SolarWinds Orion Network Performance Monitor

SolarWinds Orion Network Performance Monitor

by Joe Dissmeyer
Released April 2013
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781849688482

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Book description

An essential guide for installing, implementing, and calibrating SolarWinds Orion NPM

  • Master wireless monitoring and the control of wireless access points
  • Learn how to respond quickly and efficiently to network issues with SolarWinds Orion NPM
  • Build impressive reports to effectively visualize issues, solutions, and the overall health of your network

In Detail

Orion Network Performance Monitor is a scalable, easy-to-use, cost-effective network monitoring system that provides a complete overview of network environments by monitoring performance and availability. Orion NPM enables you to be proactive in detecting, diagnosing, and resolving network issues and outages and has the benefit of supporting hundreds of types of server, OS, and network vendors including Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Linux, Motorola, Brocade, Foundry, and more.

Orion NPM is a well-known product and is used by thousands of public and private companies, educational institutions, and government entities for network monitoring. In "SolarWinds Orion Network Performance Monitor" you will learn how to install, implement, and manage Orion NPM to ensure you maintain an efficient, healthy, and performant network.

In this book you will start with an overview of the constituent features of Orion NPM. Leading you through installation and configuration this book will help you set up a flexible and dynamic monitoring solution.

With Orion NPM in place the book will then take you on a journey through essential Orion NPM and network monitoring concepts and practices. You will cover device management, learning how to use the Network Sonar Wizard, as well as adding devices manually.

Turning from novice to pro, you will then be introduced to the core of network monitoring with Orion NPM. You will learn about monitoring Windows and Linux solutions as well as Virtual Servers. You will then master wireless networks and virtual networks. You will then learn how to set up and edit alerts to make network monitoring more efficient and less time-consuming. You will also learn how to develop reports and network maps as well as essential administrative techniques.

Table of contents

  1. SolarWinds Orion Network Performance Monitor
    1. Table of Contents
    2. SolarWinds Orion Network Performance Monitor
    3. Credits
    4. About the Author
    5. Acknowledgement
    6. About the Reviewers
    7. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
        1. Why Subscribe?
        2. Free Access for Packt account holders
        3. Instant Updates on New Packt Books
    8. Preface
      1. What is Orion NPM?
      2. How Orion NPM monitors your network
      3. What this book covers
      4. What you need for this book
      5. Who this book is for
      6. Conventions
      7. Reader feedback
      8. Customer support
        1. Errata
        2. Piracy
        3. Questions
    9. 1. Installation
      1. System requirements
      2. Windows Server setup
        1. Internet Information Services (IIS)
        2. Microsoft SQL Server
      3. SQL Server setup
        1. Service accounts
        2. Installing SQL Server 2008 R2 Express
        3. Configuring the SQL Server services
        4. Verifying SQL Server authentication settings
        5. Configuring the Windows Firewall
      4. Installing SolarWinds Orion NPM
      5. Summary
    10. 2. Orion NPM Configuration
      1. Orion Configuration Wizard
      2. Orion Website Administration
        1. Authentication and access
          1. Changing the default Admin password
          2. Disabling the Guest user account
          3. Manage Accounts overview
          4. Creating individual user accounts
          5. Adding Active Directory user accounts
          6. Adding Active Directory security groups
          7. Account permissions
        2. Setting thresholds
      3. Orion NPM licensing
        1. License tiers
        2. Extending and increasing NPM licensing
        3. Upgrading Orion NPM from an evaluation license
        4. Licensing, best practices
      4. Overview of the dashboard
        1. Website notifications
        2. HOME tab
          1. Summary page
          2. Groups page
          3. Top 10
          4. Events
          5. Alerts
          6. Syslog
          7. Traps
          8. Message Center
          9. Reports
          10. thwack
          11. Custom Summary
          12. Training
        3. NETWORK tab
          1. NPM Summary
          2. Network Top 10
          3. Wireless
          4. VSAN
          5. Overview
        4. Virtualization Summary
      5. Summary
    11. 3. Device Management
      1. Discovery Central
        1. Network discovery
        2. Using the Network Sonar Wizard
          1. SNMP credentials
          2. VMware user credentials
          3. Windows user credentials
          4. Network
            1. Subnets
            2. IP Ranges
            3. Specific Nodes
          5. Discovery Settings
        3. Frequency and scheduling
          1. Next steps
      2. Adding nodes
        1. Adding nodes from a Scheduled Discovery
          1. Including nodes
          2. Discovery Ignore List
        2. Manually adding nodes
          1. Add Node wizard
      3. Polling
        1. Polling methods
        2. Interface statistics
      4. Node & Group Management
        1. Nodes
        2. Groups
        3. Dependencies
        4. Interface configuration
          1. General
          2. Bandwidth
          3. Polling
          4. Custom Properties
          5. Dependencies
        5. Credential libraries
          1. SNMP credentials library
          2. Windows credentials library
          3. VMware credentials library
      5. Summary
    12. 4. Network Monitoring Essentials
      1. Monitoring basics
        1. Map
        2. All Nodes and All Groups
        3. All Triggered Alerts
        4. Event Summary and Last 25 Events
        5. Search nodes
        6. Custom
        7. Customizing views
          1. Manage Views
          2. Add New View
          3. Views by Device Type
        8. Menu bars
        9. Editing Resources
        10. Customization
          1. Color Scheme
          2. External Websites
      2. Routers and Firewalls
      3. Switches
      4. Wireless
        1. Wireless controllers and access points
        2. Wireless clients
      5. Summary
    13. 5. Network Monitoring II
      1. Server monitoring
        1. Configuring Windows servers
          1. Configuring the Windows Firewall
            1. ICMP
            2. WMI
            3. SNMP
          2. Configuring WMI
          3. Configuring SNMP services
            1. Enabling SNMP services in Windows Server 2003
            2. Enabling SNMP services in Windows Server 2008
            3. Enabling SNMP services in Windows Server 2012
            4. Configuring the SNMP agent in Windows Server
        2. Configuring Linux servers
          1. Configuring the SNMP daemon
        3. Monitoring servers in Orion
      2. Virtualization monitoring
        1. Virtualization summary
        2. VSANs
        3. Cisco UCS
      3. Universal Device pollers
        1. Creating an individual poller
        2. Creating a transform poller
        3. Exporting and importing pollers
          1. Exporting pollers
          2. Importing pollers
      4. Summary
    14. 6. Setting Up and Creating Alerts
      1. Orion NPM alerts
        1. Alert acknowledgement
        2. Preconfigured alerts
      2. Configuring basic alerts
        1. Building a basic alert
      3. Configuring advanced alerts
      4. Testing alerts
      5. Summary
    15. 7. Producing Reports and Network Mapping
      1. Understanding reports
        1. Running reports from the dashboard
        2. Running reports from Report Writer
      2. Customizing reports
        1. Creating new reports
        2. Adding reports to a page view
        3. Working with the Report Scheduler
      3. Network maps
        1. Network Atlas overview
        2. Building network maps
        3. Applying maps to Orion dashboard views
      4. Summary
    16. 8. Maintenance
      1. Service management
      2. Database maintenance
        1. Database Manager
        2. Creating a database backup schedule
        3. Manually backing up the database
        4. Restoring the database
        5. Database clean-up
      3. License management
        1. Using the SolarWinds License Manager tool
      4. Polling engines
      5. MIB database updates
      6. Migrating Orion NPM
        1. Moving the Orion database
        2. Duplicating the Orion database
          1. Configuring the new Orion NPM server
        3. Moving an Orion NPM installation
          1. Configuring the new Orion NPM installation
          2. Re-assigning polling engines
          3. Copying custom reports
          4. Migrating Orion NPM licensing
      7. Summary
    17. A. Documentation and Support
      1. Documentation
      2. Knowledgebase
      3. Training
      4. Support
    18. B. The Thwack Community
      1. FORUMS & SPACES
      2. FREE TOOLS & TRIALS
      3. IDEAS & FEATURE REQUESTS
      4. CONTENT EXCHANGE
      5. LIBRARY & SUPPORT
      6. GROUPS
    19. C. Additional SolarWinds Orion Software
      1. Network Configuration Manager
      2. Server & Application Monitor
      3. Patch Manager
      4. Web Performance Monitor
      5. IP Address Manager
      6. NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
      7. VoIP & Network Quality Manager
      8. User Device Tracker
    20. Index

Product information

  • Title: SolarWinds Orion Network Performance Monitor
  • Author(s): Joe Dissmeyer
  • Release date: April 2013
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781849688482