Weekly Update

New look... Same great stuff!

Dawn_L — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:26:00 GMT

New thwack home page

You might have noticed that the thwack home page is new today! We have added more content items and have made it a single click to get to your posts! What do you think?

Who wants another Free Tool?

Dawn_L — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:57:00 GMT

Network Config Generator:

SolarWinds does it again! Download this free tool and in less time than it takes to say “C-L-I”, you can be running config templates that automatically configure both common and advanced network device features.

Geeks Guides:

Have you seen the new Geek Speak site? It has tons of learning materials: videos, white papers as well as free downloads!

Happy New Year!

Dawn_L — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:42:00 GMT

Win $10 Amazon Gift Card!

Take the survey in the Customer Portal and tell us what you think and the first 100 participants get the gift card! Log into the customer portal and click on the survey banner!

New Geek Speak Site

After years of living at home... Josh finally has his own place!!! Come and see the new Geek Speak site that is so much more than just Josh's blog!

If you are looking for informaiton on any of the following topics, Josh has complied his favorite references (videos, blog posts, documents, etc.) just for us.

Geek Guide to Network Monitoring Fundamentals

Geek Guide to Network Troubleshooting: Automating everyday tasks & get tips for bandwidth monitoring, isolating issues, & simplifying config management.

Geek Guide to IP Address Management

Geek Guide to Config Management

Geek Guide to Application Monitoring

Geek Guide to NetFlow Learn how to use NetFlow to find network bottlenecks & shut down bandwidth hogs.

Geek Guide to IP SLA

Geek Guide to Cisco IOS ®: Learn how to unlock the potential of NetFlow, IP SLA, EnergyWise, & more.

Geek Guide to Quality of Service (QoS)

Happy December!

Dawn_L — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:44:00 GMT

New Search

You have asked for years that we improve the search on thwack... and we have launched the first portion of a project to improve the search in the thwack site. The next portions will help bridge search across the SolarWinds sites. Would love to hear comments on what you think of the new version of search!

Private Forums Search

If you are involved in a private forum (like for product betas) then the search results for those items will appear in the right hand column on the results page.

Newsletter

The December newsletter Solar Ink is out! If you missed it, sign up here and see old versions.

Weekly Update 11/23/09

Dawn_L — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:22:00 GMT

Are you New to Networking?

See the latest of the our New to Networking Series: Vol 3 - NetFlow Basics and Deployment Strategies

What does your NPM home screen look like?

See what others see (on their home screen) on this community thread... and share yours!

Our first SCP in Costa Rica!

Congrats to Fabian M Alfaro Monge, our first SCP in Costa Rica! Are you an SolarWinds Certified Professional (SCP)? If not... get started here!

Weekly Update 11/13/09

Dawn_L — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:09:00 GMT

5. Happy Friday the 13th Everyone!

New Forum Pages

You might have noticed the newly released Forum home page. Hope you like the new design and navigation! If you have suggestions or comments, let us know in the SolarWinds --> thwack feedback board!

Upcoming Webinar

Join Josh on November 19th for the upcoming webinar: QOS Part 2

Josh will cover:

1. Quick refresher on QoS

2. Traffic shaping

3. Scheduling and Queuing Algorithms

4. Congestion Avoidance

5. Cisco’s Class Based Quality of Service or CBQoS

All the tips you need to be an expert!

Dawn_L — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:39:00 GMT

Tips and Tidbits

Have you seen the latest of our tips and tidbits? If you want to add "Poll Now" resource to NPM node views or check your IOS level or export and import advanced alerts then check out the great new tips!

New to Networking

Be sure not to miss the latest in our new to networking series: vol 3 - NetFlow Basics and Deployment Strategies

Orion Blog

Orion Integration with Engineer's Toolset

Application Performance Rule of Three – Active, Passive and User Experience

thwack Weekly Update 10/23/09

Dawn_L — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:48:00 GMT

Orion Blog

Have you seen it? You have asked for more tips from the pros... and the PMs have listened! The new Orion Blog is full of tips, tricks, how-to info and even the occasional PM inspiration story! Here are a couple of recent posts:

Orion Alerting: Why all and any are good, but none—not so much Secrets of Orion's Advanced Alert Engine and why you should love it!

Status Unknown in APM Not sure what it is or why you are getting the Status Unknown? Aaron has answers.

Orion NCM Server and NCM Integration Module – what goes where? Chris gives info on how to integrate and enable Orion NPM and NCM.

Why is the web console slow? Brandon gives the most common reasons and solutions.

Weekly Update 9/29

Dawn_L — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:06:00 GMT

Meet IP SLA Manager (VoIP's big brother)

SolarWinds has officially released IP SLA Manager, formerly know as VoIP Monitor. This release includes new IP SLA operations to compliment the existing VoIP functionality in the product. If you're an existing VoIP customer, simply download and install the version in your portal over your existing VoIP installation, and apply the new license key. If you're a new customer, download and install the Evaluation version and try it free for 30 days. Below is a complete list of the operations supported in IP SLA Manager. Let us know what you think!

• HTTP – Measure the round-trip time to access a Web page
• FTP – Measure the round-trip time to transfer a file
• DNS – Measure the DNS look-up time (time to request and receive a reply)
• DHCP – Measure the round-trip time to retrieve an IP address
• TCP Connect – Measure connection time, which is useful for application and server monitoring
• UDP Jitter – Measure round-trip delay, one-way delay, one-way jitter, and one-way packet loss
• VoIP UDP Jitter – Measure VoIP call path metrics
• ICMP Echo – Measure round-trip delay
• UDP Echo – Measure response times between IP SLA nodes using IP

The Orion IP Address Manager v1.5 has officially launched!

To learn more about the new Preventative Alerting and DHCP Scope Monitoring and other highlights of this release look at the release notes.

Weekly Update 9/03/09

Dawn_L — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:42:00 GMT

Vote for Thwack

Thwack has been nominated for a website award! Go here to see our full nomination or to vote for thwack.

Congrats on the new SCPs

Matthew in the UK.

Mike in the US.

Marc in the Netherlands.

and Elias in Mexico.

Special Thanks to ECornwell

ECornwell has been giving so much help to so many! Thanks ECornwell!

Weekly Update 8/14

Dawn_L — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:12:00 GMT

APM3.0

APM 3.0 is here! Take a look at the direct integration with the thwack content exchange! Saves you time and money! For other recent product updates, check here.

New to Networking and Network Management?

If you are fairly new to the industry and done a few web searches, you have probably found the wealth of information about networking available out there. Some information is recent, some is old, some is very detailed and some very high-level. It can be difficult to find the basics without having to go out and purchase a book that insults your intelligence right in the title! We have started a New to Networking series of papers aimed at boiling down the information to something that is to the point, useful and easy to understand. Check out New to Networking Volume 1 – The Basics of Application Management.

SCP in China!

Congrats to our first Chinese SCP Adam Zhou (wuhanzhou)!

New Free Tool

Dawn_L — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:48:00 GMT

WMI Monitor

All you free tool fans will be excited to know there is a new free tool out! Go download the new WMI Monitor! Make quick and easy work of setting up WMI monitoring for your Windows servers!

Does SolarWinds get your vote?

The 2009 Community Choice Awards (CCA), presented by Windows IT Pro and SQL Server Magazine allow users to decide what IT products should get the glory! They want to hear from the folks who really know what works, the IT pros, DBAs, and developers… So, please take a moment to nominate SolarWinds for the Best Network Management Product here (http://windowsitpro.com/awards/CommunityChoice.html)… And here’s a hint, you have to clink the “next” link to get the Network Management category.

Weekly Update 7/23/09

Dawn_L — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:57:00 GMT

Join our most popular Webcast!

Josh will explain the different types of Quality of Service (QoS), best practices for deploying and monitoring QoS, he will demonstrate monitoring applications and will even answer the tough when and why to deploy questions. To join us, register here.

Kiwi Syslog v9

We launched v9 of the popular Kiwi Syslog software this week. For more info on the release, watch Josh's video here.

Are you an SolarWinds Certified Professional (SCP)?

Why not? Check out this recent review of the program. Go here for info on the certification, test and study guide.

Weekly Update 7/9/09

Dawn_L — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:16:00 GMT

Cisco Live

I enjoyed meeting many of you at Cisco Live! If you had your portrait done by Kennon, be sure to post it on thwack. Here are pictures that show several of the drawings and other fun pictures from the event! See the pictures here! For an overview of the whole event, Scott Hogg with Network World came to visit us in the booth and then shared his experiences on his blog.

In the DC area?

Josh is hosting a technical workshop at the Hyatt Dulles on July 15th. If you are in the D.C. area, come join us! Register here.

Cisco Live

Dawn_L — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:52:00 GMT

Take a peek into Cisco Live and the SW booth! See the pictures here!