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Network Performance Monitor

NetPath is a tool that monitors network performance by mapping paths between nodes and identifying slowdowns, requiring specific ports to be open for connectivity. It supports scalability with the ability to monitor multiple paths and uses probes to gather data from Windows computers. Additionally, SolarWinds NPM provides monitoring for F5 BIG-IP load balancers and wireless networks, offering insights into health, performance, and configuration management.

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7 views18 pages

Network Performance Monitor

NetPath is a tool that monitors network performance by mapping paths between nodes and identifying slowdowns, requiring specific ports to be open for connectivity. It supports scalability with the ability to monitor multiple paths and uses probes to gather data from Windows computers. Additionally, SolarWinds NPM provides monitoring for F5 BIG-IP load balancers and wireless networks, offering insights into health, performance, and configuration management.

Uploaded by

ke5047344
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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NPM Overview

NetPath
• NetPath measures the performance characteristics of each network node and link, making it
easy to spot slowdowns. NetPath monitors connectivity from your users to the services they
care about, determines what infrastructure is in the path, and where traffic slowdowns are
occurring.

• Creates a detailed (potentially multi-path) map between a Windows node and a destination
you specify.

• Overlays the path with performance metrics and device details of the nodes, interfaces, and
connectors it finds.
NetPath Port
Open the following ports on your firewall for network connectivity used by NetPath™

Port Protocol Source Destination Description

11 ICMP Network Netpath Probe Used by the


devices on NetPath™ probe to
path discover network
paths.
User TCP Netpath Endpoint Service Any ports of the
Configure Probe monitored services
d that are assigned to
the probe.
43 TCP Main BGP Data Used by NetPath™
Polling Providers to query
Engine IP ownership and
other information
about the discovered
IP addresses.
NetPath Scalability
The scalability of NetPath™ depends on the complexity of the paths you are monitoring, and the
interval at which you are monitoring them.

In most network environments:


• You can add up to 100 paths per polling engine.
• You can add 10 - 20 paths per probe. NetPath™ calculates the recommended path count
based on the performance of each probe, and displays it each time you deploy a new path to
the probe.
NetPath Probe
• NetPath™ services are monitored by probes. Orion automatically installs a probe on each
polling engine, and you can install a probe on any Windows computer. No other software is
required on the path.
• A probe is the source you are testing from. It is always the start of the path. Think of a probe
as a representative of a user. SolarWinds recommends deploying probes where you have
users, for example at each of your office locations.
Note: The probe must be a Windows computer.

Create a probe: You can create a probe when you create a service, or while assigning an
additional probe after you create the service.
1. Click My Dashboards > Network > NetPath Services.
2. Click + next to an entry in the NetPath Services list.
3. Click Create New Probe.
4. Enter the required information on the Create New Probe window.
5. Click Create.
6. Select the probe from the list.
7. Click Assign.
Network Insight for F5 BIG-IP load
balancers
Network Insight provides comprehensive monitoring for the F5 BIG-IP family of load balancers,
giving you the insight you need to keep your most important services running smoothly. Use

Network Insight to:


• Monitor the health and performance of all components of application delivery including
WideIPs, virtual servers, pool members, and more.

• Identify the components that are contributing to slowness, service outages, or any service
that could be affected by an infrastructure problem.

• Visualize your entire application delivery environment and get an instant status of a service or
device. Click on any status indicator to see additional details about that component or to
show relationships.

• Graphically display relationships and component status. Easily view the relationships from the
service through the traffic managers, virtual servers, pools, and pool members along with a
detailed status of each component.
Load balancing environment
Set up Network Insight for F5 BIG-IP load
balancers
To monitor the servers and connections in your load balancing environment,
make sure your F5 devices meet the following requirements, add the F5
devices for monitoring, and enable F5 iControl.

Requirements:
Requirements Details

Supported F5 Local Traffic Managers (LTMs)


Modules BIG-IP DNS (formerly called Global Traffic Managers or
GTMs)
SNMP used to poll everything except for health monitors
TMOS version 11.2 and later (including 12.0)
iControl by F5 used to poll health monitors and to
enable and disable the rotation of pool members
TMOS version 11.6 and later
F5 High Availability
• High availability (H/A) is configured on the device level. It does not matter
whether you have a GTM or LTM installed on the device, the module is
covered by H/A. Devices are connected in traffic groups. If one device fails,
another device in the group handles its requests. Devices in a traffic group
synchronize the configuration. The configuration is reflected by the
synchronization status.

• In SolarWinds NPM, we poll the failover and synchronization status.

• Devices in one traffic group are connected by dotted rectangles on the


Balancing Environment resources. Display the tooltip to see details about
the H/A failover and synchronization status.
F5 High Availability Picture
Status of F5 devices
• F5 status is information polled directly on the F5 device through SNMP.
SolarWinds NPM also polls the status reason from the F5 device and
displays the reason in the element's tooltip and on the details pages.
• The status for GTM and LTM modules is calculated. LTM status is
calculated based on virtual server, GTM status is calculated on the WideIP
(service).
F5 device status mapping to Orion status
F5 health monitors
• To monitor the health of your load balancing environment, SolarWinds
NPM polls health monitors on your F5 servers (nodes), and on F5 pool
members. Health monitors run periodic tests for network service
availability, such as ICMP, HTTP, IMAP, or MSSQL.
• To get the health statistics, F5 iControl API must be enabled.
• Go to a pool member or an F5 server details page to review the health
monitors resource.
Note: F5 health monitors are not related to hardware health. The status of an
element is based on health monitors polled by F5 iControl API.
Note: Health monitors require at least one pool member to be up. If no pool
members are up, the LTM, the virtual server, and the pool will all be
marked as down. Drill down into the pool member to see why it is down.
Take F5 Pool Members out of rotation
When you need to perform maintenance on one of the pool members providing a service, take
the server out of rotation so that you can perform maintenance without impacting end users.

Taking server out of rotation means you put the pool member in maintenance mode.

F5 devices support Disabled and Forced Offline modes. SolarWinds NPM uses the Disabled
maintenance mode.

Note: Taking a pool member out of rotation requires that you have enabled F5 iControl on the
device.

Why shouldn't I start maintenance immediately after I take a pool member out of rotation?
When you put a pool in maintenance mode, there are still users connected to the server.
Disabling the server only disables brand new connections.

Note: SolarWinds recommends that you wait until the existing connections end or time out not
to impact the connected users.
Monitor wireless networks
• SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor can monitor any
802.11 IEEE-compliant autonomous access point (AP) or wireless
controller, and provide details about access points (AP), wireless
clients, wireless controllers, thin APs, and rogue APs.

• SolarWinds NPM automatically recognizes your wireless APs and


controllers as wireless devices when they are added to the
SolarWinds Orion database. See Discover and add network
devices.

• The wireless interfaces are not found during discovery process.


When a wireless device is added and an inventory search is
performed, each wireless interface found is added to the database
and polling begins.
View wireless data in the Orion Web
Console
• The Wireless Summary view displays a list of all wireless access
points (APs) and clients connected to each AP.

• You can display the coverage of your wireless access points or the
location of connected clients in a map. See Create wireless heat
maps and View the location of clients connected to access points
in maps.

• Access point details include the AP name, IP address, device type,


SSID, channels used, and the number of clients currently
connected.

• Client details include client name, SSID, IP Address, MAC Address,


Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI), time connected, data
rate, bytes received and bytes transmitted.
Monitor Meraki infrastructure
What does NPM monitor for Meraki infrastructure?
Meraki infrastructure provides centralized management of end devices, such as wireless
devices, switches, or security appliances, as a cloud service. Physical devices act as
thin Access Points (APs), managed by the cloud system. Physical devices are installed
at physical locations and assigned to customers.

Unsupported metrics
• SSID information: Meraki does not provide any SSID information. The SSID field is
empty in resources and reports.
• Response time and packet loss: SolarWinds NPM does not poll response time and
packet loss for Meraki infrastructure, because these metrics are polled from the
cloud and not from the node. In the cloud, a load balancer selects the node used for
the traffic, so the values might be polled on different nodes for each poll.
• Status of access points: Meraki access points are always displayed as Up because the
REST API used to poll access points does not support polling the status.
Meraki Monitoring Requirements
• NPM 12.1
• Meraki account with administrative privileges
• Enabled access to the Cisco Meraki Dashboard API and generated API key.
For details, search for "Cisco Meraki Dashboard API" at
https://documentation.meraki.com (© 2015 Cisco Systems, Inc, available
at https://documentation.meraki.com, obtained on February 1, 2017.)

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