Free and Premium SolarWinds Hybrid-Cloud-Observability-Network-Monitoring Dumps Questions Answers

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SolarWinds allows you to confirm which metrics (contributors) are used to determine node status. In the node status contributors configuration, you can check if CPU load is included for status calculation. This ensures that CPU thresholds are considered when evaluating overall node health.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Incorrect hardware health data often results from polling the wrong MIB tree. By changing to the correct or preferred MIB tree for the device model, SolarWinds can accurately interpret and display hardware health metrics.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Resolving and storing hostnames at the time a flow record is received means the platform does not need to resolve the hostname each time a report or widget is loaded, which:

Decreases database query times: Hostnames are already resolved, making queries for reports and dashboards much faster.

Flow views and widgets load faster: With DNS already resolved, the interface does not have to perform on-demand DNS lookups, reducing latency in the web console.

The SolarWinds documentation states:

"Immediate DNS resolution upon flow record ingestion reduces lookup delays during analysis and widget loading, resulting in improved performance and reduced query times."

Domain widgets and reports run with DNS names, but the core advantage is performance rather than widget availability.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

B. NetFlow data is commonly used to diagnose network performance issues, such as identifying sources of congestion or bottlenecks.

C. NetFlow analysis provides visibility into which applications and endpoints are consuming bandwidth and causing congestion.

User authorization and link status events are not functions of NetFlow; those are handled by other monitoring tools or features.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

To monitor a custom application using flow monitoring in SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, you must define the application by specifying its port or port range (and optionally protocol). After this, the application can be assigned to flows involving specific machines, but the primary step is to define application ports first.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

NBAR2 (Next Generation Network-Based Application Recognition) is Cisco's deep packet inspection technology used to classify network traffic at the application layer. It provides visibility by inspecting packet payloads, not just ports, and is supported in SolarWinds for advanced application recognition.

SolarWinds documentation states:

"NBAR2 allows supported Cisco devices to classify traffic by application using deep packet inspection. This provides detailed application visibility within SolarWinds network monitoring solutions."

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability supports a wide range of flow technologies for IP traffic monitoring. Per the SolarWinds NPM Administrator Guide:

"SolarWinds supports NetFlow, sFlow, J-Flow, and IPFIX for monitoring traffic flows. These protocols are used by devices from different vendors to export flow information."

J-Flow: Used by Juniper devices and fully supported.

NetFlow (nFlow): The industry standard from Cisco and widely supported.

sFlow: A vendor-neutral flow technology supported by multiple devices.

IPF1X is not a recognized flow protocol in SolarWinds documentation.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SolarWinds provides several statistics for network capacity planning, most notably:

Memory usage data on nodes: Useful for forecasting resource exhaustion on network devices.

Receive utilization on interfaces: Essential for predicting bandwidth saturation and planning upgrades.

The documentation states:

"Key statistics for network capacity planning include interface utilization trends (receive and transmit) and memory utilization, which allow for forecasting and proactive infrastructure management."

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

When the SNMP community string is changed on a device, SolarWinds recommends:

Edit the node properties and save the changes.

Update the community string in node properties to match the new value on the device.

"To restore polling, edit the node in SolarWinds, update the SNMP community string in the properties, and save the changes. This ensures that SolarWinds can authenticate and resume polling. Deleting and re-adding the node is not necessary, nor is restarting the SNMP service on the device in most cases."

The best practices for creating a Universal Device Poller (UDP) in SolarWinds are:

Consult vendor documentation for OID: Always check the device/vendor documentation for the correct OID to monitor the desired metric.

Perform SNMPwalk to determine if OID exists: Use SNMPwalk to verify the OID’s existence and see if it is supported and returns the correct values from the device.

Calling SolarWinds support is not a standard step for obtaining OIDs, and WBemtest is a Windows tool for WMI, not SNMP/OID polling.

Exact Extract from Official Guide:

“Consult device vendor documentation for correct OIDs and perform SNMPwalk to ensure the OID exists and is supported by the device before creating a UDP.”

— (Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide, “Best Practices for Universal Device Pollers” section)

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

NetFlow is the Cisco IOS feature designed for monitoring and analyzing network traffic to pinpoint specific applications or endpoints consuming bandwidth or causing network slowness. It captures detailed flow information, including source/destination, ports, and protocols.

Ping the device from the polling engine: Verifies network connectivity and correct polling engine assignment.

Verify hardware health sensors: Ensures the platform is receiving valid sensor data; missing data may indicate sensor or device communication issues.

Adding a remote site node and waiting are not direct troubleshooting steps for missing data on a node that is already “up.”

Exact Extract from Official Guide:

“If a node is up but data is missing, check network connectivity from the polling engine using ping or SNMP walk tools, and verify that hardware health sensors are reporting valid data.”

— (Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide, “Troubleshooting Nodes and Data Collection” section)

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Hiding an IP address group in IPAM management means that group will not appear in dashboards, charts, or reports, but the underlying data and group definition remain intact and are not deleted.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

If only response time and packet loss are visible, the node is currently being polled via ICMP (ping), which does not provide detailed statistics like CPU, memory, or interface data. Switching the polling method to SNMP enables SolarWinds to gather detailed device metrics and statistics, as SNMP supports comprehensive monitoring.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

According to the latest SolarWinds Administrator Guides, integrating Cisco ACI for true Hybrid Cloud Observability involves several coordinated steps:

B. Configure API polling credentials for the APIC cluster under “Settings > All Settings > Manage ACI” in SolarWinds.SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability leverages API-based polling (not only SNMP) to retrieve comprehensive fabric topology, health scores, faults, and logical object inventory (tenants, application profiles, EPGs, etc.). Configuration of API credentials is required to access these features."For deep ACI monitoring, use API credentials under 'Manage ACI'. SNMP alone is insufficient for advanced monitoring, object mapping, or health correlation."

C. Enable NetFlow export from all ACI leaf switches to the SolarWinds collector and import flow definitions in the Platform.NetFlow is essential for capturing east-west and north-south traffic inside the fabric, and SolarWinds uses this flow data for bandwidth analysis and path visualization."SolarWinds recommends enabling NetFlow export on all leafs and importing flow records to gain traffic visibility inside Cisco ACI environments."

D. Map tenants, application profiles, and endpoint groups (EPGs) to custom properties for advanced alerting and reporting.Custom properties in SolarWinds allow mapping logical ACI constructs to alert rules, reports, and dashboards for business-centric monitoring."Map EPGs and application profiles to custom properties for granular alerting and business-aligned dashboards."

Option A is incorrect because the official guide states that API polling (not just SNMP v3 with plugins) is required for automatic APIC object discovery.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The correct process for creating a poller in Device Studio is:

Select the technology

Specify the data source

Assign the poller to a node

Save the poller

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Flow collectors differ from polling engines because they passively receive and process flow records sent by network devices, while polling engines actively poll devices for data (like SNMP). Devices must be explicitly configured to export their NetFlow, sFlow, or J-Flow records to the IP address and port of the flow collector, rather than being queried by the SolarWinds server.

The documentation states:

"To monitor flow data, devices must be configured to send their flow records to the collector. Unlike traditional polling, the collector does not initiate contact; it listens for incoming flow exports from network devices."

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

NetFlow defines a flow as a unidirectional sequence of packets sharing common values in seven key fields. The three essential data points from your list used to determine if packets are part of the same flow are IP address (source and destination), Layer 3 protocol (such as TCP or UDP), and port number (source and destination). The interface name is not used to identify a unique flow.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The flow navigator in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer allows users to filter and analyze flow data. For future access, you can save your custom view to the menu bar from the flow navigator, providing one-click access to your saved configurations.

The documentation states:

“To save a custom NetFlow analysis for future use, configure your view in the flow navigator, then select the option to save the view to the menu bar for easy retrieval.”

The “top talkers” feature tracks the highest-bandwidth consumers in your network. Lowering the optimization value means more flows and more detailed data are collected and stored, which can increase the storage requirement on your server.

Exact Extract from Official Guide:

“Decreasing the Top Talkers optimization value results in the storage of more detailed data, which increases the database and storage requirements.”

— (Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide, “NetFlow and Top Talkers Optimization” section)

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SolarWinds platform allows for customizing threshold behavior to reduce false positives and tune alerting sensitivity. The three primary customizable threshold settings are:

Single poll: A threshold is triggered immediately if the value breaches the limit in a single polling cycle.

X consecutive polls: The threshold must be exceeded in X consecutive polling intervals before being considered breached.

X of Y polls: The threshold is triggered if the value exceeds the limit in X out of Y most recent polls.

"X concurrent polls" is not an available threshold customization in the SolarWinds platform.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Flow sampling reduces resource usage by analyzing a subset of traffic. The following protocols support sampling:

Cisco NetFlow (except v1): Most NetFlow versions support sampling.

IPFIX: Supports flow sampling as part of its standard.

NetFlow Lite: Designed to provide sampled flow data.

NetFlow V1 does not support flow sampling.

Exact Extract from Official Guide:

"NetFlow (except v1), IPFIX, and NetFlow Lite support flow sampling, enabling high-performance monitoring of large traffic volumes."

— (Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide, “Flow Protocols and Sampling” section)

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Device Studio is specifically designed to build custom pollers for missing or vendor-specific metrics that are not natively included in node details. It is best used to enrich the node details with custom OID-based metrics from devices.

From the documentation:

“Use Device Studio to build pollers for new metrics not present in the default node details, particularly for custom or third-party equipment.”

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SolarWinds capacity forecasting accuracy improves when:

More historical data is used: The more historical data points included in calculations, the better the forecasting model will perform.

Using average daily values for calculations: This smooths out anomalies and provides a more accurate trend, as recommended in the documentation:

“To improve the precision of capacity forecasting, use as much historical data as possible and set calculations to use average daily values.”

Monitoring with platform agents or adjusting thresholds affects alerting, not trend accuracy.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SolarWinds Log Analyzer supports secure syslog forwarding using the TCP protocol. The industry standard and the default port used for secure syslog (Syslog over TLS/TCP) is port 6514. This is referenced in SolarWinds documentation where it specifies:

"For secure syslog forwarding, Log Analyzer uses TCP port 6514, which is the default for syslog over TLS, as defined by RFC 5425."

This ensures that log data is encrypted during transmission, enhancing security over the default UDP port 514 (which is used for non-secure syslog).

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Duplicate flow data typically results when both ingress and egress flow monitoring are applied simultaneously on interfaces. If both directions are enabled either globally (all interfaces) or locally (on a single interface), the same flow is counted twice—once entering and once leaving—resulting in duplicate statistics.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

In NetFlow (especially Flexible NetFlow on Cisco devices), a flow monitor is applied to an interface to track and collect information about IPv4 (or IPv6) traffic. The flow monitor references a flow record and a flow exporter. The monitor itself is the entity configured on an interface to start the flow tracking process.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

List Resources: When you add or manage a node, the List Resources page allows you to enable or verify hardware health monitoring options.

Manage Sensors: This section allows you to directly manage the hardware sensors (such as fans, power supplies, and temperature sensors) that report health status.

Device view and node properties are not the primary locations for enabling or managing hardware health sensors.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The Universal Device Poller (UDP) in SolarWinds NPM allows users to monitor any SNMP-exposed value, including interface traffic, UPS battery status, and CPU temperature, provided the device's MIB exposes the relevant OIDs. Users configure the UDP to poll these custom OIDs, making it a flexible option for monitoring a wide range of metrics across diverse devices.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Device Studio supports the following data sources:

Calculated result from transformation of polled values: You can apply calculations (such as average, sum, transformation) to the raw polled data.

Polled value by a device on an object ID: Device Studio can directly poll an OID from a device and use its value for monitoring.

Night/day standard deviation and predicted/baseline values are not direct data sources in Device Studio.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The Universal Device Poller (UnDP) allows administrators to define custom SNMP OIDs for statistics (like UPS battery status) that are not natively polled. You can assign a new UnDP to an existing node to monitor additional values such as UPS battery status, provided the device supports the necessary OID.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Device Studio enables custom polling for multi-CPU and memory statistics and node details (such as chassis, serial number, and vendor-specific fields). Baselines/thresholds (A) are alert/report features, not Device Studio poller technologies. Throughput (D) is generally handled by standard interface polling, not Device Studio.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SolarWinds NTA maps flow sources to nodes by matching the IP address. If a device exports flows using a secondary IP (not the one defined as "primary" in SolarWinds), and the setting "Allow matching by other IPs" is not enabled, the flow will not map to a known node. The documentation explains:

"If flow packets are received from an IP address not designated as primary in SolarWinds, and matching by other IPs is disabled, the flow source is not linked to a node. Enable the setting to match by any device IP to resolve this issue."

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

When the NetFlow collector service is showing a "down" status, the SolarWinds documentation recommends the following troubleshooting steps:

Confirm the database connection is up and server has free resources.

Explanation:The NetFlow collector service relies on connectivity to the SolarWinds database. If the database connection is lost or the server is out of resources (such as CPU or RAM), the service may go down or fail to start. Ensuring that the database is reachable and that the server has enough resources is a primary troubleshooting step.

Start or restart SolarWinds’ NetFlow service from Orion Service Manager.

Explanation:The official troubleshooting guidance instructs administrators to use the Orion Service Manager to start or restart the NetFlow service. This is a direct method to recover the NetFlow collector from a "down" state and is one of the first actions recommended by SolarWinds support.

Options B and C arenotrecommended in the official documentation:

Deleting and re-adding the NetFlow collector service is not a documented troubleshooting step and may cause loss of configuration.

Starting or restarting the generic "collector service" is not specific to NetFlow; the correct service is the NetFlow service.

Exact Extract from Official Guide:

"If NetFlow collector service status is down:

Ensure the SolarWinds database is online and the server is not experiencing resource issues.

Use the Orion Service Manager to start or restart the NetFlow service.

If the issue persists, review the NetFlow logs for errors and consult the SolarWinds Success Center for advanced troubleshooting."— (Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide, Troubleshooting NetFlow and Service Issues)

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

For critical devices and connections, peak calculation is the recommended capacity planning method. This approach uses the highest observed utilization values within a time period, ensuring that planning accounts for maximum network demand and helps avoid bottlenecks during traffic spikes. SolarWinds documentation advises using peak calculations for important links to ensure network reliability and performance.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The radial gauge display in the SolarWinds web console requires that the polled value from the OID is a numeric type that supports gauge visualizations (for example, a percentage or value with a defined minimum and maximum). If the OID returns data that does not fit these requirements—such as text, status, or a counter with no clear min/max—the gauge option will be grayed out and unavailable for selection. This behavior is explained in the Universal Device Poller documentation, which states that only compatible numeric OID types can be displayed using radial gauge resources.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

According to the SolarWinds documentation:

"The maximum number of resources that can be displayed in any flow chart or view is 50. Attempting to display more may impact performance and will not be rendered in the UI."

This ensures optimal performance and usability of the charts within the platform.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

List resources is the menu where you can select or deselect which interfaces (including operationally down and administratively shutdown ones) are monitored for a node. This allows you to uncheck unnecessary or down interfaces and prevent them from impacting the node status.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability supports multiple industry flow protocols:

J-Flow: Supported and commonly used by Juniper devices.

NetFlow v9: Supported, providing flexible flow data and templates.

sFlow: Supported, widely used in vendor-agnostic environments.

NetFlow v6 is not a recognized protocol; SolarWinds documentation does not list it as a supported standard.

"SolarWinds NTA and HCO support NetFlow (v5/v9), sFlow, J-Flow, and IPFIX for collecting and analyzing flow data."

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

To monitor and configure High Availability (HA) mode for site-to-site VPN tunnels on a Cisco ASA firewall, SolarWinds uses SNMP for standard device and interface metrics, and CLI polling for advanced VPN and HA state details. SNMP provides general health data, while CLI polling (using Device Studio or Network Insight) collects information not available via SNMP, such as detailed VPN and HA status.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability (HCO) supports capturing flow data and CBQoS data using:

A. IPFIX: (IP Flow Information Export) is the IETF standard for exporting flow information, supported for both flow data and CBQoS.

C. NetFlow: Developed by Cisco, widely used for flow and CBQoS data collection.

J-Flow is primarily for flow data (from Juniper devices), and SNMP is not a flow export protocol.

The documentation states:

"NetFlow (including NetFlow v9) and IPFIX are supported for flow and CBQoS data collection. These standards provide extensive network traffic and QoS visibility within HCO."

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

You can check the status of the flow collector service from the NetFlow collector services section and from NetFlow settings in the SolarWinds web console. These locations provide service health, up/down status, and logs. "Flow and CBQoS sources" and "Top XX receivers" do not display service health.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

To collect and analyze Windows event logs in SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, you must:

Deploy and configure the platform agent on the Windows server: The agent is responsible for collecting logs locally, including event logs, and sending them to the SolarWinds platform for analysis.

Configure the Windows server to send logs to the SolarWinds platform: This can be achieved by forwarding event logs from the Windows server to the server running the SolarWinds platform (e.g., via Windows Event Forwarding or syslog if using third-party tools).

Simply configuring rules within the platform does not automatically grant access to Windows event logs; deployment of the agent or configuration of log forwarding is required for collection. This requirement is outlined in the Log Analyzer Administrator Guide and the Hybrid Cloud Observability documentation for Windows log collection.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

When a device returns multi-core CPU statistics as a table, SolarWinds Device Studio allows you to use the "Add Calculated Value" option and select the average function. This enables the web console widget to display the computed average CPU utilization automatically.

The documentation explains:

"For devices with multi-core CPUs, you can use the Add Calculated Value feature in the Device Studio to compute the average (or other statistical functions) of returned table values, which can then be visualized directly in widgets."

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Custom pollers are typically created when you need to monitor metrics or OIDs that are not supported by default in SolarWinds:

Monitor specific metric that is not out-of-the-box: If a device exposes a metric not natively monitored by SolarWinds, you must create a custom poller for that metric.

Monitor unsupported object ID: For any OID that is not included in default templates, a custom poller is necessary.

Monitoring special equipment or devices without WMI might also need custom pollers, but the requirement specifically applies when you need to access non-standard metrics or OIDs.