore cloud instances and VMs.

    If you only want specific users to see the new cloud account data, restrict users from seeing instances/VMs for the new account in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. See Add a cloud account to the SolarWinds Platform

    

Cloud Discovery without a SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted license

Without a SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted license, cloud discovery lets you add a cloud account and monitor cloud instances and virtual machines. Monitoring options depend on the SolarWinds Platform modules you have installed and may require more manual setup.

1. In SolarWinds Platform Web Console, click Settings > Cloud Discovery. This opens the Manage Cloud Accounts page.

2. On Cloud Service Provider, select a provider and click Next.

3. On the Cloud Settings tab, provide cloud account details, and click Next.

   1. Enter a Display Name for the account and provide account credentials.

   2. If the SolarWinds Platform server requires a proxy server to connect to certain websites, click "Are you behind a proxy?" to configure proxy settings.

   3. (Optional) Click Test Connection.

      If an error occurs, verify account credentials and confirm that accounts are configured for the SolarWinds Platform.

4. On API Polling Options, ensure that Azure Monitor API Polling option is enabled, review the polling frequency, and continue to the next step or click Finish.

   When adding an Azure account, make sure that the Azure Resource Polling Frequency is higher or the same as the granularity of data provided by Microsoft. If you poll the data more frequently, you will get the same value every time you poll the information. Each added poll counts as a request.

5. If you have SAM or VMAN, select instances to monitor.

6. If you have IPAM deployed, ensure that you have DNS scanning enabled, and continue to the next step or click Finish.

7. If you have NPM installed, ensure that Enable Virtual Network polling is on and continue to the next step or click Finish. If you don't use NPM, this step is skipped.

After an account is added, the SolarWinds Platform begins polling for data. Click Dashboards > Cloud to display the Cloud Summary page and review instances/VMs for the new account. See Explore cloud instances and VMs.

If necessary, you can restrict other SolarWinds Platform Web Console users from displaying instances/VMs for an account. See Hide cloud account data for specific users.