Multiple SEM servers

you-ser99

I am trying to find out if SEM servers can have multiple SEM serveres that share data.  Basically we would like to have SEM servers on several different domains that can be viewed at that level and also have the SEM data forwarded to a master SEM server where it can be viewed there.

I now know the agents can't forward to 2 different locations at the same time, but the 2nd diagram.  is that possible?

kellytice

SEM does have log forwarding so SEM1 should be able to forward to SEM2 so that could potentially work.  You should be able to test it out by using a trial license for the SEM Server 2.
https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/sem/content/admin_guide/new_in_6_5/sem-log-forwarding.htm


Historically that forwarded log format was in an .XML format, but recently (2025.2) SEM added support for forwarding in the common Snare log format.  That link above talks about that.


Important caveats (may not be a complete list)     : 

• To see the data on SEM1 and also forward the logs, you'll need to configure the connectors to store the log data on the SEM appliance in RAW log format AND the normalized log format.  This will double the storage requirements for SEM1.
  Relevant Note from the SolarWinds documentation:
  "If you enable original log storage (raw database storage), and you enable connectors to send data to both databases, SEM storage requirements may double for the same retention period, and extra resource reservations of at least two additional CPUs and 8-16GB of RAM may be required."
• Although you now (2025.2) have the option of running multiple instances of SEM under one license (with Node licenses to each instance as you see fit), I do not believe that it would 'deduplicate' the nodes that are showing up in both SEM1 and SEM2
  To put that a slightly different way, there is no knowledge sharing between SEM1 and SEM2, so any Node that you forwarded log data for would be counted on BOTH SEM1 and SEM2.  So that could introduce extra cost for you if you have to double your node count (unless the license tier you are currently in has enough 'wiggle room' to handle the nodes on both servers).

Hopefully that made sense