Procyon Networks is very enthusiastic about the new software version of the Network Performance Monitor (NPM). The 2020.2 version once again proves how strong SolarWinds is in the further development of its modules.
We are happy to take you into what the NPM 2020.2 has to offer. First an overview:
Performance & scalability
- Performance improvement – loading speed up to 96% faster*
- 2,5x Increased scalability compared to version 2019.4*
Functionalities
- Upgrade planning
- Pre-stage functionality
- Software Development Kit (SDK) expanded
- Lowering of system requirements
- Orion Maps – your network at a glance
- Dashboards – the next level
Upgrading all SolarWinds servers in your environment in one central place in the web interface is now very easy. The complete upgrade workflow can be followed via the web interface. This means that the entire upgrade is automated.
The Pre-Stage functionality ensures that all necessary files are downloaded in advance, also to your additional servers. In addition, there is now SDK support for automated upgrades via the SolarWinds API. In short, the upgrade to the NPM 2020.2 causes much less downtime and is also carried out faster (automatically).
The system requirements for the NPM version 2020.2 have been lowered, compared to previous versions, to Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2012. So, if the mandatory upgrade to Windows Server 2016 was a hurdle for you, it has now been dropped.
With the NPM version 2020.2, Orion Maps is an increasingly better web version of the traditional Network Atlas Maps. With this new version, Orion Maps automatically shows dynamic information and offers more and more drawing features. A well-designed 'map' offers enormously valuable information in your dashboards.
The possibilities in the SolarWinds dashboards were already unparalleled. With the NPM 2020.2 SolarWinds has once again surpassed itself. The options for setting up these 'modern' dashboards, entirely according to your wishes and making them visual, have thus become more extensive. The basic layout of the 'modern' dashboard has changed from column to grid. You can therefore determine exactly where and in what form you want to see the required data. In addition, SolarWinds has added a huge number of widgets such as pie charts, KPI widgets, donuts, horizontal and vertical bars etc. These 'modern' dashboards are now available in addition to the familiar 'classic' dashboards. If you still use Grafana or Splunk for data visualization, you may no longer need those tools. Thanks to the data widget “Auto update”, your dashboard will be updated without having to refresh the web page. You will see changes displayed live.
The possibilities of SolarWinds are almost endless. Vision and knowledge are needed to set up insightful dashboards. Procyon Networks is happy to help you with this. Since the year 2000 we have been able to help countless organizations in the most diverse sectors. We aim to think along with you and look with a fresh view at the monitoring of your ICT network environment.
