Documentation forSolarWinds Platform Self-Hosted

Track license usage

Review how many entities you are monitoring and how many are remaining in your license. Based on the percentage of used licensed entities, you can plan ahead and determine the right size for a commercial license.

License usage tracking provides a live overview and historical tracking of your license size and utilization, including an overview of cloud entities and ICMP nodes that incur charges.

Access the information on tracking license usage

  1. In the SolarWinds Platform Web Console, click Settings > All Settings > License Manager.

  2. Review the License Usage tab.

    If you have a SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted license, the License Manager includes an extra tab Paid Nodes Breakdown showing numbers of managed entities that incur charges. It provides details on items available as Paid Nodes in the License Usage tab. If you only have module licenses, only License Usage is available.

Observe live and historical usage of module-based licenses

  1. In the License Manager, click the License Usage tab. This tab shows the utilization of a license element using live data and historical data:

    • Used - number of elements used in the license

    • Remaining - number of remaining elements in the license

    • License Size - the total number of elements in the license.

      If the license is unlimited, this information is displayed in the Remaining and License Size and Remaining info is not displayed.

    • Saturation - percentage of used elements in the license

      • when Saturation is over 95%, the item enters a warning state (it is highlighted with yellow)

      • when Saturation exceeds 100%, the item goes to an error state (red).

  2. Check out the mini chart to see the usage trend in the last 30 days.

    • For license elements without a capacity limit, the mini‑chart simply shows the total amount you’re using.

    • For elements with a set limit, the chart displays your usage as a percentage. You’ll see orange when you’re above 95% of the limit and red when your usage exceeds the allowed amount.

  3. Click Explore History to open the license details in PerfStack.

    You can create a custom chart for monitoring license utilization - save the data as a new analysis project and add it into a widget. See Troubleshoot cloud monitoring with PerfStack and Create analysis projects.

Observe the usage of a SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted license

If you have or are evaluating a SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted license, you can see all the information available for modules and an extra tab, Paid Nodes Breakdown.

The Paid Nodes Breakdown tab shows counts of managed entities/things that incur charges. It is a breakdown of the ‘Paid Nodes’ element from the License Usage Tab.

This tab displays only historical records, not live data. Once the data are no longer updated, they are hidden by default and can be displayed by selecting Filter > No Longer Monitored.

It is not possible to simply sum the Total value, as some nodes may fit various categories. For example, a single node can appear under ICMP Nodes with NTA Polling and under ICMP Nodes with Interface.

Troubleshooting

No data available

Data becomes available about 30 minutes after installation. You might also see no data if:

  • No license is assigned.

  • The license is not being used.

  • You’re using Network Collector or EOC, where this feature isn’t available.

Missing element types

If a specific element type doesn’t appear, such as, Server Configuration Monitor – Nodes, open the filter pane and enable Inactive elements.

Only elements with a Used value greater than zero, or within your license limit, are shown by default.

Elements missing from the Paid Nodes Breakdown

If elements disappear from the list, you may no longer be monitoring that type.

For example, if you switched from Azure to AWS, Azure-related items no longer appear.

Open the filter pane and select No Longer Monitored.

Paid Nodes Breakdown tab not visible

The tab appears only when you are evaluating a SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted license.

Inconsistent data older than 7 or 30 days

Historical data is aggregated based on the settings under Thresholds & Polling > Polling Settings > Statistics Retention.

Different metrics use different aggregation methods:

  • Average: Saturation, Usage

  • Maximum: Remaining, License Size

Because of this, daily values may appear inconsistent after aggregation.

For example:

  • License Size = 100

  • Remaining (daily aggregate) = 20

  • Used (daily aggregate) = 99

This is expected if license utilization changed during the day.

License Usage shows over limit utilization, but Paid Nodes Breakdown shows no issues

License Usage displays live + historical data. Paid Nodes Breakdown displays historical data only.

Check the Last Updated value and wait for the next update (typically within 30 minutes).

If you need more frequent updates, temporarily adjust the UtilizationTrackingInterval setting.

  1. Log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console as an administrator and go to Advanced Configuration. Adjust the SolarWinds Platform Web Console URL as follows: [hostname]/Orion/Admin/advancedconfiguration/global.aspx

  2. Find the following setting:

    SolarWinds.Orion.Licensing.BusinessLayer.Settings.UtilizationTrackerSettings > UtilizationTrackingInterval

  3. Set the interval to 2–5 minutes. No service restart is required.

Removed nodes or cloud entities, but Paid Nodes Breakdown hasn’t updated

Check Last Updated and wait for the next scheduled update.

Inconsistency between PerfStack and mini charts

Mini charts show daily aggregates plus the most recent record. Missing values are filled with zero.

PerfStack shows only recorded values, typically at 30-minute or 1‑hour intervals.

Differences may appear if:

  • An element is no longer monitored, or

  • Its value changed significantly in the last 30 minutes.

Data disappears from mini charts after activating a commercial license

By default, mini charts show Saturation. During evaluation, where limits don’t apply, they show the number of used elements. Saturation for historical unlimited data is always zero.

Saturation over 100% not shown in PerfStack

PerfStack uses a fixed Y‑axis range of 0%–100% for percentage metrics.

License Size and Remaining display 2.1B

A value of 2.1B means the license element type is unlimited.

Use License Size Normalized and Remaining Normalized to compare unlimited metrics with other values. Unlimited values are shown as 0 in those metrics.