SAM 6.9 Release Notes

Released June 6, 2019

Updated October 10, 2019

These release notes describe the new features, improvements, and fixed issues in SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) 6.9, a product that consumes Orion Platform 2019.2. These notes also provide information about installation, upgrades and known issues.

New features and improvements

Read this section for descriptions of new features and improvements offered in this release. For previous release information, see Previous Versions. You can also compare this release with previous releases of SAM.

New SAM templates

The following application monitoring templates were added to SAM:

For an overview about configuring Azure for the new SAM Microsoft Azure templates, watch SolarWinds Lab #82 (Part 2).

Support for Microsoft Graph

You can configure the following new templates to work with Microsoft® Graph, a product that offers a single REST API endpoint, accessible via HTTP request that provides access to Office 365 services such as OneDrive, SharePoint, Skype, Outlook, and Teams:

To learn more, see Integrate Office 365 templates with Microsoft Graph.

Configure certificate handling

By default, SAM ignores certificate errors during polling. In SAM 6.9, you can adjust some settings so users are prompted to verify untrusted connections.

To learn more, see:

You can also configure the updated Tomcat Server template to ignore certificate errors.

Container service monitoring for Azure Kubernetes

Container service monitoring was introduced in SAM 6.7 and VMAN 8.3 for Docker, Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, and Apache Mesos container deployments. Starting with SAM 6.9 and VMAN 8.4, you can also monitor Microsoft Azure Kubernetes services. To learn more, see Monitor container services in the Orion Platform.

Orion Platform 2019.2: New features and improvements

SAM 6.9 consumes Orion Platform 2019.2, which includes the following features and improvements:

Node status improvements
Orion Maps enhancements
Support for Microsoft® Azure® database
Orion agent rediscovery
Linux agent metrics
PerfStack links added to widgets
Automatic removal of unknown volumes
Secure Syslog alerts
HSRP addresses
Fortigate CPU and Memory
Dynamic external nodes
New SysObjectIDs
Per-node diagnostics
Expanded device support

To learn more, see the Orion Platform 2019.2 Release Notes and the Orion Platform Administrator Guide.

New customer installation

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Use the Orion Installer, available in the Customer Portal, to install SAM. See the Orion Platform Products Installation and Upgrade Guide for details. After installation, see the SAM Getting Started Guide to learn about configuring and customizing SAM.

Before you upgrade

To prepare for the upgrade:

Read these Release Notes.
Make sure all servers comply with the SAM 6.9 system requirements.
(Optional) Backup any custom code, such as changed SolarWinds .css files or added .js files. Click here for tips.

Note the following details about upgrading SAM:

Starting in SAM 6.6.1, the Application Dependencies feature is disabled when upgrading SAM to prevent performance issues during upgrades for environments with large quantities of nodes. To restart polling after an upgrade, enable the Application Dependencies feature.
If you exceed recommended cloud monitoring limits and monitor over 2000 Microsoft Azure VMs, you may receive a 503 Service Unavailable error when adding an Azure account. See this article for a workaround.
To monitor Exchange Server 2016 and later, install PowerShell 5.1 or later and provide local Administrator rights. See Using PowerShell in SAM.

How to upgrade

If you are upgrading from SAM 6.5 or later:

Use the SolarWinds Orion Installer to simultaneously upgrade one or more Orion Platform products on your main Orion server.
Starting with SAM 6.8, if you have scalability engines such as Additional Polling Engines, you can use the Centralized Upgrade feature to upgrade the rest of your Orion deployment in parallel. For details, see Install or upgrade Orion Platform products.

With SAM 6.9 and later, you can upgrade your entire Orion deployment, including the main server and all Orion Platform products, from the My Orion Deployment page. Downloading the Orion Installer for future upgrades is no longer necessary.

If upgrading from SAM 6.3 or 6.4, click here to learn about planning and implementing an upgrade to the current version of SAM.

Fixed issues

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Case Number	Description
00219059	Improved queries reduce load times for Component Average Statistic Data charts on Application Details views.
00149541	A RefreshComponentThresholdCache procedure used to delete application monitors was optimized to improve SQL performance.
00289866	Instead of messages about server communication issues when hovering over an application icon in the AppStack widget, code was updated so data appears, as expected.
00241911	Core.Businesslayer.log exceptions no longer block the discovery of nodes that already host Orion agents.
00262789, 00197546	Application monitor updates are saved even if a value for a required custom property is not provided, without causing the browser to hang with memory errors.
00227075	View limitations are respected for the Database Details view in the AppInsight for SQL application.
00225775	The MongoDB (Linux) template was updated so database server versions are retrieved for output line 3.
00228526	The AIX template returns Top 10 active process results with proper statuses.
00040650, 1190826, 1359421	Credentials with SSH private keys for certificates can be added to the Credentials library without causing SolarWinds.APM.Common.MessageUtilities Businesslayer exceptions.
00287645	Component monitors related to events were updated in AppInsight for Active Directory
00311907	Some WebApi controllers used for UCS monitoring were renamed to prevent application issues. For example, chassis icons were displayed for the Main Polling Engine in the AppStack widget that were not related to the Main Polling Engine.

For fixed issues in the Orion Platform, see the Orion Platform 2019.2 release notes.

Known issues

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Total counters for AppInsight for Active Directory do not respond to Enable Total Counters setting in Internet Explorer 11

Issue: When using the Edit Application function to set the Enable Total Counters option for AppInsight for Active Directory, only the following elements are impacted by the changed setting, if using Internet Explorer 11:

User Accounts
Computer Accounts
Inactive Users

Workaround: Switch to another supported browser, as listed in SAM System Requirements.

AppInsight for Active Directory applications appear Down after disabling the Total Counters feature

Issue: Replication polling requires a DNS or SysName value to compute replication for a destination domain controller FQDN name, but nodes configured for ICMP polling do not provide this data. As a result, AppInsight for Active Directory widgets may not reflect the actual status of ICMP nodes. Another impact is that replication widgets display IP addresses for ICMP nodes instead of assigned node names.

Workaround: Configure AppInsight for Active Directory nodes as Windows Servers that support both WMI and ICMP polling so that AppInsight for Active Directory widgets can display node status and names properly via WMI. Alternatively, edit the name of an ICMP node on the Node Details > Edit Properties page.

Application pools and websites on nodes monitored by AppInsight for IIS show Unknown status instead of Down status after being unmanaged

Issue: After assigning AppInsight for IIS to a node, the application pools and websites exhibiting problem behavior could not be unmanaged in SAM. The status changed to Unknown but should appear as Down.

Workaround: Update the record in the Orion database. See Cannot unmanage application pools and websites on nodes with AppInsight for IIS in SAM in the SolarWinds Success Center for details.

End of life

See the End of Life Policy for details about life cycles for SolarWinds products.

EoL Annoucements	EoE Effective Dates	EoL Effective Dates
March 12, 2019 End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on SAM 6.4 should begin transitioning to the latest version of SAM.	June 12, 2019 End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for SAM 6.4 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds.	June 12, 2020 End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for SAM 6.4.
April 6, 2018 End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on SAM 6.3 should begin transitioning to the latest version of SAM.	June 6, 2018 End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for SAM 6.3 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds.	June 6, 2019 End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for SAM 6.3.

EoL Annoucements

EoE Effective Dates

EoL Effective Dates

March 12, 2019

End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on SAM 6.4 should begin transitioning to the latest version of SAM.

June 12, 2019

End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for SAM 6.4 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds.

June 12, 2020

End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for SAM 6.4.

April 6, 2018

End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on SAM 6.3 should begin transitioning to the latest version of SAM.

June 6, 2018

End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for SAM 6.3 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds.

June 6, 2019

End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for SAM 6.3.

See Currently supported software versions for more information.

Legal notices

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