Documentation forSolarWinds Platform Self-Hosted

Optimization checklist for your SolarWinds Platform deployment

This topic applies to all SolarWinds Platform (self-hosted) products.

The number of things to check is rather long, and so the items are divided into the following sections:

Check requirements

  What to check?

Does your SolarWinds Platform server meet the hardware and software requirements?

Check the hardware of your SolarWinds Platform server. To verify the SolarWinds Platform server software, you can also click Settings > All Settings > SolarWinds Platform Details in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

If you are running multiple SolarWinds Platform products, make sure your environment meets the requirements for your environment size.

» Learn more

Does your SolarWinds Platform database server meet the hardware and software requirements?

For the SolarWinds Platform database details, click Settings > All Settings > Database Details.

» Learn more

Do the deployed SolarWinds Platform products require an additional database?

If deployed SolarWinds Platform products require an additional database, for example NTA, make sure the server hosting the database meets software and hardware requirements.

» Learn more

Do you have scalability engines, such as additional polling engines and additional web servers deployed?

Make sure your environment meets the requirements for your environment size.

» Learn more

Do you run multiple SolarWinds Platform products?

If you are running multiple SolarWinds Platform products, make sure your environment meets the requirements for your environment size.

» Learn more

Make sure your deployment complies with system requirements and be aware of the following recommendations:

  • Although SQL Express is supported, SolarWinds recommends that you use a full version of SQL Server to achieve optimal performance.
  • Although SQL 2012 is supported, SolarWinds recommends that you use SQL Server 2016 SP1 or later to achieve optimal performance.
  • Latency between your additional polling engines and the database is less than 200 ms.
  • You have opened all ports required by your SolarWinds Platform products, additional polling engines, and additional web servers are open.

Optimize the performance of polling engines

  What to check?

Are your polling engines healthy?

Click Settings > All Settings > Polling Engines, and review the values for polling completion and rate.

Polling completion should be 100% and polling rate should not exceed 85%.

If the general polling rate exceeds 85%, change polling intervals or distribute the polled nodes between your polling engines.

» Learn more

How many elements do you poll per polling engine?

With default polling intervals, each polling engine can monitor up to 12,000 elements. If you reach 10,000 elements per polling limit, consider the following measures:

To troubleshoot:

  1. Find out how many polling engines you have deployed.
    1. Click Settings > All Settings > Polling Engines.
    2. Check the polling rate and polling completion for each polling engine.
      If the polling engine is getting overloaded, adjust polling settings.
  2. Check the number of elements in your license.
    1. Click Settings > All Settings > License Details.
    2. See how many elements you are monitoring and how many you still have in your license.
      If you're getting close to the license limit, upgrade the license.

» Learn more

Have you changed the default polling settings?

Click Settings > All Settings > Polling Settings and make sure you are using the default polling intervals:

  • 10 minutes for nodes
  • 9 minutes for interfaces
  • 15 minutes for volumes

You can also decrease the polling intervals to poll data less frequently or stop collecting data for some nodes.

» Learn more

Do you use agents as the polling method?

Check the agents: Click Settings > All Settings > Manage Agents.

You can have up to 500 agents per polling engine. If you have over 500 agents per polling engine:

» Learn more

Are you polling hardware health?

Verify the polling rate: Click Settings > Polling Settings > Polling Engines.

Ensure the hardware health polling rate is below 85% to ensure optimal performance of your system. If the polling rate is close to 85%, reduce the Default statistics polling interval for Hardware Health Polling to 10 minutes (default) or less.

» Learn more

Are you using Intelligent Maps?

Maps require collecting topology data. Topology data does not change very often.

  1. Set the interval for polling topology data to the default value. In Orion Platform 2017.3 and later, this is 120 minutes.
    Click Settings > All Settings, and then click Polling Settings in the Thresholds & Polling section. Set Default node topology poll interval to 120.
  2. Decrease the frequency for calculating topology.

    1. In your web browser address line, paste /Orion/Admin/AdvancedConfiguration/Global.aspx after the hostname or IP address of your SolarWinds Platform server.

      On the Global tab, type 20:00:00 as the TopologyCalculationFrequency. Topology data is now calculated every 20 hours.

» Learn more

Are you using Syslogs?

Set up rules to determine whether to keep or discard specific syslog messages.

Are you using SNMP Traps?

Set up rules to determine whether to keep or discard specific SNMP trap messages.

Are you using Universal Device Pollers (NPM)?

NPM supports up to 10,000 UnDPs per polling engine.

  1. Check the number of UnDPs per polling engine: Click Settings > All Settings > Database Details.
  2. Click the Total elements per poller, and review custom node and interface pollers per polling engine.
  3. If there are more than 10,000 UnDPs per polling engine, scale your environment, or increase polling intervals to keep data for a shorter time.
    1. Click Settings > All Settings > Polling Settings, and make sure UnDP statistic retention settings are default or less (3 days for detailed, 14 days for hourly, and 180 days for daily statistics)

» Learn more

Are you using NetPath™?

You can add up to 100 paths per polling engine.

You can add 10-20 paths per probe.

  1. Check the number of probes per polling engine: Click Settings > All Settings > Database Details.
  2. Click the Total elements per poller, and review probes per polling engine.

To optimize:

  • Verify that your deployment meets NetPath requirements.
  • Distribute NetPath probes among polling engines.
  • Add additional polling engines.

» Learn more

Optimize the database performance

 

Database optimization tips

  • Retain the default polling and retention settings.
  • Use the SIMPLE recovery model of your SQL database.
  • Store the data files and log files on different drives.
  • Do not allocate 100% of memory to MS SQL Server services. Allocating 75% should leave enough breathing room for the operating system.
  • Make sure latency between the database and the Orion polling engine is below 200 ms. Degradation of performance may begin around 100 ms, depending on your utilization.

  What to check?

Do you have enough space in the database?

Check the database size and the requirements!

» Learn more

What tables take most space in your database?

The largest tables are using the most resources and could be slowing your performance. Retaining data longer than necessary could slow down the database performance, the responsiveness of your SolarWinds Platform products, and reports.

  1. Click Settings > All Settings > Database Details, and scroll down to Database Statistics.
  2. Check the polling and retention settings for the largest tables, make sure you are using default values.

» Learn more

Do you use default polling settings for all metrics?

Click Settings > All Settings > Polling Settings, and make sure the polling intervals and intervals for polling statistics are set to default values.

Metric Default detailed retention Default hourly retention Default daily retention
Node statistics 7 days 30 days 365 days
Container stats 7 days 30 days 365 days
Hardware health 7 days 30 days 365 days
Interface availability 7 days 30 days 365 days
Wireless 3 days 14 days 180 days
UnDP 3 days 14 days 180 days
Events 30 days

» Learn more

Is your database maintenance healthy?

  1. Make sure that the database runs outside of office hours.
    1. Click Settings > All Settings > Polling Settings.
    2. Set the Archive Time in the Database Settings section to be outside of your office hours.
  2. Find out how long the maintenance takes and troubleshoot tables that take long to maintain.

    The maintenance of a healthy database should take 5-30 minutes.

    1. Open the swdebugMaintenance.log at C:\ProgramData\Solarwinds\Logs\Orion\swdebugMaintenance.log.
    2. Compare the start and end time stamp, and search for tables where the maintenance gets stuck or takes a long time.

» Learn more

Aren't log files taking up too much space in your database?

Before you clean up log files, contact other teams in your organization that use SolarWinds Platform products and get their approval.

  1. Clean up the orphaned log files by running the following commands:

    del	/f /q /s C:\programdata\solarwinds\*.log
    del /f /q /s	C:\programdata\solarwinds\*.log.*

  2. Reset logging to default levels:

    Run the Orion Log Adjuster, click Reset to defaults, and click Apply.

    » Learn more

Optimize the performance of your SolarWinds Platform Web Console

  What to check?

How many users are logged in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console at the same time?

If the number of users logged in simultaneously is close to 50, add an additional web server.

Run the following query in the Database Manager:

SELECT accountid, accountenabled, lastlogin
From [dbo].[Accounts]
order by lastlogin	desc

» Learn more

What is the current performance of your SolarWinds Platform Web Console?

If the memory usage of yourSolarWinds Platform Web Console is close to or more than 650 MB, add an additional polling web server to distribute the load.

» Learn more

Is it just one SolarWinds Platform Web Console page that is slow?

  1. Find out which page is slow.
  2. Are there any charts with changed display settings on the page?
    1. Click Edit on the widget, and revert to the defaults.
  3. Do you have the AppStack widget on the page?
    1. Remove the AppStack widget from the view.
    2. Add AppStack to a new view.
    3. Add the AppStack view to My Dashboards.

» Learn more

Are you using custom queries in alerts and reports?

Be aware that each custom query represents an interaction with the database and should be as efficient as possible. If you use customized queries, consult your database administrator to find out possible impact on your system.

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