How THWACK started?

Oh, the tales we could tell.  But first things first, welcome!

THWACK was born in June 2003 as a way that customers could share stories about how they used the solutions to fix problems.  Over the years, the platform and community grew significantly.  As of this writing, there are over 190,000 active members on the community answering questions for those other hundreds of thousands.

Is it a support community?  Not strictly.  It's an education community.  If you have a problem with the software or something is inherently "broken" the most common answer is "you should open a support case."  However, if you want to know how to use the software to do something that's 10% off the normal, then THWACK is your place.  This doesn't take away from the training in the SolarWinds Academy, it supplements it.

Each member concentrates their time in different areas.  My favorite place is the Orion SDK forum because I like to help people become familiar with the API and how it can help streamline your use.  Others prefer to hang out in one or more of the dozens of product forums, answer questions about those specific products.  Then there's the Content Exchange where people share some of the cool stuff they build so that other THWACKsters can just download and use it.

I've been on THWACK going on 12 years now and it's one of the joys of my day - spending time (even if it's virtual) with other IT professionals.