What's New in SolarWinds SAM 2020.2.6

SolarWinds Platform 2020.2.6 includes updated password policies that impact individual SolarWinds Platform accounts. After you upgrade to 2020.2.6, all passwords for individual SolarWinds Platform accounts will expire in 30 days. To learn more, see the SolarWinds Platform 2020.2.6 Release Notes.

The SolarWinds SAM 2020.2.6 Service Release introduces the following changes:

• Disable dynamic components for AppInsight: If you know an issue will cause AppInsight for IIS or AppInsight for SQL application components to fail (for example, high index fragmentation of a SQL database), you can disable dynamic component monitors to reduce false-positive alerts and logs. See AppInsight for IIS and AppInsight for SQL for details.
• API Poller count increased by 10X: Now you can monitor 10 times as many API metrics per licensed node, as compared to the 1:1 ratio in earlier versions of SAM. For example, with a SAM100 license, you can monitor up to 1000 API metrics instead of 100.
• New API poller templates are available:
  • Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine
  • RabbitMQ
  • ServiceNow

  The following API poller templates were updated to support changes in remote APIs:

  • Microsoft Azure Active Directory (v.3)
  • Microsoft Azure App Service (v.2)
  • Microsoft Azure Batch Account (v.2)
  • Microsoft Azure Blob Storage Account (v.2)
  • Microsoft Azure Event Hub Namespace (v.2)
  • Microsoft Azure IOT Hub (v.2)
  • Microsoft Azure SQL Database (v.2)
  • Microsoft Azure SQL Database Elastic Pool (v.2)
  • Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL Data Warehouse) (v.2)
  • Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine Scale Set (v.2)
  • SolarWinds AppOptics Monitored Services (v.2)
  • SolarWinds SAM License Usage for Component-based licensing (v.2)
  • SolarWinds SAM License Usage for Node-based licensing (v.2)

    Recreate existing API pollers based on these templates to use the latest version. Otherwise, polling stops.
    

• Container Monitoring updates: Secure container-related data with a new type of SolarWinds Platform credential — SolarWinds Tokens. Other changes include a simplified deployment flow, the ability to edit container services, and improved handling of short-lived, ephemeral containers.

  If upgrading from an earlier version, update all existing container services to use SolarWinds Tokens. Otherwise, container monitoring stops.

• Application monitor polling improvements:
  • Display the number of active component monitors polling per node: To provide more insight into scalability, a new Active Component column on the Manage Assigned Application Monitors page shows how many components are currently collecting data. This value is useful if analyzing heavy loads for AppInsight applications in large environments with component-based licensing.
  • Fetching Method Skip Fallback: For many component monitors, you can already set the default method to collect data according to your needs. Now you can save time and reduce polling by disabling specific fallback methods for component monitors also. If the selected protocol fails, no fallback occurs. This new option is also available for Performance Counter Monitors.
  • Ignore certificate errors during WinRM polling: Configure SAM to ignore invalid certificates by enabling the new WinRemoteManagementIgnoreCertificateErrors setting.
  • Faster AppInsight for SQL polling: Increase the number of open SQL connections on polling engines for large databases instances. Now you can use up to five connections.
• Improved algorithms boost Application Dependencies performance: Algorithms pull more data directly from the database instead of the SolarWinds Information Service (SWIS) data layer, resulting in higher recommended monitoring limits.
• In addition to updated password policies, SolarWinds Platform 2020.2.6 removed guest account functionality. To learn more about those improvements and other changes, see the SolarWinds Platform 2020.2.6 Release Notes.

Note the following details about this service release:

• For upgrade details and fixed issues, see the SAM 2020.2.6 Release Notes.
• Use the SAM 2020.2.6 System Requirements.
• Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 remains available so SAM 6.7 customers can upgrade to the latest version of SAM. SQL Server 2012 is also supported.