Announcing SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability 2022.2

We are very excited to announce the first release candidate of our new solution, SolarWinds^® Hybrid Cloud Observability 2022.2, is now available. Hybrid Cloud Observability is the culmination of much thought, design, and work to securely deliver simpler solutions that align with our customers’ desires.

Security Always

First and foremost, we focus on securely coding, building, and delivering software to you, as represented 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 aligned with our Secure by Design philosophy, enhancing our ability to execute on that vision now and in the future.

Bringing IT All Together

The overarching vision for Hybrid Cloud Observability was to deliver more actionable insights to our customers by unifying data from across their IT environments into one comprehensive observability solution. We also wanted to make the evolution from monitoring to observability easy for our customers, while simultaneously reducing build complexity and improving security.

To do this, we didn’t start from scratch, but leveraged the existing capabilities of the Orion Platform as a foundation, while simplifying and streamlining the code, builds, installs, and packaging. These improvements will streamline installs and upgrades and accelerate the quarterly delivery of new and improved functionality.

SolarWinds Platform

The new platform, called the SolarWinds Platform, is a single install, with all capabilities and scalability components included. Specific features and functionalities are controlled by the activation of your license keys. For the 2022.2 release, only Hybrid Cloud Observability licenses will be compatible with the new platform.

Note: If you are an Orion Platform module customer, all modules will be available on the new SolarWinds Platform in an upcoming release

Simplified Packaging

Not only did we bring the code together under the covers, we also created a new solution that combines capabilities into tiers that align with user needs. The four Hybrid Cloud Observability tiers available in this release are:

1. Essentials
2. Essentials Enterprise Scale
3. Advanced
4. Advanced Enterprise Scale

To learn more about what functionality is available for each tier, check out the Hybrid Cloud Observability product page.

Improved Installer

A new platform and new packaging demanded an improved installer that provided both a simplified install experience for new customers and a robust upgrade capability for customers on the Orion Platform. The new installer has fewer steps and handles complex Orion installations with ease.

For a deep dive into the changes to the platform and installer, see Tony’s blog post about the SolarWinds Platform.

New Features

Along with the new platform, packaging, and installer, you’ll also get new features:

Hybrid Cloud Observability Essentials and Advanced

• Support Meraki SDWAN via the API to Orchestrator, including fault tolerance and performance and verification of configuration changes
• Migration of rules from legacy Syslog and traps to the new platform
• One license key activates the functionality you own
• Preview of alert and event correlation with AlertStack

Hybrid Cloud Observability Advanced

• New modern dashboard for network configurations
• Supports classification of application sources from Cisco, VeloCloud, Fortinet, and Citrix

Release Notes and More Help

Alas, as with all releases, especially ones of this magnitude, not every feature or capability makes it into the first release. These documents detail the features, fixes, limitations, and nuances of this release, especially important for customers who are upgrading from the Orion Platform.

• Hybrid Cloud Observability 2022.2 Release Notes
• SolarWinds Platform 2022.2 Release Notes
• Hybrid Cloud Observability documentation

How to Download

The Hybrid Cloud Observability 2022.2 release candidate is a fully tested and supported release ready for you to install on a new server or update your current Orion server.

• For all current Hybrid Cloud Observability customers who don’t own Storage Resource Monitor (SRM), Web Performance Monitor (WPM), or Engineer’s Toolset, you can log into your customer portal and download and upgrade now.
• For all current Hybrid Cloud Observability customers who own SRM, WPM or Engineer’s Toolset, contact customerservice@solarwinds.com to discuss your upgrade options.
• If you don’t own Hybrid Cloud Observability but would like to try it, you can download a 30-day free trial. Note this evaluation version will not upgrade Orion installations.

What’s Next?

Hybrid Cloud Observability 2022.2 is a huge first step in the migration to the new platform, but we aren’t done yet. Check out our What We’re Working On post for what’s coming next for both the platform and features.

-- The Hybrid Cloud Observability Team