SolarWinds Polling Engine Overview

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Contents
SolarWinds (SW) .................................................................................................................... 3
Best Practice ............................................................................................................................ 3
Benefits ..................................................................................................................................... 4
Implementation Steps ............................................................................................................. 5
Requirements ........................................................................................................................... 5

Hosting.................................................................................................................................... 6
Overview ................................................................................................................................... 6
Location .................................................................................................................................... 6
Power ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Climate ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Security ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Fire Prevention ......................................................................................................................... 7
Certificates ............................................................................................................................... 7
Network & Connectivity ........................................................................................................... 7
Servers ...................................................................................................................................... 8
Backups .................................................................................................................................... 8
Incident Response/Disaster Recovery ................................................................................... 8

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SolarWinds (SW)

Best Practice
With the use case of having to monitor multiple segregated client networks, the best
practise is implementing SolarWinds monitoring to a cloud hosted platform, with the use
of additional polling engines operating within the internal client network to extend the
centralized monitoring across remote sites.

Centralized Deployment with Additional Polling Engines (APE)

A connection is created between the primary and remote sites using APE. The APE
collects the monitored data from nodes, and continually transmits the data to the orion
platform server.

Each APE uses Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) to cache data locally on the polling
engine.

In the event of connectivity loss to the Orion platform, the data is cached locally and
synced back to the Orion SQL database once the connection is restored.

The amount of data that may be cached depends on the amount of disk space available
on the polling engine.

The below image illustrates the best practice configuration for additional polling engines.

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Benefits
 Administer nodes, users, alerts and reports centrally.
 Specify the polling engine that collects data for monitored nodes and reassign
nodes between polling engines.
 Reduce security footprint by allowing single IP address through firewall.
 Total of 6 ports required to facilitate monitoring between polling engine and orion
platform server.
 Polling engine will cache polled data in case of connectivity loss. And sync with the
main orion platform server once connectivity has been restored.
 Encrypted traffic between the APE and Orion platform.

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 Implementation Steps
Step Item Responsible
1 Create an on-premises virtual machine configured with the hardware – and port Customer
profiles to communicate with the cloud server.
2 Install and configure the polling engine to communicate with the cloud server. RDB
3 Configure the monitored nodes to use the specific polling engine. RDB
4 Check polling engines are successfully relaying data between remote site and RDB
cloud platform.

Requirements
The following is required from the customer to install and run the Additional Polling
Engine (APE).

Virtual Machine (Local Network)

 Quad core processor or better.
 32 GB RAM.
 Storage: 150 GB, 15,000 RPM.
 1 x 1 Gb dedicated NIC.
 Windows Server 2022, 2019, or 2016, Standard or Datacentre Edition.
 Local network access to the monitored nodes.

Firewall Port Specification

The following ports are required between APE and Orion Server to ensure basic
monitoring. The Orion Server public IP is 102.135.162.92 (solarwinds.rdbconsulting.com).

Port Protocol Service / Process Direction Description

161 UDP SolarWinds Job Engine Outbound The port used by the additional polling engine (APE) to query
for SNMP information on the device and to send it to the APE.
162 UDP SolarWinds Trap Inbound The port used by the APE for receiving trap messages from
Service devices.
1433 TCP SolarWinds Collector Outbound The port used for communication between the APE and
Service the SolarWinds Platform database.
1434 UDP SQL Browse Service Outbound The port used for communication with the SQL Server
Browser Service (SolarWinds Platform database) and
the APE to determine how to communicate with certain non-
standard SQL Server installations. Required only if your SQL
Server is configured to use dynamic ports.
5671 TCP RabbitMQ Outbound The port used for SSL-encrypted RabbitMQ messaging from
the main polling engine to the additional polling engine.

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17777 TCP SolarWinds Bidirectional The port used for communication between the additional
polling engine and the main polling engine.
Information
Service

Network Latency
The latency (RTT) between each APE and the Orion Server should be below 200 ms.

Hosting

Overview
Our hosting requirements are being fulfilled by HostAfrica. They are rated the top ISP on
Hello Peter and have the highest rated support department, which was the biggest
determining factor for us when selecting a hosting provider.

Location
The servers are hosted in the Xneelo Samrand Data Centre Park. The facility is not in a
direct flight path or low-lying area and is centrally located between Johannesburg and
Pretoria with a major power substation close by.

A geotechnical audit has been done to ensure ground stability.

TIER 3 Data Centre

Uptime guarantee 99.982%
Downtime per year <1.6 hours
Component redundancy Full N+1

Power
An 11kV power supply from the municipal power utility energises a fault-tolerant, medium-
voltage ring that powers two separate low-voltage 2MVA energy centres.

These A- and B feeds power mission-critical infrastructure. They provide seamless

electrical failover with their own emergency backup power systems in the event of a
power failure.

They have on-site fuel storage sufficient to run our generators for 7 days’ continuously.
The UPS’s provide always-on power, with a battery standby time of 30 minutes.

The power availability to colocation racks has been 100%.

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 Climate
The system uses free cooling and cold aisle containment technology, reducing the
reliance on active cooling, resulting in significant power savings. They’ve achieved a
favourable average PUE score year on year, which today stands at 1.2.

Security
The perimeter fence is backed by high voltage barriers, supported by the latest video
surveillance technology and response systems.

All access zones inside and outside the data centre, including racks, are monitored by
video surveillance.

Access to the data centre is controlled by biometric access control systems.

Onsite security personnel are on site 24×7.

Fire Prevention
The facility is custom-designed for low fire risk, with a Very Early Smoke Detection
Apparatus (VESDA) installed to trigger alarms at even the slightest hint of smoke
particles.

There are no flammable materials present in the ‘white space’ in the Data Centre and all
cabling is fire-retardant.

Certificates
SAQ D

Network & Connectivity

The Data Centre is carrier neutral and cross connects are available to the INX-ZA internet
exchange. The network is built on Juniper technology with the following features:
 Redundant fibre routes
 Multiple uplinks to data centre
 Automated DDoS mitigation
 24/7 network monitoring
 40 Gbps Juniper Backbone

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 Servers
Model: Dell PowerEdge R630
CPU Cores: 2 CPU - Xeon E5-2620 @ 2.00GHz (16 cores 32 threads)
Memory Size: 64 GB
Disk Size: 1TB (2 x 0.5TB SSD)
RAID configuration: RAID 1 (Mirrored)
Operating System Windows Server 2022
Fixed Public IP: 102.135.162.92
DNS Hostname: solarwinds.rdbconsulting.com

 24/7 Monitoring for all critical services and hardware health.

 ECC Memory.
 Dual power supplies.

Backups
 Server is backed up on a weekly basis using Acronis backup agents.

Incident Response/Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery is implemented using the Acronis cloud solution allowing for full bare
metal or single file recovery. The backup location can be either locally targeted or cloud
based with full AES-256 encryption.

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