In This Edition:

• 3 New Orion Products: NPM, NCM, & EOC!
• 3 Killer Features in Orion NPM v9.5
• 3 Reasons You Need Orion NCM v5.5
• 3 Crash Course Videos from Our Head Geek
• 3 Free Tools for Managing Your Network
• 3 Reasons to Visit Us at Cisco Live
• 3 Product Tips for the New Orion NPM & NCM

Good things come in threes, including your favorite Orion products. The keyboards in our dev department are still smoking from the hot code in these new releases. Check out the latest versions and see how you can start simplifying network management with these affordable products.

• Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) delivers award-winning fault and performance management that is built to affordably manage networks of all sizes with expandable modules and scalability engines. TRY IT NOW >

• Orion Network Configuration Manager (NCM) delivers easy-to-use network configuration and change management that can be used standalone or integrated seamlessly with Orion NPM. TRY IT NOW >

• Orion Enterprise Operations Console (EOC) delivers a consolidated command center for unified visibility into remote Orion deployments, providing at-a-glance insight into your geographically distributed networks. TRY IT NOW >

VIEW ALL PRODUCTS >

Version 9.5 of our award-winning Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) helps you save both kinds of green, with added support for Cisco® EnergyWise and cost-saving features like built-in wireless monitoring and the new Network Atlas mapping feature. See how you can save some green with these new features!

• Support for Cisco EnergyWise enables you to report on energy consumption and savings over specific time periods; to graphically compare maximum power consumption vs. current power consumption; and to preview EnergyWise policies using an intuitive energy management calendar. LEARN MORE >

• A new Integrated Wireless Poller extends Orion NPM's management to wireless thin and autonomous access points and their associated clients without having to purchase an additional module. Now you can monitor your wireless devices alongside your wired devices and leverage award-winning alerts, reports, and Top 10 lists! LEARN MORE >

• Advanced mapping with Network Atlas allows you to quickly and easily create custom network maps remotely from your desktop with drag-and-drop simplicity, so that you can view your network logically by floor, building, department, or geographic location. LEARN MORE >

LEARN MORE ABOUT ORION NPM >

TRY ORION NPM FOR FREE >

Orion Network Configuration Manager (NCM) can help you quickly track down problematic network configuration changes, while simplifying config management across complex, multi-vendor networks. If you haven't already, here are three great reasons to check out the latest version of this enterprise-class product.

• Complete integration with Orion NPM ensures that you get a comprehensive solution for managing configuration, fault, and performance across distributed networks. Through a single web console, you can upload and download configs, execute scripts, and access real-time availability statistics and configuration change history for all of your network devices. LEARN MORE >

• EnergyWise support makes it easy to schedule batch jobs to push EnergyWise IOS updates to your Cisco network devices and to enable and configure EnergyWise policies across your entire network with a few clicks. Plus, you'll receive real-time notification of unauthorized or inadvertent EnergyWise configuration changes. LEARN MORE >

• Real-time change notifications ensure that you know immediately when config changes occur– giving you more control, instant visibility, and improved security in your network environment. Additionally, this feature enables you to quickly isolate and eliminate a configuration change as the cause of a network problem. LEARN MORE >

LEARN MORE ABOUT ORION NCM >

TRY ORION NCM FOR FREE >

Our Head Geek, Josh Stephens, has a video camera and he's not afraid to use it. If you need a crash course on network management, or just an intro to our products, Josh is your man. Here are a few of our favorite new videos from our resident guru on all things geek.

• Managing 802.11 Wireless Networks: Get expert advice on managing wireless infrastructure as part of your enterprise network. WATCH NOW >

• Intro to Orion NPM: See why network engineers love Orion NPM's intuitive point-and-click interface with a tour of drill down maps, advanced alerting, powerful built-in reports, Top 10 lists, and more. WATCH NOW >

• Intro to Orion NCM: Get a guided tour of Orion NCM's powerful features, including configuration change detection, uploading and downloading configurations, running built-in inventory reports, and running a global config search. WATCH NOW >

VIEW MORE ORION VIDEOS >

EXPLORE ALL VIDEOS >

In case you missed it, we've released three new free tools in the last few months. Thousands of your fellow IT pros are using these tools to monitor their networks and manage their virtual environments... so what are you waiting for?

• IP Address Tracker frees you from the evils of spreadsheets, delivering powerful and simple-to-use features that give you a unified view of your IP address space and that enable you to manage it – all for free! DOWNLOAD NOW >

• IP SLA Monitor enables you to troubleshoot network slowdowns between sites and easily understand device-to-device performance using sophisticated Cisco® IP SLA operations. DOWNLOAD NOW >

• VM Monitor continuously monitors a VMware® ESX Server and its virtual machines. Track virtualization health at-a-glance and impress your boss with X-ray vision into your ESX Servers! DOWNLOAD NOW >

VIEW ALL FREE TOOLS >

We're headed to San Francisco for Cisco Live! Don't miss this opportunity to hang out with your SolarWinds product managers and let them know your deepest network management product desires. And, if that's not enough to entice you, here are three more motivators to swing by Booth #931:

• Pick up an irresistibly cool 1GB USB key loaded with free network management software…. Supplies are limited, so don’t dawdle.

• Get your own cartoon caricature drawn Head Geek-style, and pick up some other cool geeky items that you’ll have to see to believe.

• Participate in a product unveiling, complete with Mountain Dew® toast, then stick around to pick up some tips with Head Geek presentations every half hour.

LEARN MORE >

There are so many features to explore in our new Orion products, that we couldn't limit ourselves to just one tip this month. So (of course) we settled on three.

Tip #1: Using the New Unpluggable Port Mode in Orion NPM

You asked for it and we delivered. In the latest version of Orion NPM, you can configure user ports to prevent unnecessary alerts when users undock or shutdown their PCs, while continuing to monitor infrastructure ports for up/down status of critical devices. Here's how:

1. Within the Orion NPM web console, select Admin -> Manage Nodes.
2. Select the desired grouping and change the "show" dropdown to "interfaces."
3. Select the interfaces you wish to identify as unpluggable and select "Edit Properties" on the top toolbar.
4. Check the dialog "Display interface as unplugged rather than down" and select Submit.

TRY ORION NPM >

Tip #2: Using Orion NCM's Global Config Search to Troubleshoot Network Connectivity

From the Orion NCM web console, you can quickly perform a global search for specific text in your backed up configuration files, making it easy to track down an IP address or subnet in access controls lists across all of your router and switch configurations. Try this the next time you are troubleshooting connectivity issues between locations:

1. Backup up device configurations in Orion NCM for all relevant network devices.
2. Launch the Orion NCM web console.
3. Enter the IP address or subnet you want to search for in the search box in the upper right hand corner and click "Search."
4. From the search results page, you can select "Search whole word only" to limit your search to an exact IP address match.
5. Get busy troubleshooting!

TRY ORION NCM >

Tip #3: Managing Cisco EnergyWise with Orion

Cisco EnergyWise technology gives you a framework for discovering, monitoring, optimizing, and regulating energy needs for your business. The new releases of our Orion products can help you take advantage of these powerful capabilities. The Orion product family enables energy management with a few simple steps:

1. Run an Orion NPM EnergyWise readiness report to find all EnergyWise-supported devices on your network.
2. Use Orion NCM to complete a batch update of the IOS for each device to a level that supports EnergyWise features.
3. Select which energy policy settings you want to use to start managing your network's energy consumption.
4. Report on your network's energy consumption and savings from Orion's intuitive web console, which automatically recognizes EnergyWise-enabled devices.

TRY ORION NPM & ORION NCM >

New Resource Center for Cisco® Networks

For those of you managing networks with Cisco gear, check out our new resource center. We've put helpful videos, tools, tips, white papers, and webcasts all in one central location to ensure that you can quickly and easily learn how to harness the power of technologies like NetFlow, IP SLA, and EnergyWise, while picking up a few pointers on managing Nexus 1000v switches and more!

EXPLORE THE RESOURCES >