SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) is a comprehensive network-monitoring service that provides a variety of tools designed to prevent downtime and quickly pinpoint network-related issues. SolarWinds SAM is suitable for organizations of all sizes, ranging from small businesses to large enterprises.
The chief responsibility of a network or systems administrator is to ensure high availability of IT services. Therefore, it is vital to have around-the-clock network surveillance and to be alerted when issues arise. Deploying SolarWinds SAM will help accomplish this and ensure that service-level agreements are met.
The product can be hosted on a server with specifications as low as a single core 2.4 GHz CPU, with 4 GB RAM and 4 GB free hard disk space. These minimum requirements may not suffice for larger networks, although the application rarely needs to be hosted on a "high-end" dedicated server. Supported operating systems include Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2012, running in 32-bit mode. Procedures throughout this book are applicable to Windows Server 2008 R2 and will translate well to the other supported versions.
This book will provide a practical overview of SolarWinds SAM, and include tutorials on how to systematically and expeditiously begin monitoring your entire network. It will explain how to deploy the product and tailor it for your environment, with an emphasis on best practices concerning bandwidth and security implications. After completing this book, you will have sufficient hands-on experience to thoroughly monitor all servers, applications, and network devices encompassed within your organization.
Chapter 1, Deployment Strategy, prepares administrators for deploying SolarWinds SAM by providing tutorials on configuring monitoring services and protocols on servers, common network devices, and VMHosts.
Chapter 2, Installing and Configuring SolarWinds SAM, serves as a quick installation and Network Sonar Wizard walkthrough for deploying SolarWinds SAM.
Chapter 3, Customizing SolarWinds SAM, provides tutorials for adding, managing, and classifying nodes. Groups and dependencies are also covered, followed by procedures on how to back up all the customizations.
Chapter 4, Events, Traps, and Alerts, contains examples and procedures on how to enable, configure, and manage events, SNMP traps, and alerts.
Chapter 5, Syslog, Reporting, and Network Atlas, consists of an overview of how to decipherer and utilize the Syslog, run reports, and includes a tutorial on how to design a network map via the Orion Network Atlas utility.
Appendix, Troubleshooting, includes troubleshooting tips on some common network monitoring service and SolarWinds SAM issues.
Before you get started, you will need to have the SolarWinds SAM physical media on hand, or have previously downloaded the fully functional 30-day trial from:
http://www.solarwinds.com/server-application-monitor.aspx
A machine running Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 should be available for installing the product.
This book is intended for network and systems administrators new to network-monitoring services and/or SolarWinds SAM.
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Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
C:\>telnet 192.168.1.230
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Click on the Add button."
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