In This Edition:
It's that time again — time to think about getting your abs, your network and your engineering skills in tip-top shape for the new year. Before heading off to the gym to start sculpting that new six pack, check out these six tips for shaping up your network and expanding your network engineering awesomeness.
Our Head Geek, Josh Stephens, loves to trade networking tips, so he's been busy filming videos, hosting webcasts, blogging on current networking issues, and creating comprehensive guides on a wide variety of network management topics.
Now we've collected all this geeky goodness into Geek Speak, a resource-rich website where you can find answers to your toughest network management questions. So instead of firing up your Wii Fit™, give your brain a workout instead:
VISIT THE GEEK SPEAK SITE >
SolarWinds is heading to the Olympics®, ensuring networks at the Winter Games will deliver gold-medal performances.
When faced with the huge challenge of managing the broadcast of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium decided to rely on SolarWinds Orion products for network monitoring and management.
Over the 10 days of games, Orion Performance Monitor (NPM) will allow the team to quickly detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance problems and outages. And in the event of network equipment failure, the Consortium will rely on Orion Network Configuration Manager (NCM) to quickly restore configurations.
Experience for yourself why this leading broadcaster has relied on Orion for years to manage networks that serve more than 5000 employees across over 30 locations.
Try Orion NPM Free for 30 Days >
Try Orion NCM Free for 30 Days >
Read More About Technologies at the Winter Olympics >
January is a great time to assess the tools in your toolkit and determine what you need in order to make your job easier. Here's a checklist of some tools in our award-winning Engineer's Toolset that every network engineer should have at hand.
 Network Diagnostics Tools – Perform robust network diagnostics with tools including Ping Sweep, DNS Analyzer, and Trace Route.
View all diagnostic tools »
Network Discovery Tools – Deploy an array of network discovery tools including Port Scanner, Switch Port Mapper, and Advanced Subnet Calculator.
View all discovery tools »
Real-Time Monitoring and Alerting Tools – Monitor and alert in real time with tools like Real-Time Interface Monitor, SNMP Real-Time Graph, and Advanced CPU Load.
View all monitoring tools »
Specialized Tools for Cisco® Environments – Manage Cisco devices with specialized tools including Real-time NetFlow Analyzer, Config Downloader, and Config Compare.
View all Cisco tools »
Download a Free Trial of Engineer's Toolset >
Remember, if you're using Orion and don't have your copy of Engineer's Toolset you're missing half the solution. Orion NPM and Engineer's Toolset are integrated so you can go from identifying performance issues to fixing them with a single click!
Get your hands on these must-have tools today. Fire up a FREE trial of Engineer's Toolset!
Download a Free Trial of Engineer's Toolset >
If you haven't joined thwack, the SolarWinds community site, you're missing out on a wealth of geeky goods. Check out some of the ways thwack members are helping each other trick out Orion Network Performance Monitor.
Rock Your Orion with Google Earth™ Maps!
Hot Topic Alert: the thwack community is buzzing about the integration of Orion NPM maps with Google Earth. Check out tips, instructions, and sample maps in these two threads to see how you can rock your own Orion implementation:
Get Groovy with Live Weather Maps
Speaking of maps, integrating Orion NPM with live weather maps is another cool way to spiff up Orion. Your fellow geeks have even provided multiple solutions for accomplishing this feat:
Ramp Up Your Reporting Game with New Templates
The thwack Content Exchange is a great place to find new report templates to impress your team and wow your boss. Here are a few of our favorites:
Why pay for seminars and expensive technical manuals when you can learn almost anything you want to know, online and for free? For example, every month our Head Geek hosts an informative webcast on topics suggested by the SolarWinds community. This is your year to benefit from these sessions!
Live Webcast: Prepare for Network Management Success in 2010
Register Now >
Join our Head Geek, Josh Stephens, as he discusses the top technologies, trends, and practices you'll want to keep in mind as you plan your 2010 network management strategy. Choose your session:
On-Demand Webcasts
Start the new year right by watching some of our most popular on-demand webcasts:
- Quality of Service, Part 1: learn about different types of QoS, best practices for implementing QoS, monitoring practices, QoS monitoring applications and more!
- Quality of Service, Part 2: do a deep dive on super-technical topics like traffic shaping, scheduling and queuing algorithms, congestion avoidance, and CBQoS.
- How Network Management Systems Work: get in-touch with the technologies behind network management like SNMP, WMI, MIBs, OIDs, counters, and network polling.
View All On-Demand Webcasts >
Are you a true network geek? Finally, you can let the rest of the world know! Make 2010 the year that you demonstrate your expertise in network management by becoming a SolarWinds Certified Professional™ (SCP)!
An SCP can do the following:
- Identify and resolve network issues and performance trends
- Collect and analyze network monitoring data to determine causes of network faults
- Define, monitor, and report on SLAs
- Determine the impact of network topology on the network
- Deploy and use Orion NPM on a corporate or governmental network
Learn More About Certification >
Download the SCP Prep Guide >
Start Studying at Our Learning Center >
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