SolarWinds Updates Network Management Portfolio

SolarWinds on Tuesday announced a refresh of its network management portfolio, following a previous refresh last December.

It includes vital enhancements to its Orion platform and the addition of Network Insight support for Palo Alto Networks.

SolarWinds’ Mav Turner

“Today, running a network is essential to running a business. Monitoring has to move beyond element management,” said Mav Turner, vice president, product strategy, SolarWinds. “IT pros need to understand the services that their devices provide to the network, and how that impacts the business.”

Updates to the vendor’s network management portfolio are as follows:

• Orion Maps leverages data in the Orion Platform to automatically build maps that include current status and performance. Users can also customize these maps and add them to any dashboard.
• Centralized upgrades allow a user to upgrade a large, distributed environment from a single location.
• Azure SQL Database is now a deployment option for the Orion platform. Coupled with existing support for AWS RDS, this update expands the deployment options for customers, whether on premises or in the cloud.
• NetFlow Traffic Analyzer now supports IPv6, expanding visibility into both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic detail.
• VoIP & Network Quality Manager (VNQM) delivers real-time call metrics and SIP trunk utilization from the Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE).
• IP Address Manager (IPAM) expands a self-service portal for IP address requests, improving notifications and adding the ability to add custom fields and process requests.

The new Network Insight support for Palo Alto Networks is designed to simplify the management of complex network devices by providing the right information for each device’s unique role in the network. The new Network Insight features will now support Palo Alto Networks firewalls.

SolarWinds’ Network Insight currently supports Cisco Nexus, Cisco ASA, and F5 BIG-IP.

With Network Insight for Palo Alto Networks, users can analyze security policies, understand how they’ve changed over time, and inspect the traffic flowing through the policies. Users can also monitor site-to-site VPN tunnels and GlobalProtect client VPN performance. Using the PerfStack dashboards in the Orion Platform, users can correlate service delivery data with traditional metrics, such as interface, CPU and memory utilization, all on a common timeline.

The platform enhancements and support for Palo Alto Networks are designed to improve data visibility and scalability.

SolarWinds network management software and monitoring tools include products for performance monitoring, bandwidth analysis, IP address management, troubleshooting, manage configs, switch port management, VoIP monitoring, and network mapping.