Can the latest version of SolarWinds run on different versions of operating systems for MPE and APE?

hnz980

Can the latest version of Solarwinds run on different versions of operating systems for MPE AND APE?

I have Windows 2019 Server - MPE.

I have Windows 2022 Server - APE.

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vinay.by

You can do so, but then a simple reason as to why we keep them on the same Windows version is patching and maintenance of your servers or VM's (it's much easier to diagnose the problem and apply a fix across). I am sure SolarWinds has matured enough now, but then in the past, I have seen cases where patches use to mess up Orion modules where in which we did have to exclude some patches that were installed.

marcrobinson

DItto. You can run them with different windows server OS. But things get weird with windows patches and .net behaving slightly differently between the server OS versions.

bobmarley

At current time mine are mixed, my original main poller and polling engines are on an older version of windows and recently we added several more polling engines that were Windows 2022. Planning to update the older versions later this summer.

bharris1

@bobmarley Has this caused any problems ? We had a poller die and we were wondering if we could load the newest os onto it.

bobmarley

There is one of the healthchecks that will complain, and you will probably get another complaint during upgrades but I have been running a mixed OS environment for the past three years with no issue. I just upgraded all of my APE's to Windows 2022 but my MPE is still Windows 2016, changing that soon. Before this I had a mix of 2016 and 2022. I'm running on SQL 2022 on a Windows 2022 servers also, previously it was SQL 2016. I merged two different environments (companies) together a couple years back and almost done with all of the mix and match it created. I have not had any problems adding 2022 pollers to 2016 MPE.

rcbarr

.net patches will be the most fun, ugh....

ronan.tonilon

Latest version of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability (HCO) or Orion Platform supports running the Main Polling Engine (MPE) and Additional Polling Engines (APEs) on different supported versions of Windows Server, as long as all are compatible with the same SolarWinds platform version.

Supported but Must Be Compatible

The MPE and APE do not need to be on the exact same Windows version, but:
- All must run supported OS versions for the specific SolarWinds release
- They must be running the same SolarWinds software version (e.g., HCO 2024.2 on all)

Example (as of HCO 2024.2):

Component	OS Example
MPE	Windows Server 2019
APE #1	Windows Server 2022
APE #2	Windows Server 2016 (if still supported in your version)

As long as all APEs run the same version of the APE installer from the same SolarWinds platform version, this is valid.

Important Requirements

Requirement	Description
Same SolarWinds version	APE and MPE must be installed from the same platform version, e.g., 2024.2
Network communication	All APEs must have uninterrupted connectivity to the MPE and SQL database
Time synchronization	Use NTP to keep clock sync across APE/MPE nodes (critical for polling and logging)
OS compatibility	OS must be on SolarWinds' supported platforms matri

What cannot be done:

Run an APE on Linux (SolarWinds is Windows-only)
Run APEs or MPE on Windows 10/11 – must be Windows Server
Run different SolarWinds software versions across engines

Summary

Question	Answer
Can MPE and APE run on different OS versions?	Yes, if all OS versions are supported by the SolarWinds platform version
Must SolarWinds versions match?	Yes
Does OS version affect polling roles/features?	️ Possibly (e.g., legacy OS may lack modern SNMP/WMI features)
Is Windows Server 2022 supported?	Yes (on latest SolarWinds versions)

Hope this helps.