GETTING STARTED GUIDE

Network Performance
Monitor
Version 2024.1
Part 1 of 2: Get Started

Last Updated: Wednesday, January 31, 2024

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Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 2

Table of Contents
Network Performance Monitor Getting Started Guide 4
What should I monitor on my network? 5
Discovery checklist 5
Discover your network with NPM 8
Add discovered devices to NPM 13
Plan to scale network monitoring 16
Add a single node for monitoring 17
Navigate NPM 20
Overview of an entity 21
Identify and troubleshoot a node that has a problem 22
Step 1: Determine there is a problem 22
Step 2: Get more details about the node 24
Step 3: Get more details about the alert 26
Identify and troubleshoot an interface that has a problem 27
Step 1: Determine there is a problem 27
Step 2: Get more details about the interface 30
Step 3: Get more details about the problem 32
How alerts work 35
Work with preconfigured alerts 36
How reports work 42
Run a report 42
Schedule a web-based report 43
Beyond Getting Started 45
SolarWinds Platform Administrator Guide 45
NPM Administrator Guide 45

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 3

 Network Performance Monitor Getting Started Guide

Network Performance Monitor Getting Started

Guide
Welcome to the Getting Started Guide: Part 1.

To learn how to start monitoring your network, complete the following tasks:

Install NPM.

See the SolarWinds Orion Installer for system requirements, planning checklists, and
installation instructions. The Getting Started Guide expects that you have already installed
NPM.

Discover the devices on your network and select devices to monitor.

l What should you monitor?
l How to discover the network, add discovered devices or a single node for monitoring.

Investigate devices with issues:

l Meet the user interface - the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.
l Troubleshoot a node that has a problem.
l Troubleshoot an interface that has a problem.

Resolve an alert that was triggered.

Run a predefined report and schedule the report to run regularly.

When you have finished this guide, see Getting Started Guide: Customize to get familiar with basic
customization procedures and Beyond Getting Started for information about other features.

Existing customers: Access your licensed software from the SolarWinds Customer Portal. If you
need any help, contact our Support Reps.

Evaluators: Download your free 30-day evaluation from www.solarwinds.com. If you need
assistance with your evaluation, contact [email protected].

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 4

 What should I monitor on my network?

What should I monitor on my network?

Before you begin monitoring, identify the devices to monitor in your environment.

Use the Discovery wizard to scan your network for nodes and associated entities. You can review
found nodes and elements and add the devices to the SolarWinds Platform database for monitoring.

The first time you discover your network, add a limited number of edge routers or switches,
firewalls and load balancers, and critical physical or virtual servers and hosts. After you have
the monitoring, alerts, and reports set up, SolarWinds recommends adding more nodes.

Discovery checklist
Before you run the Discovery wizard, gather the IP addresses and credentials for the devices you
want to monitor.

Determine the devices to monitor.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 5

 Discovery checklist

Determine the method used to monitor your devices, and make sure it is enabled on the
devices.
l SNMP: primarily used to monitor network devices, such as routers, firewalls, and
switches. To enable SNMP, consult the device documentation.
SNMP requirements
o For correct device identification, monitored devices must allow access to the
SysObjectID.
o Unix-based devices should use the version of Net-SNMP (5.5 or later) specific to
the Unix-based operating system in use.
o You can monitor VMware ESX and ESXi Servers versions 4.0 and later with
VMware Tools installed.
o If SNMPv2c is enabled on a device, by default, SNMPv2c is used to poll the
device for performance information. To poll using only SNMPv1, you must
disable SNMPv2c on the polled device.
l WMI: usually enabled on Windows devices by default. If the polling engine and device
are separated by a firewall, SolarWinds recommends that you deploy an optional agent
to securely monitor Windows servers and applications by WMI.

For Windows servers, SolarWinds recommends using WMI polling. For a non-
Windows server, SolarWinds recommends using SNMP.

The following table outlines the pros and cons of using SNMP and WMI.

SNMP WMI

Bandwidth, CPU, memory Uses more bandwidth,

usage on the host/poller CPU, and memory than
SNMP per poll.

Monitoring across Requires an agent for

firewall/NAT-ed WAN secure monitoring over one
connection port.

Windows mount points and Cannot collect Windows

application metrics
mount point statistics or
application level metrics.

Determine IP ranges or individual IP addresses you want the system to scan as it discovers
your network.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 6

 Discovery checklist

Determine SNMP v1/2 community strings and SNMP v3 community strings and credentials
of the devices to monitor.

Determine log in credentials for each monitored device.

Determine VMware host credentials. The system requires read-only permissions.

Determine Windows credentials: domain or local admin.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 7

 Discover your network with NPM

Discover your network with NPM

Watch this video on discovering your network.

After you have installed and configured NPM, log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console and
scan your network for devices to monitor.

Log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console

In a web browser, navigate to http://HostnameOrIPaddress:port, where

l HostnameOrIPaddress the hostname or IP address of the server where NPM is
installed
l port is the port defined for the website, specified in the Configuration wizard. By
default, this is 8787.

Discovery is a term used to describe the process to identify network elements.

Before you discover your network, go through the Discovery checklist.

1. If the Discovery Wizard does not start automatically after configuration, click Settings >
Network Discovery.
2. Click Add New Discovery, and then click Start.
3. On the Network panel, if this is your first discovery, add a limited number of IP addresses.
As you scale your implementation, you can use the following scanning options.

Option Description

IP Ranges Use this option when you want to scan one or more IP ranges.
If you have many IP ranges to scan, consider adding multiple discovery jobs
rather than including all ranges in a single job.

Subnets Use this option to scan every IP address in a subnet. SolarWinds recommends
scanning at most a /23 subnet (512 addresses max).
Scanning a subnet returns everything that responds to ping, so we recommend
only scanning subnets where the majority of devices are objects you want to
monitor.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 8

 Discover your network with NPM

IP Use this option for a limited number of IP addresses that do not fall in a range.
Addresses
A network discovery job can take a long time to complete, and soSolarWinds
recommends using this option when you are first starting out.

Active Use this option to scan an Active Directory Domain Controller.

Directory
Using Active Directory for discovery is particularly useful for adding large
subnets because the discovery can use the devices specified in Active
Directory instead of scanning every IP address.

4. If the Agents panel appears, you enabled the Quality of Experience (QoE) agent during
installation. The QoE agent monitors packet-level traffic. If there are any nodes using agents,
select the Check all existing nodes check box.
This setting ensures that any agents you deploy, including the one on your SolarWinds
Platform server, are up-to-date. If there are no nodes using agents, you can leave this option
unchecked.
5. On the Virtualization panel, to discover VMware vCenter or ESX hosts on your network:
a. Check Poll for VMware, and click Add vCenter or ESX Credential.
b. Select <New credential> and provide required information.

If you do not add the host credentials, the virtual machines (VMs) on the host are
still discovered. However, you will not be able to see the relationships mapped
between the VMs and hosts.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 9

 Discover your network with NPM

6. On the SNMP panel:

a. If all devices on your network require only the default SNMPv1 and SNMPv2 public and
private community stings, click Next.
b. If any device on your network uses a community string other than public or private, or if
you want to use an SNMPv3 credential, click Add Credential and provide the required
information.

7. On the Windows panel, to discover WMI or RPC-enabled Windows devices, click Add New
Credential and provide the required information.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 10

 Discover your network with NPM

SolarWinds recommends that you monitor Windows devices with WMI instead of
SNMP.

8. On the Monitoring Settings panel, SolarWinds recommends manually setting up monitoring

the first time you run discovery. This allows you to review the list of discovered objects and
select the ones you want to monitor.
When you scale monitoring, you can configure discovery to automatically start monitoring
objects it finds.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 11

 Discover your network with NPM

9. On the Discovery Settings panel, click Next.

10. Accept the default frequency and run the discovery immediately.

Discovery can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the number of
network elements the system discovers.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 12

 Add discovered devices to NPM

Add discovered devices to NPM

Check out this video on adding devices to SolarWinds NPM.

After you have discovered your network with the Network Sonar wizard, select network elements to
import to the SolarWinds Platform database in the Network Sonar Results wizard. Discovered
elements do not count against your license count; only elements that you import into the Orion
database count against your license.

When you manually run discovery, by default, the system automatically selects all network elements
to be monitored. Clear the check boxes for elements you do not want monitored.

If you are discovering your network for the first time, SolarWinds recommends that you
monitor a small number of devices.

1. Ensure that only the device types you want to monitor are selected, and click Next.

2. Ensure the interfaces you want monitor are selected, and click Next.
SolarWinds recommends that you do not monitor VoIP interfaces or NULL interfaces.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 13

 Add discovered devices to NPM

By default, SolarWinds Platform imports interfaces discovered in an Operationally Up

state. Interfaces may cycle off and on, and so you can also select Operationally Down or
Administratively Shutdown states for import.

3. Ensure the volume types to monitor are selected, and click Next.
SolarWinds recommends that you do not monitor compact disks or removable disks.

4. Review the list of elements to be imported, and click Import.

5. When the import completes, click Finish.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 14

 Add discovered devices to NPM

6. Click the Home tab to begin exploring your network.

If the status of a node is Unknown after discovery, you may need to check a few settings in
NPM. See Troubleshoot Unknown Nodes for more information.

When you finish the initial discovery and import, consider adding discoveries for other
segments of your IT environment.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 15

 Plan to scale network monitoring

Plan to scale network monitoring

You installed and configured your NPM, discovered part of your IT environment, and have
monitoring statistics displayed in SolarWinds Platform Web Console views. As you continue the
deployment, consider the following questions:
l Are there any gaps in your monitoring coverage?
l Is there an essential device whose failure could affect your environment?
l Are there less important devices or applications that you want to monitor?
l Are there other groups or locations that you might want to monitor?

As you deploy monitoring across your environment, you can:

l Add discoveries to include other segments of your IT environment.
l Add individual nodes for monitoring. This is the recommended approach when you have a
node with high latency.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 16

 Add a single node for monitoring

Add a single node for monitoring

As an alternative to using the Network Sonar Discovery wizard, you can add individual nodes for
monitoring.

Adding a single node offers more detail in monitoring and is recommended for nodes with
high latency. Do not include nodes with high latency in a discovery job.

As you add a single node for monitoring, you can:

l Select the statistics and resources to monitor.
l Add Universal Device Pollers.
l Specify how often the node status, monitored statistics, or topology details are updated.
l Add custom properties.
l Edit alert thresholds.

To add a single node for monitoring:

1. Log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console as administrator.

2. Click Settings > Manage Nodes, and then click Add a Node.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 17

 Add a single node for monitoring

3. Specify the node, and click Next.

a. Provide the host name or IP address.
b. Select the polling method, and provide credentials.

4. Select the statistics and resources to monitor on the node, and click Next.

5. If you have defined a custom poller and want to monitor the metric on the node, select the
poller on the Add Pollers pane, and click Next.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 18

 Add a single node for monitoring

6. Review and adjust the device properties.

a. To edit the SNMP settings, change the values, and click Test.
b. To edit how often the node status, monitored statistics, or topology details are updated,
change the values in the Polling area.

For critical nodes, you may need to poll status information or collect statistics
more frequently than the default polling intervals.
Change the polling intervals if polling the nodes takes too long.

c. Enter values for custom properties for the node.

The Custom Properties area is empty if you have not defined any custom properties for
the monitored nodes. See "Add custom properties to nodes" in the SolarWinds Getting
Started Guide - Customize.
d. To adjust when the status of the node changes to Warning or Critical, edit alerting
thresholds for the metric. Select the Override box and set thresholds specific for the
node.

7. Click OK, Add Node.

The node will be monitored according to the options you set.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 19

 Navigate NPM

Navigate NPM
Check out this video on navigating the Web Console.

After you have installed and configured NPM and specified the devices to monitor, you need to wait
a few minutes for the SolarWinds Platform to collect data from the devices.

In the meantime, see the following terms that might be helpful when you explore NPM:
l SolarWinds Platform The common backend platform used by the SolarWinds Platform suite of
products, including NPM, SAM, NCM, NTA, and more. The platform provides the backbone for
navigation, settings, and common features like alerts and reports. It also provides a consistent
look-and-feel across products, giving you a “single pane of glass” for your monitoring tools.
l SolarWinds Platform Web Console: The web interface you see when you log in to the
SolarWinds Platform. It is used to view, configure, and manage all of your monitored objects.
You can access the SolarWinds Platform Web Console from any computer connected to the
Internet.
l View: An individual page in the web console.
l Widget: The informational blocks that make up a view.
l Entity: Anything that can be monitored by the SolarWinds Platform.

When you first log in, The Orion Summary Home view is displayed by default. The My Dashboards
menu includes a submenu for each Orion module. If you have installed only NPM, this menu
includes a Home submenu and a Network submenu.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 20

 Overview of an entity

Overview of an entity
Within a view, entities that appear in green are up and working as expected. Entities that appear red
or partially red need attention. In this example, all nodes are up, but node Cur-Nor5520 has an issue
as indicated by the red square next to the node name. The red square indicates that the system is
monitoring a child of that node, for example, an interface.

To explore a node, place your cursor over the entity to see more details. In this example, one or more
interfaces are down. Click the node to drill down to the node details page.

Check out this video on viewing your devices.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 21

 Identify and troubleshoot a node that has a problem

Identify and troubleshoot a node that has a

problem
By default, devices monitored by NPM are polled for data every nine minutes. It might take
some time before all the nodes you added have data you can review.

Step 1: Determine there is a problem

The easiest way to identify a problem is to have an alert notify you.

Some alerts are enabled by default, such as the Node Down alert. Therefore, if a node goes down
(that is, it does not respond to a ping), you will see it immediately in the Active Alerts widget on the
Home page.

Down nodes appear in widgets as red (down) or yellow (warning).

If you have configured your alerts to send email, you get an email when a node goes down.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 22

 Step 1: Determine there is a problem

If you do not see any alerts, click My Dashboards > Network > Network Top 10.

The widgets on this page help identify nodes that respond to a ping but have other health problems.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 23

 Step 2: Get more details about the node

Step 2: Get more details about the node

When you find a node with a problem, click the node name in any widget to open the Node Details
page.

If a node is down (red), this means it does not respond to a ping. To resolve an issue of this severity:

1. Check the power. Is it plugged in?

2. Check the LAN link light. Is it connected to the network?
3. Log in to the device and begin troubleshooting it.
If a node responds to a ping but shows signs of health or performance issues, use the
information on the Node Details page to help troubleshoot.
l Check the Response Time, Packet Loss, CPU load, and Memory Utilization widgets.
Usually, those statistics are the first indicators of a problem. In our example, the CPU
load on this node is high.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 24

 Step 2: Get more details about the node

l Use the Network Latency & Packet Loss, as well as the Min/Max/Average Response
Time charts, to see if this is a momentary problem or a continuing issue.

l Depending on what type of node you are monitoring, you may see additional widgets
specific to that type of device. For example:
Hardware health: Reports on physical elements of the hardware for Cisco, Dell, F5, HP,
and Juniper.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 25

 Step 3: Get more details about the alert

Routing table information: For routers and switches, multiple widgets show a variety of
route-related information. Look under the Network subview for routing widgets, such as
Routing Neighbors, Routing Table, or Default Route Changes.

Step 3: Get more details about the alert

When a problem causes an alert to be triggered, that alert appears on the Node Details page in the
Alerts for this Node widget. Click the alert name to go to the Alert Details page. Use the widgets on
this page to investigate the cause of the alert.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 26

 Identify and troubleshoot an interface that has a problem

Identify and troubleshoot an interface that has a

problem
By default, devices monitored by NPM are polled for data every nine minutes. It might take
some time before all the nodes you added have data you can review.

Step 1: Determine there is a problem

In the topic Identify and troubleshoot a node that has a problem, alerts are triggered when a node
goes down. Alerts can also be triggered when an interface has a problem, such as high utilization or
the interface going down.

The Nodes with Problems widget provides information about the interfaces associated with each
node. A square in the bottom-right corner of the node icon indicates that the node has an interface
with a problem:

- In this example, a red square indicates that one or more interfaces are down.

- In this example, a gray square indicates that the status of one or more interfaces is unknown.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 27

 Step 1: Determine there is a problem

In your environment, you might not have any down interfaces. To find an interface with issues that
need to be investigated, click My Dashboards > Network > Network Top 10 to open the Network Top
10 view. Review the following widgets on this page.

Top 10 Interfaces by Percent Utilization

This widget shows the interface’s transmit and receive utilization as a percent of total interface
speed. By default, utilization rates from 70 - 90% are yellow (warning), and utilization over 90% is red
(danger). These thresholds are configurable.

Any interface with high utilization deserves more investigation.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 28

 Step 1: Determine there is a problem

Top 10 Interfaces by Traffic

This widget shows how much actual traffic is on an interface. Usually, WAN interfaces will be on
this list because of the volume of traffic they process.

Top 10 Errors & Discards Today

This widget shows:
l Errors: A packet that was received but could not be processed because there was a problem
with the packet.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 29

 Step 2: Get more details about the interface

l Discards: A packet that was received without errors but was dropped, usually because
interface utilization is near 100%.

Step 2: Get more details about the interface

If an interface is down (red), that generally means there is no connection:

1. Check the parent device to ensure it is operating.

2. Check the cable for physical connectivity problems.

When you have found an interface with a problem (or, if all your interfaces are healthy, an interface
with high utilization, errors, or discards), troubleshoot the issue:
l Click the interface name in any widget. The Interface Details page opens.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 30

 Step 2: Get more details about the interface

l Check the Percent Utilization widget for the last-polled value of transmit and receive
utilization. If those values are high, you can also check the Percent Utilization – Line Chart to
see the duration of the problem.

l The Interface Downtime widget displays the interface status for the last 24 hours. If the
interface status changed, you can see it in this widget. In the following example, the interface
had one period when its status was unknown during the last 24 hours, but it is currently up.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 31

 Step 3: Get more details about the problem

l The Interface Errors & Discards widget can also indicate problems. Since this device has high
discards, and high discards are generally caused by a full buffer, check the Node Details for
this device and determine if the buffer is full.

Step 3: Get more details about the problem

The Node Details page can help you diagnose an interface problem. Click the node name at the top
of the Interface Details page to open the Node Details page.

Examine the following widgets.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 32

 Step 3: Get more details about the problem

Min/Max/Average Response Time & Packet Loss

This widget shows the average load on the CPU for this node. In this case, the load spiked
dramatically around 1:30 PM, which warrants further investigation.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 33

 Step 3: Get more details about the problem

Network Latency & Packet Loss

This widget shows the latency (response time) and packet loss for the entire node. A spike in
response time occurred at the same time as the spike in the average CPU load (shown above),
implying correlation between the events.

These widgets indicate an unknown increase in traffic that occurred at approximately 1:30 PM,
leading to higher interface utilization, CPU load, and dropped packets. Values are not yet critical and
no alerts have been triggered, and so it might not be a concern, but if you wanted to continue
troubleshooting, you could perform the following actions:
l Determine if there were any configuration changes around that time. If you have Network
Configuration Manager, you can use it to look up configuration changes.
l If you are monitoring traffic (for example, with NetFlow Traffic Analyzer), explore the cause of
the traffic spike.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 34

 How alerts work

How alerts work

An alert is a notification that there is a problem with a monitored entity. The SolarWinds Platform
comes with hundreds of predefined alerts for common problems, such as a node or application
going down, high interface utilization, or packet loss.

Many predefined alerts are enabled by default, so if there are problems, you are alerted as soon as
you discover your network and add discovered devices toSolarWinds Platform.

SolarWinds recommends that you identify who will receive warning or critical alerts.

By default, alerts do not send emails and text messages. You need to configure the default
information in the email action first.

You can also integrate alerts with SolarWinds Help Desk.

By default, alerts appear in the Active Alerts widgets on the Orion Home page.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 35

 Work with preconfigured alerts

To see all alerts, click the All Active Alerts button in the Active Alerts widget, or go to Alerts &
Activity > Alerts. On this page, you can:
l Acknowledge an alert that you are working on
l Click on any alert to go to the Alert Details page for more information
l Click Manage Alerts to enable/disable, add, or edit any alert

You can create your own alerts, either by modifying a predefined alert, or by creating a custom alert.
See Getting Started Guide 2 - Customize.

Work with preconfigured alerts

Watch this video on managing existing alerts.

When an alert is triggered, any associated actions are executed, and the alert appears on the All
Active Alerts page.

1. To view the alert details, click the alert.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 36

 Work with preconfigured alerts

The Active Alert Details page appears.

2. To view the details of the network object that triggered the alert, click an object.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 37

 Work with preconfigured alerts

The details page of the selected object appears.

3. To acknowledge an alert:
a. Click Acknowledge.

b. Enter a note and click Acknowledge.

Acknowledging the alert stops the escalation process. Acknowledgment also provides
an audit trail and prevents multiple people from working on the same issue.

List preconfigured, enabled alerts

NPM ships with preconfigured, enabled alerts, and a number of alerts that you can enable and make
operational. To see the list of preconfigured, enabled alerts:

1. Click Alerts & Activity > Alerts.

2. Click Manage Alerts.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 38

 Work with preconfigured alerts

3. In the Group by field, select Enabled.

4. In the Type field, sort by Out-of-the-box.

5. Review the list of preconfigured, enabled alerts.

Enable and disable alerts

To enable or disable alerts, on the Manage Alerts page, click On or Off in the Enabled column.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 39

 Work with preconfigured alerts

Action types
You can configure an alert to trigger one or more actions, such as send an email including a web
page, power a virtual machine on or off, or log the alert and send a file.

A complete list of alert actions is available on the Add Action dialog box that you see when
you configure an alert.

Configure the default email action

A common alert action for the SolarWinds Platform is sending an email to one or more responsible
parties who can open the SolarWinds Platform Web Console directly from the email, and begin
troubleshooting.

This alert action requires that you configure a designated SMTP server. When you configure a
default email action, you can reuse the action for all alerts, which means that you do not need to
enter email parameters for each alert.

1. Click Settings > All Settings > Configure Default Send Email Action.
2. In the Default Recipients section, provide the email addresses of default recipients, separated
by a semicolon.

3. Under the Default Sender Details heading, provide the default Name of Sender and the default
Reply Address.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 40

 Work with preconfigured alerts

4. Under the Default SMTP Server section:

a. Provide the Host name or IP Address of the SMTP Server and the designated SMTP Port
Number.
For example, 192.168.10.124, port 25.
b. If you want to use SSL encryption for your alert emails, select Use SSL.
Selecting SSL automatically changes the SMTP port number to 465.
c. If your SMTP server requires authentication, select This SMTP Server requires
Authentication, and then provide the credentials.
d. Click Use as Default.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 41

 How reports work

How reports work

Reports provide a bridge between detailed views (which provide point-in-time information) and
alerts (which tell you there is a problem). Reports can contain detailed, current state information, or
they can contain historical data.

You can run an ad-hoc report, or schedule reports to be sent to you automatically, as a PDF, a web
page, or email. For example, use a schedule when you want to receive the bandwidth usage from the
last 7 days report every Monday morning.

SolarWinds recommends that you identify who needs to receive performance or status
reports, and how often they should receive them.

Run a report
SolarWinds provides predefined reports for eachSolarWinds Platform product.

To provide meaningful data, some reports require that you monitor the devices for a certain
time period. For example, it takes two weeks for baseline reports to populate.

1. Click Reports > All Reports to see the available predefined reports.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 42

 Schedule a web-based report

2. On the All Reports page, click the report title to run it immediately. The report populates with
data. To share the report, click Export or Print in the top right corner.

Schedule a web-based report

1. Click Settings > All Settings > Manage Reports.

To access the Report Scheduler and the Report Manager, your user account needs to
have the Report Management rights.
You can also access the view from Reports: Click Reports > All Reports, and then click
Manage Reports in the top right corner of the view.

2. Select a web-based report, and click Schedule Report > Create New Schedule.

3. On the Schedule Properties panel, type a name and description and click Next.
4. On the Schedule Frequency panel, click Add Frequency.
5. On the Add Frequency dialog box, type a name and select a time interval.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 43

 Schedule a web-based report

6. Select the days when you want to execute the report.

7. Enter a time and click Add Frequency.

8. On the Schedule Frequency panel, click Next.

9. On the Actions to Execute panel, click Add Action and specify whether you want to email the
report, print it, or save it to a disk. Click Next.
10. On the Schedule Configuration Summary panel, review the schedule and click Create
Schedule. The SolarWinds Platform will execute the specified action (email the report, print it,
or save it for you) according to the schedule.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 44

 Beyond Getting Started

Beyond Getting Started

NPM is a SolarWinds Platform product. The SolarWinds Platform is the core of the SolarWinds IT
Management Portfolio. It ensures data collection, processing, storage, and presentation. It provides
common features, such as user accounts and groups, views, dashboards, reporting, alerting, and
more that you can use across all SolarWinds Platform products and access from the SolarWinds
Platform Web Console.

Now that you've gotten started with NPM, check out the SolarWinds Platform Administrator Guide
and NPM Administrator Guide for more information about using other features.

SolarWinds Platform Administrator Guide

Learn more about common features and administrative procedures in the SolarWinds Platform
Administrator Guide (PDF), such as:
l Manage users
l Troubleshoot environmental issues with Performance Analysis dashboards
l Make your SolarWinds Platform highly available
l Manage alerts
l Manage reports
l Customize SolarWinds Platform Web Console, for example change SolarWinds logo for the
logo of your company, or change the color scheme of the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.
l Customize views, widgets, and charts
l Use thresholds to specify when your nodes change status
l Monitor Hardware health
l Monitor SNMP traps and syslogs in the SolarWinds Platform
l Review events
l Use Quality of Experience
l Protect your environment with High Availability
l Scale your environment

NPM Administrator Guide

Check out the NPM Administrator Guide (PDF) to find out more about other NPM features, such as:
l Discover your network paths with NetPath™
l Monitor custom metrics on your devices

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 45

 NPM Administrator Guide

l Use Network Insight for F5 BIG-IP, Cisco Nexus devices, Cisco ASA, and Cisco ACI
l Forecast capacity

You can also connect with the NPM user community on THWACK, where you'll find training videos,
blog posts, and information about what the team is working on.

Getting Started Guide: Network Performance Monitor page 46