Documentation forServer & Application Monitor
Monitoring your applications and environment is a key capability of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) and is available in the Essentials edition. Server & Application Monitor (SAM) is also available in a standalone module.

Windows Update Monitoring

Use this SAM application monitor template to check the status of Windows updates, including:

  • How many updates are available.
  • How many updates were installed.
  • If a reboot is required, before or after installing updates.
  • The number of days that passed since the last update.

Note the following details about this template:

  • It was designed to be applied to Windows servers that receive Windows updates, either from Microsoft directly or though a Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) server. It functions the same either way. For example, if a server is managed by WSUS, you'll see how many critical, warning, etc. updates were approved on the WSUS server vs. what's available via Windows Update.
  • The PowerShell component monitors must execute remotely; otherwise the resulting information displayed is from the SolarWinds Platform server itself. If you have trouble applying this application monitor template to a remote server, make sure PowerShell 5.1 is installed on the remotely monitored server, and that Windows Remote Management (WinRM) is enabled. For details, see Use PowerShell in SAM.

Prerequisites

PowerShell 5.1 and WinRM are installed and properly configured on target servers.

Credentials

Administrator privileges on target servers.

Component monitors

Available hidden updates

The number of available hidden updates.

Available critical updates

The number of available critical updates. This should always be zero.

Available optional updates

The number of available optional updates.

Installed updates

The number of installed updates.

Days passed from last Windows Update

The number of days that passed since the last Windows update installation, along with the name of the last installed update.

Windows Updates activity status

The installation status of Windows update.

Possible values include:

  • 0 – Windows currently is not installing updates.
  • 1 – Windows currently is installing updates.

Machine restart status before installing Windows Updates

The restart status before installing Windows updates.

Possible values include:

  • 0 – No reboot required.
  • 1 – Reboot required before installing updates.

Machine restart status after installing Windows Updates

The restart status after installing Windows updates.

Possible values include:

  • 0 – No reboot requires.
  • 1 – Updates installed. Reboot required.

Service: Windows Updates

Monitors the Windows Update service that enables detection, download, and installation of updates for Windows and other programs. If this service is disabled, users of this computer cannot perform Windows updates or use the automatic update feature. If this service is down, programs cannot access the Windows Update Agent (WUA) API.