SCP-NPM SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) Exam Question and Answers

You can make bulk changes to nodes in NPM using the Manage Nodes feature. This allows you to select multiple nodes and edit their properties, such as the polling method, the polling frequency, the SNMP credentials, the custom properties, and more. You can also use the Edit Nodes feature to assign or unassign pollers to nodes, such as the Universal Device Poller (UnDP), the Hardware Health Poller, the Wireless Poller, and more12. References: 1: Change the polling method for a node3, 2: Manage pollers using Device Studio4

Orion agents are software components that you can install on nodes to collect and send data to the Orion server. Orion agents do not require a separate license, as they are included in the license of the Orion Platform product that you are using, such as NPM. You can install and use as many agents as you need, as long as you do not exceed the number of licensed nodes, interfaces, or volumes for your product. Orion agents can use either agent-initiated or server-initiated communication, depending on your network configuration and security requirements. References: NPM Administrator Guide, page 67; SCP Study Aid - NPM, page 15.

NPM uses SNMP to collect utilization statistics from network devices, such as routers, switches, firewalls, etc. If NPM only shows Availability and Response Time statuses for a device, it means that SNMP is not configured correctly on that device or NPM cannot access the device via SNMP1. Some possible reasons for this are:

• The device does not support SNMP or SNMP is disabled on the device
• The device has a different SNMP version or community string than NPM
• The device has a firewall or access control list that blocks SNMP traffic from NPM
• The device has a misconfigured SNMP agent or MIB To troubleshoot this issue, you can use the SNMP Test Tool in NPM to verify the SNMP settings and connectivity of the device2. You can also check the device logs and configuration to ensure that SNMP is enabled and properly configured3. References: 1: Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide - Troubleshoot SNMP issues 2: Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide - Test SNMP access 3: Network Performance Monitor Getting Started Guide - Troubleshoot SNMP issues

According to the SolarWinds Platform Agent requirements, the average resource consumption of an agent is less than 1% CPU, max 1 MB of memory, and 1 MB storage on the target computer. The agent software is designed to be lightweight and efficient, and does not impact the performance of the monitored devices. The other options are incorrect, as they either overestimate or underestimate the resource consumption of the agent, or imply that the agent does not use any local resources at all. References: SolarWinds Platform Agent requirements, section “SolarWinds Platform Agent resource consumption”.

Account limitations are a way of restricting the access of Orion user accounts to specific network objects, such as nodes, interfaces, groups, maps, or alerts. You can use account limitations to limit a user to only monitor Windows servers and not be able to view other devices that NPM monitors. For example, you can create a custom limitation based on the node property Operating System, and select only Windows as the value. Then, you can apply this limitation to the user account or user group that you want to restrict. The other options are not effective ways of limiting user access to specific devices, as they either affect the visibility of the entire view (view permissions), the layout of the view (account views), or the scope of the alerts (alert limitations). References:

• Limit user access to network areas with account limitations
• Create custom account limitations

When you create or edit an alert, you can test the trigger and reset actions by clicking Simulate next to the action you want to test. This will execute the action regardless of the trigger condition. You can also select an object to resolve any variables you have used in your action. For example, if your action is to send an email with the node name and status, you can select a node to see how the email will look like. This way, you can ensure the trigger actions you set on an alert will work as expected. References: Test alert triggers and actions in the SolarWinds Platform, How to Create Intelligent Alerts with NPM, How alerts work.

 If you want to see a statistic that NPM does not support out of the box, you can use the Manage Pollers feature in Device Studio or the Universal Device Pollers (UnDP) feature to collect the statistics you want from the device. Both features allow you to create custom monitors for almost any statistic provided by SNMP based on its Management Information Base (MIB) and object identifier (OID). You can also assign the custom pollers to specific devices, view the polled data in the Orion Web Console, and use the data in alerts and reports. The difference between the two features is that Manage Pollers is a web-based interface that simplifies the creation and management of custom pollers, while UnDP is a standalone application that offers more advanced options and flexibility. Device templates and application monitor templates are not features that can be used to collect custom statistics from devices, as they are predefined sets of monitors for specific device types or applications that NPM supports out of the box. References:

• Define a custom statistic to monitor in the NPM
• Manage pollers using Device Studio
• [Monitor custom statistics based on OIDs with Universal Device Pollers]

 To assign users access to select reports, you can use custom properties and account limitations to restrict the scope of data that users can view and report on. Custom properties are user-defined fields that you can assign to monitored objects, such as nodes, interfaces, or applications. Account limitations are rules that you can apply to user accounts to filter the network data that users can access and view. By using custom properties and account limitations together, you can create granular and flexible report access for different users or groups. For example, you can create a custom property called Department and assign it to nodes thatbelong to different departments in your organization. Then, you can create an account limitation based on the Department custom property and assign it to users who only need to see and report on the nodes in their own department. References: How to create different Orion Support Users and assign them different properties in NPM, Define what users can access and do in the SolarWinds Platform

One possible reason for not being able to show the polled results as charts on the Orion Web Console is that you did not set the poller to collect historical statistics. Historical statistics are required for displaying charts and gauges in the web console, as they provide the data points for plotting the trends and values over time. If you only set the poller to collect current statistics, you will only be able to view the polled results as tables or lists in the web console. To set the poller to collect historical statistics, you need to edit the poller and select the Keep Historical Data option in the Poller Properties page. You can also specify the retention settings for the historical data, such as the frequency and duration of data collection and storage1. References: Create a custom poller

 Packet loss is a measure of how many packets are lost or discarded during transmission over a network. Packet loss can cause network performance issues such as slow response time, jitter, and degraded voice quality. NPM can monitor packet loss on nodes and interfaces using ICMP ping or SNMP statistics. You can review the packet loss metrics on the Node Details or Interface Details views, or create a custom chart or report to compare packet loss across multiple nodes or interfaces. By reviewing the packet loss on the nodes on either side of the connection, you can identify which node or interface is experiencing the problem and troubleshoot the root cause. You can also use the Performance Analysis dashboard (PerfStack) to correlate packet loss with other metrics such as response time, CPU load, memory usage, buffer misses, and interface errors123. References:

• Monitor packet loss in NPM - SolarWinds
• Troubleshoot intermittent network slowdowns with NPM - SolarWinds
• SCP Study Aid - SolarWinds (page 9)

NPM can monitor the virtualization host hardware health, VM sprawl, and virtualization host and VM performance metrics using the Virtualization Manager Integration feature1. However,NPM cannot display the virtualization environment tree, which shows the hierarchical relationship between the virtualization hosts, clusters, datastores, and VMs. This feature is only available in Virtualization Manager2, a separate product that can be integrated with NPM. References: 1: Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide - Monitor virtual infrastructure 2: Virtualization Manager Getting Started Guide - View the virtualization environment tree

Orion Maps show you how entities are connected based on the data collected by the Orion Platform products. To display the connections between the nodes in Orion Maps, you need to enable Layer 2 and Layer 3 topology polling on those nodes. This will allow the Orion Platform to discover the network topology using protocols such as CDP, LLDP, or ARP. You can enable topology polling on individual nodes or in bulk using the Manage Nodes feature in the web console. You can also customize the topology polling settings and frequency on the Orion Polling Settings page. References: Intelligent Maps for SolarWinds Platform products; Understand connections on Intelligent Maps in the SolarWinds Platform; Network Mapping Tool – Automated Network Mapping | SolarWinds

Network Discovery is a feature of SolarWinds NPM that allows you to automatically discover and add network devices to the Orion Platform for monitoring. You can use Network Discovery to query Domain Controllers in your company domain and then select the Organizational Units (OUs) with the registered devices you want to scan. This way, you can add entities from NPM to monitor for all registered devices in your company domain in a single discovery. The other options are not as efficient or accurate as Network Discovery, as they either require manual addition of each device, or rely on the Domain Controllers to provide the list of registered devices, which may not be up-to-date or complete. References:

• Discover your network devices and add them to the Orion Platform
• Discover devices on your network using Active Directory

 Web Console maps are interactive and dynamic maps that you can create and customize using the Orion Maps feature in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. You can display various items on the maps, such as monitored nodes, interfaces and volumes, SAM applications and components, and network links. You can also add custom labels, annotations, and images to themaps. Web Console maps can help you visualize the relationships and dependencies among your network devices and applications, as well as troubleshoot issues and identify root causes. References: Orion Maps, Create and customize maps in the Orion Platform, Orion Maps 2.0, New Alerting, and Palo Alto Networks Monitoring - SolarWinds Lab Episode #77.

 SNMP traps are unsolicited messages sent by network devices to report events or issues. If NPM receives too many traps from devices that are not managed by NPM, or traps that are not relevant for monitoring, the performance of the Orion Web Console can be affected. To resolve this issue, you can point the devices to a trap manager, such as Kiwi Syslog Server, and configure it to filter out unwanted traps before forwarding the remaining ones to the Orion Platform. This way, NPM will only process the traps that are important for monitoring and alerting, and reduce the load on the database and web server. References: Configure SNMP traps in NPM, Filter traps in Kiwi Syslog Server, [Forward traps to another host in Kiwi Syslog Server]

To detect duplex mismatches, you need to meet the following requirements1:

• The nodes must be monitored by NPM.
• The nodes must be in the up state during the discovery.
• The nodes must support topology and be interconnected.
• Duplex of both devices must be identified as full or half.
• The Possible Duplex Mismatches widget must be enabled on the node details view.

You do not need to ensure corresponding values for each interface are different, as this is the result of a duplex mismatch, not a requirement for detection. In fact, you should unify the duplex mode configuration on neighboring interfaces to avoid mismatches1.

References: Detect and predict duplex mismatches in NPM; Speed and Duplex Mismatch - Forum

 Device Studio is a feature in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console that allows you to create custom pollers for devices or technologies that are not supported by default in NPM. You can use Device Studio to create pollers for CPU and memory, as well as other metrics, by defining the object identifiers (OIDs) and formulas that you want to poll. Device Studio currently supports SNMP and WMI polling technologies, and you can test, assign, and edit your custom pollers from the Manage Pollers page. References: Create pollers in Device Studio for NPM, Device Studio, Device Studio Poller.

 By default, Orion NPM retains Syslog messages in the database for seven days before discarding them. This means that any Syslog messages older than seven days are deleted from the database and cannot be viewed or searched in the web console. To change the default Syslog retention period, you need to modify the Database Settings on the Orion Polling Settings page in the web console. You can also use the Database Manager tool to manually delete or archive Syslog messages from the database. References: SolarWinds SCP Study Aid - NPM, page 19; NPM Administrator Guide, page 111.

 To monitor tenants in your SDN environment with NPM Cisco ACI monitoring, you need to add an APIC node to NPM and enable API polling on the APIC node. The APIC node is the controller of the ACI system that provides a full view of the SDN environment, including tenants, application profiles, endpoint groups, spine and leaf switches, and their health scores1. By enabling API polling on the APIC node, NPM can collect health and performance data for the ACI entities and display them on the Orion Web Console2. You do not need to enable API polling on all ACI devices, as one APIC node can provide the information for the entire ACI system3. You also do not need to view your SDN environment in Orion Maps, as this is an optional feature that allows you to visualize the relationships and dependencies among the ACI entities4. References: 1: Monitor Cisco ACI devices in NPM - SolarWinds1 2: Monitor Cisco ACI devices in NPM - Add ACI devices and enable ACI polling1 3: Monitor Cisco ACI devices in NPM - Requirements1 4: Monitor Cisco ACI devices in NPM - View ACI environment on SolarWinds Platform Maps1