SolarWinds has recently launched powerful integrations between both SolarWinds® Observability SaaS and SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted with Squadcast
, an incident response tool. These integrations are designed to streamline incident response workflows, routing alerts from both SolarWinds Observability platforms to the right on-call engineers in Squadcast, helping ensure critical alerts are addressed swiftly.
Additionally, with the recent acquisition of Squadcast by SolarWinds, this is a perfect opportunity to introduce the THWACK® community to the Squadcast solution’s robust capabilities.
Bridging the Gap Between Monitoring and Response
SolarWinds Observability, whether in its SaaS or self-hosted form, provides comprehensive visibility into cloud-native, on-premises, and hybrid environments, helping ensure optimal service levels for key business applications. With these new integrations, alerts generated by either platform, such as when a website’s response time exceeds a threshold like 500ms, can now be seamlessly routed to Squadcast. Once an alert is triggered, Squadcast creates an incident and assigns it to the appropriate on-call engineer, helping ensure rapid response and resolution.
Setting Up the Integration Between SolarWinds Observability and Squadcast
Using SolarWinds Observability SaaS and Self-Hosted as an Alert Source in Squadcast
Within Squadcast, navigate to Services -> Service Overview -> select or search for your Service. In the Alert Sources section, click Add. Select SolarWinds Observability SaaS or SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted from the options, copy the displayed Webhook URL to configure it within SolarWinds Observability SaaS or Self-Hosted, and finish by clicking Add Alert Source -> Done.
Now, let's move to the SolarWinds Observability platform to configure these webhooks, enabling Squadcast to start receiving alerts. Let’s see how to configure the webhook into SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted.
Create a Squadcast Webhook Alert in SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted
- Log in to your SolarWinds dashboard. Head over to the ALERTS & ACTIVITY tab, then select Alerts.
- Click on Manage Alerts, then under the ALERT MANAGER section, click on ADD NEW ALERT.
- Under Alert Properties, set the Name of alert definition and the Description of alert Toggle the Enabled (On/Off) switch to ON and click on NEXT.
- Set the Trigger Conditions and Reset Conditions, then click on NEXT.
- Under Trigger Actions, click on Add Action. Select Send a GET or POST Request to a Web Server and click on CONFIGURE ACTION.
- Set the name of the action. Paste the previously copied Squadcast Webhook URL in the placeholder for URL. Select Use HTTP/S POST, and paste the provided variables in the Body to POST box. Set ContentType as application/x-www-form-urlencoded and None under Authentication. Click on ADD ACTION, then on NEXT.
EventID=${N=Alerting;M=AlertObjectID}-${N=Alerting;M=AlertID}&AcknowledgeLink=${N=Alerting;M=AcknowledgeLink}&AcknowledgeUrl=${N=Alerting;M=AcknowledgeUrl}&Acknowledged=${N=Alerting;M=Acknowledged}&AcknowledgedBy=${N=Alerting;M=AcknowledgedBy}&AcknowledgedTime=${N=Alerting;M=AcknowledgedTime;F=DateTime}&AlertActiveID=${N=Alerting;M=AlertActiveID}&AlertDefID=${N=Alerting;M=AlertDefID}&AlertDescription=${N=Alerting;M=AlertDescription}&AlertDetailsUrl=${N=Alerting;M=AlertDetailsUrl}&AlertID=${N=Alerting;M=AlertID}&TimeOfDay=${N=Alerting;M=TimeOfDay}&Severity=${N=Alerting;M=Severity}&ObjectType=${N=Alerting;M=ObjectType}&Notes=${N=Alerting;M=Notes}&LongAlertTriggerTime=${N=Alerting;M=LongAlertTriggerTime;F=DateTime}&LastEdit=${N=Alerting;M=LastEdit;F=DateTime}&DownTime=${N=Alerting;M=DownTime}&AlertTriggerTime=${N=Alerting;M=AlertTriggerTime;F=DateTime}&AlertTriggerCount=${N=Alerting;M=AlertTriggerCount}&AlertObjectID=${N=Alerting;M=AlertObjectID}&AlertName=${N=Alerting;M=AlertName}&AlertMessage=${N=Alerting;M=AlertMessage}&Status=Triggered
- Under RESET ACTIONS, click on Add Action. Then select Send a GET or POST Request to a Web Server and click on CONFIGURE ACTION.
- Follow the same steps as you just followed for triggering an action.
- Finalize the Alert Details on the SUMMARY page and click on
That's it! Your SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted integration is now complete. Whenever SolarWinds fires an alert through Trigger Actions, an incident will be created in Squadcast. Also, when an alert is reset in SolarWinds, the corresponding incident gets auto-resolved in Squadcast.
You can go through the detailed documentation for Self-Hosted integration here.
Key Benefits of the Integrations
These integrations bring significant advantages to SolarWinds users, whether using SaaS or self-hosted versions:
- Reduced Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR): By routing alerts directly to the right teams, issues are addressed faster
- Elimination of Alert Noise: Focus only on actionable alerts that require human intervention
- Streamlined Workflows: Automatic incident creation and resolution reduce manual overhead
- Enhanced Visibility: Complete context from both SolarWinds Observability SaaS and Observability Self-Hosted is available within Squadcast incidents
Introducing Squadcast to the SolarWinds Community
Following the recent acquisition of Squadcast by SolarWinds, these integrations represent the first steps in bringing the Squadcast solution’s powerful incident response management capabilities to the SolarWinds ecosystem.
What is Squadcast?
Squadcast is a modern incident response platform that brings together On-Call Management, Smart Alerting, Incident Remediation, and Site Reliability Engineering—all in one place. Our goal is simple: help teams respond faster, manage incidents better, and continuously improve by learning from incidents.
Key Features Include:
- Enhanced Event Correlation: Bundles related alerts together to reduce noise, keeping your focus on critical incidents
- Intelligent Alert Routing: Helps ensure the right people are notified at the right time
- Automated Escalations: Prevents incidents from falling through the cracks
- Collaborative Incident Response: Tools for teams to work together effectively during incidents
- Comprehensive Analytics: Learn from past incidents to prevent future ones
- Rich Integrations: Works with your existing monitoring and communication tools
How Squadcast Enhances the SolarWinds Experience
The combination of robust SolarWinds monitoring capabilities with the Squadcast incident response expertise creates a complete observability and response solution. SolarWinds users can now:
- Detect issues with SolarWinds Observability SaaS or Self-Hosted
- Manage the response process with Squadcast
- Resolve problems faster with the right context and the right responders
- Analyze incident patterns to drive continuous improvement
These integrations mark an exciting step forward for SolarWinds and Squadcast, and we’re eager to hear your feedback. As we continue to expand how Squadcast connects across the SolarWinds platform, we're also exploring ways to integrate it more deeply with SolarWinds Service Desk, enabling teams to not only respond to incidents in real time but also log, track, and analyze them within structured ITSM workflows.
How do you see these integrations benefiting your workflows? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
