SolarWinds Platform and Products Releases - Version 2022.3 is Now Generally Available

bmrad over 1 year ago 7 minute read time

We’re excited to announce a new release for the SolarWinds^® Platform, Hybrid Cloud Observability, and related individual modules. Version 2022.3 is now available for all customers under maintenance, so log into the customer portal to download. Want to see everything that’s new? Check out our release notes.

Completed migration of the Orion Platform modules to the SolarWinds Platform

This release completes the migration of all the individual Orion^® Platform modules to the new SolarWinds Platform. We have described these changes in a previous post, but a simple way to think of it is:

If you’re running version 2020.2.6 or earlier, it’s the Orion Platform with one or more modules installed.
When you upgrade or install new from version 2022.3 onwards, you’re using the SolarWinds Platform and will have one or more products licensed.

The SolarWinds Platform introduces new features such as instant evaluation for evaluating Hybrid Cloud Observability or individual modules instantly, without additional downloads, installs, downtime, or uninstalls.

Product releases

The completion of the above work allows us to release all our classic a la carte products as well as our new Hybrid Cloud Observability products on the SolarWinds Platform. With this unified approach to installation, we’re also simplifying the versioning with a single version for each release covering all products.

The following products are available now on the 2022.3 release of the SolarWinds Platform.

Hybrid Cloud Observability

Hybrid Cloud Observability Essentials
Hybrid Cloud Observability Essentials Enterprise Scale
Hybrid Cloud Observability Advanced
Hybrid Cloud Observability Advanced Enterprise Scale

Modules

IP Address Manager (IPAM)
Log Analyzer (LA)
NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Server & Application Monitor (SAM)
Server Configuration Monitor (SCM)
Storage Resource Monitor (SRM)
User Device Tracker (UDT)
Virtualization Manager (VMAN)
VoIP & Network Quality Manager (VNQM)
Web Performance Monitor (WPM)

Other

Enterprise Operations Console (EOC)
Network Automation Manager (NAM)

Update considerations

Given the new SolarWinds Platform installs all these products, you may have some concerns about resource requirements for 2022.3. Never fear; we’re here to allay your concerns — check out this update scenario Tony J. and Kevin S. discussed recently during a THWACK^® Livecast.

Question: I have Network Performance Monitor (NPM) 2020.2.6 with a commercial license key. Can I update to 2022.3?

Yes. The 2022.3 release is applicable to everyone who has an Orion Platform module installed. Although the multiple SolarWinds applications you see listed in “installed software” are uninstalled prior to upgrading, the process will feel familiar, and like previous updates, we’ll maintain the current database. Afterward, you’ll still have your NPM commercial key activated, nothing changes with your licensing, and the new features included in NPM will be available.

It’s worth mentioning the SolarWinds Platform is already in use by our Hybrid Cloud Observability customers since April of this year, with new installs and updates completed across simple and complex environments.

Syslog/traps migration

The classic Syslog and trap functionality has been removed and replaced with the new logging capabilities (Log Viewer and Log Analyzer) in the SolarWinds Platform. During the upgrade, your log and event history will be preserved, most of your rules will be migrated, and any unmigrated rules will be noted and preserved for review. See the SolarWinds Platform release notes for more details.

Features

Since the SolarWinds Platform release spanned the 2022.2 and 2022.3 releases, some features have been available for Hybrid Cloud Observability customers. However, for this blog post, we’ll list them and reference the previous announcement where appropriate.

Feature	Hybrid Cloud Observability	Modules and Bundles
Meraki monitoring	Yes	NPM, NTA, and NAM
New network configuration dashboard	Yes	NCM and NAM
Classification of flow source	Yes	NTA and NAM
Instant Evaluation	Yes	Yes
Flexible Licensing	Yes	No
Primera array support	No	SRM
Migration of Syslog and traps	Yes	Yes
SNMP v3 SHA/256/512	Yes	Yes

Enhanced Meraki monitoring—available in Hybrid Cloud Observability, NPM, NTA, and NAM

Meraki SD-WAN monitoring is achieved through an API at the controller level to orchestrate the monitoring. With this capability we get fault tolerance (status up/down), performance (warning/critical), and verification of changes (trust-but-verify) insights. With the Orchestrator API for Meraki, we can now monitor edge devices individually without losing sight of the “big picture.”
The default SD-WAN map shows the devices, their connections, and dependencies. It also includes integration points in Hybrid Cloud Observability Advanced for flow and configuration information.
With SD-WAN support for Meraki, high availability monitoring with the status of primary, secondary, and peers is also possible.
Additionally, you can monitor the managed status of edge devices for aspects like: Are all edge devices managed in Hybrid Cloud Observability? Default discovery profile to quickly discover and manage devices.

Network configuration dashboard—Hybrid Cloud Observability Advanced, NCM, and NAM

A new network configuration dashboard is now available, showing key network configuration metrics, and was built using the Modern Dashboards tool in the SolarWinds Platform.

The default view is still the classic view, but you can launch the new dashboard by clicking the message banner.

Classification of application source—Hybrid Cloud Observability Advanced, NTA, and NAM

With this release, you can receive application classification from VeloCloud, Cisco, Fortinet, and Citrix.

Also, NTA now groups the common flows together.

There are six icons representing the source in this screenshot:

Unknown
Cisco
Citrix
Multi-vendor
Fortigate
VMware SASE (formerly VeloCloud)

New licensing features

With the new SolarWinds Platform, we added simplified node-based licensing to support Hybrid Cloud Observability via instant evaluation and flexible licensing.

Instant evaluation

Once you’ve updated to 2022.3, functionality is controlled by licensing, so you can evaluate any other module or Hybrid Cloud Observability without download, install, downtime, or uninstall. Simply go to the License Manager page, pick the product you want to try, and turn it on. You’ll have access to full functionality for 30 days. And while turning on new functionality should have minimal impact on your server, adding more things to monitor will increase resource consumption.

Hybrid Cloud Observability only: Flexible licensing

Hybrid Cloud Observability customers get flexible licensing and the ability to split a single key across multiple servers via the GUI (no calls to customer support or customer service required). This is an excellent solution for customers with multiple installs but also a great way to set up long-running lab environments without purchasing additional licenses.

Example: If you buy 100 nodes, you can deploy 70 nodes on one server and 25 nodes on a second server (another location or a lab server) and hold five in reserve. If you decide later you need 80 nodes on the first server, you can adjust the quantities by deactivating the licenses and reactivating them with different quantities (80 and 20, respectively). The customer portal will show you where all your licenses are activated.

Other features

Support for monitoring SNMP devices via SNMPv3 SHA256/512
SRM only: HP Primera support

Security Always

We focus on securely coding, building, and delivering software to you, as we shared in our blog SolarWinds Aims to Set New Standard in Software Development With Next-Generation Build System. The choices we made in forging the SolarWinds Platform align with our Secure by Design philosophy, enhancing our ability to execute on this vision now and in the future.

How to Download

The 2022.3 release is fully tested and supported, ready for you to install on a new server or update your current one.

For all current Hybrid Cloud Observability customers, the release is available now. You can log into your customer portal and download it.
For all current module and bundle customers, the release is available now. You can log into your customer portal and select “download.”
If you don’t own Hybrid Cloud Observability but would like to try it, there are a couple of options for you:
- Download a 30-day free trial and install it on a new server.
- If you’re a current module or bundle customer, upgrade to 2022.3 first and then use the new instant evaluation feature to try Hybrid Cloud Observability for 30 days with only a click of a button. And don’t worry; you can switch back to your modules anytime.

What’s next?

The 2022.3 release of the platform and products is a huge first step, but we aren’t done yet. Check out our What We’re Working On post for what’s coming next for the platform and its features.

-- The Hybrid Cloud Observability Team