In This Edition:

• 5 Out-of-This-World Offers
• 4 Alien Invaders That Can Destroy Network Performance
• 3 New Toolset Tools That Are Simply Stellar
• 2 Time-Savers for Renewing Maintenance
• 1 Amazing Product Tip for Orion APM
• Blast Off to Astronomical Performance

You and your crew have quite a mission ahead of you – to ensure great performance as your network’s complexity surpasses that of the control system on the International Space Station. Never fear, we can help with your flight plan. This month, we have a countdown list that will fuel your network’s engine, taking it where no network has gone before. With SolarWinds aboard, you can avoid the black holes and deliver the ultimate performance payload!

We’re starting the countdown sequence with five great offers that will send you into orbit this September, including three popular products on sale for only $995. They are stacked and ready, so don’t delay!

$995 Sale on ipMonitor – Save $1000!
(Limit 10 – Offer Ends 9/25/09)

Find out if all systems are a go on your network with this award-winning, up/down monitoring product. ipMonitor delivers out-of-the-box, entry-level monitoring that is perfect for keeping up with an unlimited number of network devices, servers, and applications. Plus, ipMonitor includes a built-in database and Web server, so you don’t need to install anything else – making it fast, affordable, and easy to use in any environment by IT professionals of all levels.

Try ipMonitor Free »

$995 Sale on LANsurveyor – Save $1000!
(Limit 10 – Offer Ends 9/25/09)

T-minus mere minutes to a complete map of your network: LANsurveyor automatically discovers your LAN or WAN and produces comprehensive, easy-to-view network diagrams that integrate OSI Layer 2 and Layer 3 topology data (including switch-to-switch, switch-to-node, and switch-to-router port connections). With two mouse clicks, this data can be exported into Microsoft Office® Visio® and easily shared with your crew.

Try LANsurveyor Free »

$995 Sale on Engineer’s Toolset – Save $395!
(Limit 10 – Offer Ends 9/25/09)

Once you’ve experienced Engineer’s Toolset, you’ll never troubleshoot your network the same way again. It includes an advanced collection of must-have network management tools, all of which can be easily accessed through an innovative Workspace Studio to quickly resolve issues right from your desktop. Strap on your space helmet and discover why thousands of network engineers rely on Engineer’s Toolset everyday!

Try Toolset Free »

Save 25% on Orion IP SLA Manager:
Early Adopter Pricing on This Pre-Release Module
(Hurry – Offer Ends 9/28/09)

Orion® IP SLA Manager – the newest module of Orion Network Performance Monitor – allows you to carefully monitor WAN performance from the perspective of each of your sites, by tracking key edge-to-edge router performance statistics using Cisco® IP SLA technology. As the next generation of the Orion VoIP Monitor module, Orion IP SLA Manager is a powerful solution to identify site-specific or WAN-related network performance issues from the perspective of each site. Save big before this module lands at the end of the month with a 25% discount for early adopters!

Learn More »

Become a SolarWinds Certified Professional
& Save $50 On Your Exam!
(Hurry – Offer Ends 9/30/09)

Are you a network geek? Finally, you can let the rest of the inter-galactic geek population know with our new certification program. Demonstrate your expertise in network management and showcase your skills by becoming a SolarWinds Certified Professional™ (SCP)! Plus, you can take the exam for only $100 — a $50 savings! — when you register for the exam before 9/30/09 using PROMO CODE SCPFREE50!

Learn More »

There are a couple of things we all hate – like alien invasions and slow network performance, both of which result in unhappy earthlings. You can’t do much about aliens, but you can avoid slow performance on your network.

Less than an hour after you start installing Orion Network Performance Monitor, you’ll be able to see a space-aged dashboard that shows you exactly what’s running slow on your network. Top 10 lists for the longest response times and the devices losing the most packets give you valuable defensive intelligence. Additionally, Orion will quickly identify invaders on your network that can destroy performance, such as:

• Your Cisco® 3750’s CPU is pegged because the 5th floor accountants are playing The Sims® during their lunch hour.
• Your Riverbed® Steelhead® 1020 has an average XMIT Utilization of 98% because the engineering department is streaming videos from the latest episode of “The Big Bang Theory.”
• Your Dell® PowerEdge® Server is running low on disk space because the sales team is uploading their weekend wakeboarding videos.
• Your Extreme Networks® Summit 24 switch is dropping packets because the support team is watching the new “District 9” trailer.

Learn More About Orion NPM »

Our developers have been busy designing some stellar new gadgets for Engineer’s Toolset, which offers up a powerful collection of must-have tools for managing and troubleshooting your network. In case you tuned out while you were out on your spacewalk, here’s what’s new:

CDP/LLDP Neighbor Map Gadget
Have you been struggling with the “big picture” when it comes to network topology? Find out how your galaxy of devices and their interfaces are connected using this new gadget, which enables you to discover devices on your network using CDP and LLDP, generate a topology map of network devices connected to a specific target device or group of devices, and display each device and the associated interfaces used to connect to neighboring devices.

WAN Killer Gadget
Let’s say that your company has several inter-planetary offices and you’re thinking about running video conferencing through your network. On top of that, someone decided to allow employees to stream YouTube® and Pandora® at their leisure. You need to get a better understanding of your network’s throughput capacity. WAN Killer to the rescue; this tool generates simulated network traffic over your WAN, enabling you to adjust the packet size, circuit bandwidth, and the percentage of bandwidth to your heart’s desire.

MAC Finder Gadget
Tired of spending hours cross-referencing ARP tables with switch ports to find a specific device? The MAC Finder Gadget does it for you! This gadget searches a list of switches and discovers the IP address associated with a particular MAC address. Use that extra time for some extra hours with the online shuttle flight simulator.

Learn More About Toolset »

To complete your mission successfully, you need the latest and greatest tools for the job. Keeping your maintenance up-to-date gives you access to the latest versions of your SolarWinds products, technical support, additional product components, and more! Here are two easy ways to renew:

Co-terming: Stop Getting Multiple Maintenance Renewal Notifications
Simplify renewing maintenance on all of your SolarWinds products by co-terming to a single renewal date. Co-terming enables you to pick a date for maintenance renewal for all of your products, regardless of when they were purchased. That means you just have to keep track of one date, instead of multiple renewal dates.

If your renewal date is fast approaching, email maintenance@solarwinds.com to get a quote on co-terming. It's a quick process that makes it easy to keep your SolarWinds products up-to-date!

Online Renewal: Renew With a Few Clicks
If you want to renew maintenance for 12 months, it’s easy to do online in your customer portal with just a few clicks. Log in and choose "License Management". From there, click on the "renew" buttons for each product you'd like to renew. It's just that easy!

The latest version of Orion Application Performance Monitor includes the ability to monitor file ages. This handy feature checks the last modified date on a file and compares it to the current date in order to calculate the age of the file in hours. The file age is then reported as a statistic, enabling you to create alerts based on file age. Why would you use it? Let’s say your organization has a critical file that should not be changed (e.g., it’s material to SOX compliance). You can set up an alert that fires if the age of the file is ever < 10 minutes.

To set up a file age monitor:

1. Go to Orion APM Settings.
2. Click “Create New Application Monitor”.
3. Click “Add Component Monitor”.
4. Choose “File Age Monitor” under the folder “File Component Monitors”.
5. Specify the file path.
6. Specify age warning and critical threshold based on file age.
7. Name the template something creative like “Age of MyFile”.
8. Apply the template to the appropriate server.
9. Enjoy monitoring your file!

Congratulations, you have successfully completed your mission. Remember to visit SolarWinds online for more products, tools, and tips if you find yourself out in space… floating in a tin can… wondering how to improve network performance.