Get started with Server & Application Monitor
This guide picks up right after the SAM installation process and walks you through the first steps you need to take to monitor applications, hardware health, asset inventory, and operating performance in your SolarWinds SAM environment.
After learning how SAM works, you can start exploring the SolarWinds Platform Web Console, which you'll use to do everything in SAM, from discovering applications to setting up alerts, thresholds, and application monitoring templates.
Additional sections in this guide include:
- Discover your environment with SAM: Identify the servers and applications you want to monitor and add them to SAM.
- Set up monitoring in your SAM environment: Learn how to use AppInsight for IIS, monitor an OS, track hardware health, monitor your cloud infrastructure, work with AppStack™, and use PerfStack™.
- Explore alerts and reports in SAM: Manage and use alerts, and then set up reports.
- Work with SAM application monitor templates: Explore application monitor templates included in SAM and create templates for custom applications.
- Set thresholds in SAM: Learn how to set up global and local thresholds to automate monitoring.
Who this guide is for
| New SAM users | Existing SAM users |
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This guide is the best place to start with SAM. When finished, move on to the SAM Administrator Guide for more advanced information. See the SolarWinds Platform Administrator Guide to learn about common features that SAM shares with other SolarWinds Platform products, such as user accounts, alerts, and agents. |
This guide provides a high-level view of SAM features but you'll find more advanced information in the SAM Administrator Guide. |
Existing customers: Upgrade via the Settings > My Deployment page in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. Alternatively, download the latest SolarWinds Platform Installer from the SolarWinds Customer Portal. For implementation help, contact Customer Support. See Working with Support to learn how to open a support case with the correct level of visibility.
Evaluators: To evaluate SAM, download a free 30-day evaluation that is a full version of the product, functional for 30 days. After the evaluation period, you can easily convert your evaluation license to a production license by obtaining and applying a license key. If you need assistance during evaluation, contact sales@solarwinds.com.
Here are additional learning resources for SAM:
- Review the system requirements and release notes before installing SAM.
- To upgrade SAM, see the SolarWinds Platform Installation and Upgrade Guide.
- The SAM Administrator Guide describes how to use product features and related technologies. It also contains recommended best practices, and troubleshooting tips for common situations.
- Use SAM online help to explore individual widgets that appear on SAM views in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. Online help includes information from the main SAM documentation set, plus additional troubleshooting topics.
- To learn about features shared by SAM and other SolarWinds Platform products, such as user accounts, views, dashboards, and alerts, see the SolarWinds Platform Administration Guide. Use this document to fine-tune your SAM deployment with custom properties, groups, alerts, and more.
- Visit the SolarWinds Success Center for product guides, training resources, and technical support articles.
- Use the Server & Application Monitor product forum in our online IT community, THWACK, to connect with SolarWinds developers, product managers, and other SAM users. Download templates, reports, and scripts to customize and extend SAM.
Product terminology
SolarWinds Platform: The common backend platform used by the SolarWinds Platform suite of products, including NPM, SAM, NCM, NTA, VMAN, WPM, and more. The SolarWinds Platform is the backbone for navigation, settings, and common features like alerts and reports. It also provides a consistent look-and-feel across products, giving you a "single pane of glass" for your SolarWinds Platform monitoring tools.
SolarWinds Platform Web Console: The web interface where you can view, configure, and manage monitored objects.
SolarWinds Platform server: The primary server that hosts the SolarWinds Platform Web Console and collects data from monitored objects. Also called the Main Polling Engine.
SolarWinds Platform database server: A dedicated server that hosts the SolarWinds Platform database that is separate from the SolarWinds Platform server. It stores SolarWinds Platform configuration data plus collected performance and Syslog data.
Polling engine: A polling engine controls polling job scheduling, data processing, and queries your monitored devices for performance metrics like CPU, memory, and up/down status. By default, the SolarWinds Platform server provides one polling engine, that is often called the Main Polling Engine. You can add Additional Polling Engines (APEs) to provide enhanced scalability and capacity, as described in the Scalability Engine Guidelines.
Node: A node is an endpoint of a given network. For example, any application, server, device, or computer on a network is considered a node.
Template: An application monitor template is the blueprint for an application. It is a collection of component monitors designed to monitor a server or application. You can customize numerous templates using only the component monitors you need for a specific environment. For a list of out-of-the-box templates, see the SAM Application Monitor Template Reference. SAM API Poller templates are also available.
Application: An application or application monitor in SAM monitors a specific application or server using a collection of component monitors.
Component monitor: A component monitor is the fundamental element of an application or application monitor. Component monitors return the current status or value of a monitored service or process. All component monitors return at least one value or one status condition. Click here for a list of predefined component monitors,