My mission on this page is to get people started with investigating their servers'
apps and services. To help achieve this goal Solarwinds provide a
simple idiot-proof setup for their
application monitor. Once installed, APM provides an intuitive interface
to check the performance counters on their servers.
If there are any setting you cannot get to work there is support from Solarwinds'
lively Thwack forum.
You need to troubleshoot a recurring network or server problem.
It's the root cause you seek, not just a work-around.
Another reason for evaluating Solarwinds Application Monitor is that
you are want to find out more about dependent services, both on the
same machine, and how failure of one network server impacts others.
You are curious to comparing your view of what's going on in
your
network. Perhaps you want to take stock of your resources, or set
a baseline before making changes. With APM's performance counters
you can scrutinize your computer empire. Guy bets that
the dashboards will display an important service that you did not know
existed.
To my way of thinking, easy setup is essential for any software,
therefore it constantly surprises me that so many products I test don't
live up to their 'Easy to Install' claim.
Well, you will be pleased to know that I place the APM
installer in the in the highest category of intelligent software.
It sets about its business of getting the dashboard up and running with
minimal user intervention. I was impressed the way it
overcame such road blocks as, no IIS installed, no SQL available, and
lack of .Net Framework. It simply installed and configured these
components for me.
What particularly pleased me was the way the APM installer
mastered my Achilles heel, it started with a machine with no SNMP
configuration, yet finished the installation with SNMP communities setup,
all
without asking me hard questions.
In a nutshell, a computer phobic can get APM running just by clicking
a few 'Next' buttons, while a computer expert can interact to adjust the
configuration to suit their network.
Trivial Install Problems You probably won't believe me if I tell you everything
about the install was perfect. Well, I
was irritated when APM asked for an email address half way through the
install, but this was an evaluation copy so I guess it's fair enough;
and perhaps
I was projecting my own shortcomings, I had forgotten which email
address I used when I registered!
The very first logon is always a stressful time. The initial
APM screen would not
accept the logon credentials of my stand-alone Windows 2008 Server's account(s). APM's saving grace was a
message saying, logon with the name of ADMIN and no password -
fortunately for my blood pressure this built-in Admin account worked
with a blank password.
Footnote: If these were the only problems,
then install is not going to give even a beginner any difficulties.
Software Requirements The underlying operating
system should be Windows Server 2003 or
Windows Server 2008 R2. (The plain, or original Windows Server 2008
may not work unless Microsoft has fixed a bug.) APM is also
going to need IIS, SQL, SNMP and .Net framework 3.5.1 or later, but the good news is its
installer
has built-in routines to find the necessary files, then configure these
extra services; the result is APM setup proceeds without user intervention.
Naturally in a production network you will want to configure SNMP
and SQL before you install APM.
Hardware Requirements As for hardware, if you are running a Windows Server
then APM has no extra memory or processor requirements. The amount
of free diskspace install needs is trivial, or put it this way, if your server
is down to its last 50 MB of free diskspace, then you are in trouble
anyway.
If you've glimpsed the interactive APM demo at Solarwinds site, then you may have
extrapolated how its dashboard could be used back at your base, perhaps
you can visualize checking the green or
red dots of the nodes representing your services. However, before you reach that state of nirvana, decide which of these
goals you
want to achieve with APM.
a) Focused mode: You have the urgent need to solve a specific
server problem.
I should not say this, but the greatest fun for the techie is when
something is wrong and you can perform an easy fix with a clever
utility.
With APM you start with a top-level network map and drill down
through the red dots to discover more about the symptoms. My
favourite tools are the User Experience Monitors, which assess the
Quality of Experience (QoE). If the performance is lower than
expected you can check whether it's due to a
process that's hogging the CPU, or an
application on a server that's run out of resources.
b) 'Play mode': You just want to evaluate the settings by running this
program through its paces. You are curious to see
what APM has discovered about devices and services on your network.
Where Next?
When I was an IT trainer I often introduced myself by saying my role
was to make myself redundant. Well, I if I have persuaded you to
download and install, my job is over, as this is such an intuitive
product you can teach yourself the rest.
Two Tips 1) Seek out the
Monitor Templates. Why re-invent the wheel? Experimenting
with different templates will help you understand APM's mind-set,
researching more templates will complete the picture of what APM can
achieve.
2) Don't just look at Solarwinds Thwack support forum, but register
and ask your questions. This is one of the best run forums on the
internet being both specialist and responsive. As someone who once
flirted with running a forum, I admire how they keep it free from spam.
As an APM user I admire the way their experts answer the questions - the
harder the problem more they seem to relish finding a solution.
Email Microsoft Exchange 2003, and 2007, 2010 Lotus Domino Servers BlackBerry Enterprise server BlackBerry
Delivery Confirmation See also
Exchange Monitor.
Directory Servers Microsoft Active Directory
File and directory
Databases Microsoft SQL Server Oracle
MySQL
Network Services DNS port and query user
experience SNMP IMAP4 POP3 Cisco Call Manager
General Purpose Monitors Process monitor
(Windows, Linux, Unix) Nagios script WMI performance counter
Windows script Linux/Unix script Windows service Windows
Event Log Windows Printer Microsoft SharePoint
Other Supported Apps If you don't see an
application that you are interested in don't worry, you could create
your own app, but before you do that I would look in the
Thwack forum to see if someone has already beaten you to it!
By using APM you will avoid amateur mistakes such as blaming
the network for latency problems, when it's really an application on a
server that is underlying cause. Perhaps your company whiz-kid
introduced a new VoIP or wireless network, but did not realize the
consequences for the rest of the corporate network? Again APM will soon troubleshoot the root cause, and more than likely suggest
solutions.
Often the most frustrating problems are those that appear only
sporadically. For these annoying intermittent challenges has
an analyzer with retrospective network-analysis capabilities. This
historical data enables you to quickly isolate and resolve the irregular
network problem.
Top 10 List No Solarwinds review would be complete without mention of the top
ten lists. In fact, I find it mesmerising to observe how the nodes
change position and move in and out of the top 10. My favourite
category is response time, but you can also keep watch on:
Response Time (see screenshot right)
Wireless Clients by Traffic
Wireless APs by Client Count
Capacity
utilization
Memory usage
CPU load
Disk space volume
Network traffic and Packet Loss
I really enjoy customizing the lists so that monitors in just the way that I want.
Drill Downs It soon becomes second nature to double click on the network maps and
drill down through the site level to the server. From there you
can even examine the
resource usage of individual devices. However, you are newbie,
this ability to locate problems is awesome and it feels like being at
NASA's mission control in Houston Texas.
The Underlying Polling Technology Solarwinds APM ships
with a MIB database that covers all common network
devices. However, if you do have a non-standard APM allows
you to create a custom poller to monitor any SNMP-enabled device
value that has a MIB. As with so many of Orion's features, you can also
adjust how the module
collects and reports on the data.
For those with wireless networks, version v10 now has an integrated Wireless Poller.
And for those with VMware, APM reads host MIB information from
each VMware ESX server and its corresponding virtual machines.
Role-based Access Control Application Performance Monitor (APM) allows you to fine-tune who
sees what information. Typically, at HQ you want to see
everything, but perhaps you want the team at the Boston site to see only
their own servers, and not start interfering with the New York
operations.
EnergyWise It would probably be over-playing your hand to say to your MD that energy
savings will pay for APM, but nevertheless, controlling the energy
consumption of Cisco EnergyWise-enabled network devices will reduce
costs, and could be a clincher in persuading the financial director to
buy Orion. For the techie it's just an interesting and worthwhile
challenge to reduce energy consumption and keep the server rooms cooler.
Time to Create Baselines
No appraisal of Solarwinds Orion APM would be complete without a word
about baselines. Indeed, creating baselines of network activity is a good litmus test for a well-run company. Thus, one unexpected side-effect of using APM is that the techies
could have more time on their hands! As a manager you can take
advantage by commissioning them to show you baseline charts. The trouble with
fire-fighting is that you are never quite sure what is normal. By
having a 'feel' for the network backed up by stats for off-peak usage,
you can soon pin-point abnormalities. As a result you can either
prevent latency problems, or else cure them quickly before the users
realize there is something not quite right.
To support this pro-active approach to network management provides reports which are both comprehensive and interesting for the
techie. One common side-effect of baseline analysis is that ideas
for improvements
leap out of the charts, for example, load-balancing servers - one of my favourite
'cost nothing' tactics.
Value for Money
in Performance Monitoring
It's only fair to point out when reviewing Solarwinds performance monitors
is that the full package represents a big investment. Indeed, there are
cheaper performance monitoring packages, but they don't have the data
collection and storage capacity of APM. Actually, my
biggest discriminator in determining whether a product is cheap or
expensive is the quality of the support staff. Some people say
is expensive, but nobody complains about the troubleshooting
skills of Solarwinds' technical staff.
More good news is that Solarwinds offer of a trial version of APM so that you can see if this performance monitor really would save you money in the
long run. Another way of reducing costs is to select only the APM
modules that you need. Once you see the benefits, particularly if
you are trying to track multiple sites, then it's easy to justifying
adding more options later.
One hidden
benefit of is that all the modules integrate with each other,
which makes it so much easier for reporting and root cause analysis.
Also most rival products don't supply the level of detail that you get by drilling
down through the Network maps.
If you are looking for an application that can provide automatic
reaction to events, then investigate LEM. In addition to analyzing
syslogs, anti-virus software and logs from the servers themselves, LEM
can also help you achieve IT
compliance, for example CISP or FERPA.
See more on Solarwinds' Log & Event
Manager (LEM)
Summary of My Review of Solarwinds Application Monitor
Application Performance Monitor is ideal for troubleshooting
network trouble spots. When I tried he APM I was surprised how
there was to learn about network technologies, fortunately the APM
helped me understand and appreciate how devices communicate. If you
are reviewing performance monitors, then take advantage of Solarwinds
offer to.
More Free and Trial Network Software
Here are tried and tested programs to monitor your network. Most of these
utilities are free, while other downloads
are the full program, but time restricted.
Solarwinds are a great source of free specialist tools. A constant
theme is a free gadget for testing, backed-up with a comprehensive suite for
programs for larger organizations. I like the way that big companies
subsidise their smaller brethren... until they become large companies!
Guy Recommends: Orion's NPM - Network Performance Monitor
Orion's performance monitor is designed for detecting network outages. NPM makes it easy to see what's working, and what needs your attention.
This utility guides you through creating network maps. It also helps troubleshooting by indicating whether the root cause is faulty equipment, or resource overload.
