SolarWinds Hybrid-Cloud-Observability-Network-Monitoring Hybrid Cloud Observability Network Monitoring Exam Exam Practice Test

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Log Analyzer listens for syslog messages by default on:

TCP port 514 (the standard syslog port)

TCP port 6514 (the default port for syslog over TLS/SSL, i.e., secure syslog)

Port 162 is for SNMP traps, and 1463 is not standard for syslog in SolarWinds.

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:

If logs are not being sent from a Windows agent, you must confirm that the log forwarding feature is enabled. Even if the agent is installed, logs will not be transmitted unless this setting is turned on.

The documentation notes:

"Ensure the agent is configured to forward logs. Log forwarding must be enabled for the agent to transmit log data to the SolarWinds platform."

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:

To detect duplex mismatches:

The node must be monitored (i.e., managed in SolarWinds).

The node must be in "up" status, so SNMP data about interface status, speed, and errors can be polled and compared.

Description in MIB (A) is not necessary if the device is already SNMP-capable, and "warning" status (C) is a result, not a requirement.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

A. Ensuring that firewall rules allow SNMP traffic is essential, especially when monitoring remote site nodes.

C. Basic connectivity should be checked by pinging the node from the SolarWinds application server.

D. If the SNMP community string is changed, the SNMP service on the device must be restarted for the new configuration to take effect.

Option B is not required unless SNMPv3 is specifically being used, and even then, SNMPv2c and SNMPv1 are still widely supported and commonly used.

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:

To combine two polled values into a single value in the web console, you need to:

Create a separate poller for each OID.

Use a transform (in the UDP tool) to add or otherwise combine the values from the two pollers into one displayed value.

Exact Extract from Official Guide:

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:

When displaying Universal Device Poller (UDP) data in different web console views, each view must be configured to show the UDP results as charts.

From the documentation:

“In the Universal Device Poller application, under the Web Display tab, you must check the ‘chart’ box for every web view where you want to display the poller data. If the box is not checked for the current view, the data will not be visible as a chart widget.”

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

If interfaces on a node show an “unknown” status, the recommended solution is to delete and rediscover the node. This ensures all current interface information, OIDs, and properties are correctly detected and polled, resolving mismatch or missing data that can cause an “unknown” status.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SNMP version 3 introduces enhanced security features, including the use of usernames and passwords (authentication and encryption). SNMP v1 and v2c only use community strings, which are essentially passwords but without username support or encryption. SNMP v4 does not exist.

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:

According to theSolarWinds Log Analyzer Administrator Guide (Version 2024.1), Log Analyzer provides several built-in or native log entry actions as part of its log-processing rules. The key native log entry actions include:

Add a tag to the log entry: This action allows you to tag event logs for easier searching and filtering later.

Continue rule processing but do not save: With this action, the log entry is not saved but rule processing continues.

Halt further rule processing for the log entry: Selecting this action will immediately stop the processing of any more rules for the current log entry.

Sending an email notification is an alert action and not considered a native log entry action in the context of log processing rules.

Exact Extract from Official Guide:

"Key features in LA

Apply tags to event logs

Drop unwanted event logs in LA

Filter and analyze event logs

Filter and view event logs in live mode

Filter entry details in LA

Filter on log tags..."— (Log Analyzer Administrator Guide, Page 53-54)

Additionally, the guide specifies underCreate custom log-processing rules in LAthat actions such as tagging, halting processing, and not saving are among the native processing actions.

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:

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:

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:

To monitor an application on a server with SolarWinds, you must first find the application in the list of available (supported or discovered) applications and enable monitoring for it. The platform also provides a “monitor recommended applications” button to automatically suggest and enable monitoring for best-practice applications on a given server.

From the documentation:

“To monitor an application, select it from the list of available applications and enable it for the target server. The ‘Monitor Recommended Applications’ option helps you quickly enable commonly used application monitors.”

Grouping IP addresses or configuring specific source/destination pairs is not required for standard application monitoring.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Universal Device Pollers (UDPs) in SolarWinds are tightly coupled with the polling engine on which they are configured. If the main polling engine fails, custom pollers do not automatically failover; as a result, statistics collection for those UDPs is interrupted. According to SolarWinds documentation:

"UDPs are assigned to a specific polling engine. If the polling engine fails, UDP statistics are not collected until the engine is restored."

"Universal Device Pollers are not supported on failover engines; they do not collect data from hot standby or failover engines."

Thus, options C and D directly reflect the official guidance.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

A. When you probe less frequently, updates are slower but generally more accurate since there's less overhead and less chance of missing network changes due to polling overlaps.

C. Probing more frequently results in faster updates but may slightly decrease accuracy due to increased network noise and overlapping probes.

The documentation states:

"A higher probing frequency provides faster updates in NetPath views but can reduce accuracy due to more frequent sampling. Lower frequency means slower updates but typically results in higher accuracy and less system load."

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:

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:

SolarWinds provides a MIB Browser utility that lets you search and verify whether a specific object ID (OID) exists in the SolarWinds MIB database. By entering the OID in the MIB Browser, you can confirm its presence and also test polling against the device.

The documentation states:

"Use the MIB Browser to search for and verify OIDs in the SolarWinds MIB database. The tool also allows you to test poll the device to ensure the OID is being returned."

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:

To edit trigger conditions for flow alerts in SolarWinds, the SolarWinds Query Language (SWQL) is required. SWQL is a proprietary subset of SQL designed specifically for the SolarWinds Orion Platform. The documentation specifies:

“Editing advanced alert trigger conditions and custom queries for flow-based alerts requires the use of SWQL, not PowerShell, Python, or standard SQL.”

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:

The Brocade G620 switch is not supported by SolarWinds for hardware health statistics collection, regardless of the SNMP version or polling method used. SolarWinds documentation lists the specific switch models and vendors that are compatible with hardware health monitoring, and Brocade switches (including the G620) are not among the supported models for this feature.

The documentation states:

“Hardware health monitoring in SolarWinds is available for a set of supported vendors and models. Brocade G620 is not included in the list of devices that provide hardware health statistics. As a result, these statistics will not appear on the node details summary page, even if SNMP polling is enabled and working for other metrics.”

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Device Studio in SolarWinds allows you to build custom pollers for several device-level metrics. According to the SolarWinds Administrator Guide:

Device Studio can be used to create pollers for multi-CPU/memory, single CPU/memory, and VLAN details. These templates allow you to monitor resource usage and VLAN assignments.

"You can build templates for node details, but those are standard node properties, not supported by Device Studio pollers."

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:

SolarWinds determines node status by polling using ICMP (ping) and SNMP. If ICMP is blocked by a firewall or network device between the polling engine and the monitored node, the node will appear “down” in the web console even though it is actually up. Likewise, if the SNMP credentials configured in SolarWinds are incorrect, the polling engine cannot successfully query the device, leading to a false “down” status.

From the documentation:

“If ICMP packets are blocked or dropped, SolarWinds cannot determine node status, resulting in false down events.”

“Incorrect SNMP community strings or credentials will prevent node polling, and these nodes may appear down in the console.”

Changing the polling interval or node management settings does not directly cause this issue.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

A. Communication issue exists in new device: If there is an SNMP or network issue, the poller cannot retrieve data.

D. Object IDs (OIDs) are not supported: The new device may not support the same OIDs as the test device, resulting in no data returned.

SolarWinds documentation notes:

"When extending a poller to other devices, ensure network/SNMP communication is successful and that the target devices support the required OIDs. Differences in support or access may cause data collection to fail on some nodes."

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The most common cause of duplicate flow data in SolarWinds NTA is when source network devices are configured to export both ingress and egress flow data on the same interfaces. This results in the same traffic being reported twice, leading to inflated statistics and duplicate entries.

If flows are confirmed as reaching the poller but no data appears in the web console, the most common cause is a missing or incorrect source address field in the flow configuration on the sending device. SolarWinds uses the source address to match incoming flows to the correct device record in its database; if this field is missing or misconfigured, the data will not be processed or displayed.

Exact Extract from Official Guide:

“If the source address field is missing or incorrectly configured in the flow-exporting device, the system cannot associate the flow with a monitored device, and no data will appear in the console.”

— (Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide, “Troubleshooting NetFlow” section)

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

If the flow source view in SolarWinds NTA shows “never received” and firewall issues are ruled out, it is often because the device (node) is no longer monitored by SolarWinds. If a node is removed or its monitoring is disabled, the collector will not associate incoming flows from that node, resulting in "never received" status.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

This message means the NetFlow collector is receiving flow data from a device whose IP address is not managed in the SolarWinds platform, so the flow data is discarded. To resolve this, you must either:

Add the sending device as a managed node using the correct IP address, or

Enable the "Allow matching nodes by another IP" option in the NetFlow settings, which allows SolarWinds to match flows sent from an interface IP or secondary IP.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

NetPath is specifically designed to trace and troubleshoot connectivity paths between nodes.

Network Insight provides in-depth analysis and diagnostics for specific vendors/devices, including health, connectivity, and configuration.

Asset inventory and MIB browser are not direct troubleshooting tools for connectivity.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

When collecting Windows event logs without installing an agent, SolarWinds recommends converting those events to SNMP traps or syslog messages using the SolarWinds Event Log Forwarder for Windows. This allows the platform to ingest and recognize Windows events through standard logging protocols.

"The SolarWinds Event Log Forwarder for Windows enables you to forward Windows event logs as SNMP traps or syslog messages, allowing agentless collection and integration into your SolarWinds platform."

Option C, converting events to traps, is the correct method supported for agentless environments.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

To display the serial number in the node details widget using Device Studio, you must add a new data source field, name it "Serial Number," and provide the correct OID that polls the serial number from the device. This field then appears in the node details widget for the custom poller. Editing an existing field's name is not best practice, and UDPs cannot be linked directly to Device Studio widgets.

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:

Device Studio pollers offer more advanced capabilities than traditional Universal Device Pollers (UDPs). While both can poll SNMP-enabled devices, Device Studio pollers can gather additional node details (such as chassis information and advanced device metrics) that UDPs are not able to access. UDPs are limited to polling OIDs and displaying simple numeric or textual values. The official documentation states that Device Studio expands the range of supported technologies and provides access to more detailed device information compared to UDPs.

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:

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:

The most common cause of mismatch between bandwidth (SNMP) numbers and flow (NetFlow, sFlow, etc.) numbers is that not all network traffic is included in the flow export. SNMP bandwidth counters include all traffic traversing the interface, but NetFlow or other flow records may only represent sampled or filtered subsets, or may miss certain traffic due to export or device configuration limitations. This is a well-documented and expected difference in the SolarWinds platform.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Only SNMP version 3 supports advanced authentication methods such as MD5, SHA1, SHA256, and SHA512 in SolarWinds and other SNMP-compliant platforms.

The documentation specifies:

"SNMP v3 provides secure authentication and encryption options, including MD5, SHA1, SHA256, and SHA512. Versions 1 and 2c only support community string authentication."

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.”