SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor: Deployment and Administration

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor: Deployment and Administration

by Justin Brant
Released December 2013
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781783551019

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Book description

Ensuring high availability for your IT services can be problematic, but with this tutorial on SolarWinds SAM it suddenly becomes a lot more feasible. It’s the perfect primer for one of the most intuitive, enterprise-level monitors around.

  • Configure network monitoring services on servers and devices
  • Populate SolarWinds SAM with network nodes and tailor it to your environment
  • Design a live network map with the Orion Network Atlas

In Detail

As a network or system administrator, your primary responsibility is to ensure high availability of all managed IT services. There are a number of monitoring tools available; but these can be complicated and expensive, and may only monitor certain areas of your network. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor : Deployment and Administration is an intuitive, all-encompassing, yet cost effective, enterprise-level network monitoring service.

A concise and practical, hands-on guide that will teach you how utilize SolarWinds SAM. It provides step-by-step tutorials to walk you through every feature, while teaching you how to tailor the product to your own network environment.

This book will guide you through equipping your network devices and servers for SolarWinds SAM utilization. It will provide a sequential, hands-on overview of the product, and is suited for networks of all sizes, ranging from small businesses to larger enterprises.

You will learn how to populate SolarWinds SAM with nodes, then classify and group nodes to tailor the product to your network environment. By doing so, you will benefit from key features such as automated alerts, traps, and reports. Each feature is explained in a practical and useful manner via tutorials and real-world examples to help you start monitoring your network quickly and efficiently, while keeping security implications in mind by applying enterprise-level best practices.

Table of contents

  1. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor: Deployment and Administration
    1. Table of Contents
    2. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor: Deployment and Administration
    3. Credits
    4. About the Author
    5. About the Reviewers
    6. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
        1. Why Subscribe?
        2. Free Access for Packt account holders
    7. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Conventions
      5. Reader feedback
      6. Customer support
        1. Errata
        2. Piracy
        3. Questions
    8. 1. Deployment Strategy
      1. Enabling and configuring SNMP on Windows
        1. Installing an SNMP service on Windows
        2. Assigning an SNMP community string on Windows
      2. Enabling and configuring WMI on Windows
        1. Enabling a WMI service on Windows
        2. Creating an Active Directory service account for WMI
      3. VMware host monitoring prerequisites
        1. Enabling and configuring SNMP
          1. Method 1 – enabling and configuring SNMP via Secure Shell
            1. Part 1 of 2 – enabling SSH on ESXi 5.1 using vSphere
            2. Part 2 of 2 – enabling and configuring SNMP using PuTTY
          2. Method 2 – enabling SNMP on ESXi 5.1 or prior via the console
        2. Creating a service account for VMHost
      4. Enabling and configuring SNMP on Cisco devices
        1. Enabling and configuring SNMP on a Cisco switch
        2. Enabling and configuring SNMP on a Cisco router
      5. Summary
    9. 2. Installing and Configuring SolarWinds SAM
      1. Installing SolarWinds SAM
      2. Configuring SolarWinds SAM
        1. Network Sonar Wizard
          1. The SNMP page
          2. The VMware page
          3. The Windows page
          4. The Network page
          5. The Discovery Settings page
          6. The Discovery Scheduling page
          7. The Network Sonar Results Wizard page
            1. The Devices page
            2. The Volumes page
            3. The SAM Import Settings page
            4. The Import Preview page
          8. Application Discovery
            1. The Select Applications page
            2. The Enter Credentials page
      3. Active Directory integration
        1. Creating a security group for SolarWinds SAM
        2. Creating a service account for SolarWinds SAM
        3. Assigning a security group to SolarWinds SAM
      4. Summary
    10. 3. Customizing SolarWinds SAM
      1. Manually adding nodes
        1. Adding servers and devices
        2. Adding VMHosts
        3. Adding application monitors to nodes
      2. Discovery Central
        1. Network Sonar Discovery
        2. Application Discovery
      3. Removing nodes and disabling polling
        1. Removing a node from SolarWinds SAM
        2. Disabling a node from data polling
        3. Removing an application monitor
        4. Disabling an application monitor from polling
      4. Promoting nodes
      5. Classifying nodes
        1. Creating custom properties
        2. Applying custom properties
      6. Managing groups
        1. Creating groups
        2. Modifying groups
      7. Defining dependencies
      8. Backing up your customizations
      9. Summary
    11. 4. Events, Traps, and Alerts
      1. Reviewing events
        1. Adjusting events log retention
      2. Utilizing SNMP traps
        1. Understanding SNMP functionality
        2. Setting SNMP traps on Windows
          1. Enabling a Windows SNMP Trap service
          2. Configuring a Windows SNMP Service for traps
          3. Converting Windows events into SNMP traps
        3. Setting SNMP traps on Cisco devices
        4. Testing and reviewing SNMP traps
          1. Reviewing SNMP traps in the Orion web console
          2. Reviewing SNMP traps in the Orion Trap Viewer
      3. Managing alerts
        1. Reviewing and modifying alerts
        2. Forwarding alerts via e-mail
      4. Summary
    12. 5. Syslog, Reporting, and Network Atlas
      1. Utilizing Syslog
        1. Understanding Syslog
        2. Forwarding Syslog on common Cisco devices
          1. Enabling and configuring Syslog forwarding on Cisco firewall
          2. Enabling and configuring Syslog forwarding on a Cisco switch
        3. Testing and reviewing Syslog data in SolarWinds SAM
      2. Utilizing reporting
        1. Running reports
        2. Creating reports
        3. Scheduling reports
      3. Orion Network Atlas overview
        1. Creating a network map
        2. Adding network maps to the Orion web console
      4. Summary
    13. A. Troubleshooting
      1. Installation issues
      2. Orion web console issues
        1. Problems with IIS
        2. DNS issues
        3. SolarWinds services
        4. Restarting the Network Sonar Wizard
      3. SNMP polling issues
        1. Confirming settings
        2. The SNMP tab missing on a Windows server
      4. WMI polling issues
        1. Windows firewall may be blocking WMI
        2. Windows User Account Control may be interfering with WMI
          1. Steps for Windows Server 2008 R2
          2. Steps for Windows 7
        3. Configuring WMI at the local computer level
        4. WMI Administrative Tools
    14. Index

Product information

  • Title: SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor: Deployment and Administration
  • Author(s): Justin Brant
  • Release date: December 2013
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781783551019