Following on from the estate series, I wanted to bring that same approach into the individual Node Details page.
The estate views let you step back and explore the wider environment. These widgets bring the focus closer: the node you’re looking at, its peers, interfaces, volumes and applications.
What started as a bit of a tidy-up has turned into a small family of interactive widgets, with a shared visual style and a consistent way of exploring the information.
Apparently, my definition of “tidying up” now includes a rotating sphere. 😉
The aim is straightforward: make the overview easy to understand, let the engineer choose where to focus, and bring the supporting detail into view when it’s needed.
Node and Function Explorer
Starting with the current node, this view lets you explore other nodes sharing the same customer and function.
Select a peer to inspect its stored CPU, memory, response time and packet loss readings, alongside their threshold assessments. From there, you can open that node’s native details page and continue exploring.
The connections represent the shared grouping, rather than dependency relationships. Node availability also stays separate from threshold assessment: a node can be Up while its memory reading breaches a critical threshold.
Interfaces on This Node
This brings the node’s interfaces into an interactive view, with state filters, individual selection, and flow and utilisation views.
You can narrow the view to a particular state, find an interface and inspect its readings. The displayed count and ordering remain visible, including where a display cap applies.
The idea is to make it easier to move from the interface overview to the particular interface you want to investigate.
Volumes on This Node
A visual overview of the node’s volumes, with usage rings, threshold filters, search and selection.
Selecting a volume brings its used space, free space, total capacity and threshold settings into focus, along with performance readings where available. A native Volume Details link provides the next step.
The overview stays simple, while the supporting information has room to explain what’s being shown.
Applications and Components Explorer
Starting with applications assigned to the node, this view lets you explore their components and compare matching components across the loaded deployments.
Select a component, inspect its reported state and supporting details, then follow through to the native component, application or node page.
It provides a way to explore how the same monitored component is reported elsewhere, with the comparison scope and coverage limitations visible.
Across all four, I wanted the interaction to feel familiar: filter the view, select an item, inspect the detail and follow through.
The labels remain part of that experience. Stored readings, reported states, threshold assessments and freshness limitations should be clear alongside the visuals.
These are becoming part of my standard Node Details layout, and I’m enjoying seeing the individual pieces come together. 🙂
A little throwback
I had to include this. 😄
Back in 2017, I shared this view on THWACK, bringing regional maps, operating hours and status counts together, with inspiration from cscoengineer’s original Scoreboard.
Nearly a decade later, I’m still exploring the same underlying idea: making SolarWinds easier to understand and more useful to the person investigating.
These Node Details widgets are another step in that direction.
The views have changed quite a bit. The habit of thinking “I wonder if I could make this a little better…” apparently hasn’t.
THANK YOU FOR FOLLOWING ✌️
