Documentation forSolarWinds Platform

Orion Platform 2020.2.1 Release Notes

Release date: August 25, 2020

These release notes describe the new features, improvements, and fixed issues in Orion Platform 2020.2.1. They also provide information about upgrades and describe workarounds for known issues.

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New features and improvements in Orion Platform

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Orion Platform 2020.2.1 offers new features and improvements compared to previous releases of Orion Platform.

Scalability improvements: Orion Remote Collector

Distribute load on your monitoring environment by deploying Orion Remote Collectors (ORCs) - lightweight polling engines.

Supported for NAM 2020.2.1 and SAM 2020.2.1 with node-based licenses.

  • ORCs use the Agent technology to communicate with the Orion Platform
  • ORCs do not need a direct connection to the database
  • ORCs are easy to deploy in remote locations, thanks to their simplified architecture
  • ORCs can poll/cache over unreliable networks (store up to 24 hours with no connection to the polling engine)

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Centralized upgrade for offline environments

  • Pre-stage future upgrades to minimize downtime using the offline installer

Other Improvements

  • Security fixes, including CVE-2020-13169


New customer installation

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For information about installing Orion Platform, see the SolarWinds Orion Installer.

How to upgrade

If you are upgrading from Orion Platform 2015.1.3 or later, use the SolarWinds Orion Installer to simultaneously upgrade your entire Orion deployment (all Orion Platform products and any scalability engines) to the current versions.

If you are upgrading from Orion Platform 2019.2, you can upgrade your entire Orion deployment from the My Orion Deployment page. Click Settings > My Orion Deployment > Updates & Evaluations. Downloading the Orion Installer is no longer necessary.

If you are upgrading from an earlier Orion Platform version, use this topic to plan and implement an upgrade to the current version of Orion Platform.


Fixed issues in Orion Platform 2020.2.1

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Orion Platform 2020.2.1 fixes the following issues.

Case Number Description
548581 The Can't download file because of the invalid checksum error that occurred during centralized upgrades was resolved.
491677 Volume names on Linux and AIX OS that include a space are displayed correctly.
557589, 558717, 566095 Cortex on Agents starts Kestrel on port 5000 only when the endpoint is switched on.
212875, 476120 You can open Edit Node views in multiple tabs now.
519126 SMTP password is encrypted when configuring the default send email action.
538895 Each Syslog message received by LA triggers one alert and the count of actions executed corresponds with the number of alert triggers.
558494, 575010 An issue with grouping by custom properties in All Active Alerts was addressed.
512159 An issue with SWQL queries ending in an infinite loop was addressed.
541466 During Orion upgrades, the compatibility level of the Orion database is upgraded accordingly.
367844, 419075, 500436 The Mismatched ms updates test was removed from Orion Health Page. It is only available in desktop Active Diagnostics where it provides correct results.
410943, 510388 An auto-retry mechanism was introduced to prevent users from having to retry download process to complete the centralized upgrade of Scalability Engines.
444045 .NET framework version test on Scalability Engines was adjusted.
529685 An issue where download failed because of a missing file in the offline installer was addressed.
541803

An issue where Orion Platform hotfix could not be installed when NAM hotfix was installed was addressed.

557575 The issue where offline installer on Windows Server 2012 R2 was crashing due to a missing PowerShell version was addressed.
532262 An issue with loading dynamic backgrounds due to http proxy settings in Network Atlas maps was addressed.
552156, 566457 Logs were upgraded to include more information on installation or upgrade issues.

Deprecation notices

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In Orion Platform 2020.2, the following platforms and features are deprecated.

Deprecated platforms and features are still supported in the current release. However, they will be unsupported in a future release. Plan on upgrading deprecated platforms, and avoid using deprecated features. Customizations applied to a deprecated feature might not be migrated if a new feature replaces the deprecated one.

For information about supported version of SolarWinds products, see Currently supported software versions.

Type Details
Legacy Orion Report Writer

Starting with Orion Platform 2019.4, all out-of-the-box reports are web-based.

In Orion Platform 2020.2, the Report Writer is only available in the ReadOnly mode. Migrate your custom reports to the web.

You can no longer add new Report from Orion Report Writer widgets to your views. Existing Orion Report Writer widgets in views will remain in place.

Network Atlas

Network Atlas is deprecated as of Orion Platform 2020.2. It is still available and supported in the current release, but will be removed in a future release. Deprecation is an indication that you should avoid expanded use of this feature and formulate a plan to discontinue using the feature. SolarWinds recommends that you start using Intelligent Maps in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console to display maps of physical and logical relationships between entities monitored by the SolarWinds Platform products you have installed.


Legal notices

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