Free SolarWinds Hybrid-Cloud-Observability-Network-Monitoring Practice Exam with Questions & Answers | Set: 4

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SolarWinds NTA maps flow sources to nodes by matching the IP address. If a device exports flows using a secondary IP (not the one defined as "primary" in SolarWinds), and the setting "Allow matching by other IPs" is not enabled, the flow will not map to a known node. The documentation explains:

"If flow packets are received from an IP address not designated as primary in SolarWinds, and matching by other IPs is disabled, the flow source is not linked to a node. Enable the setting to match by any device IP to resolve this issue."

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Network Insight in SolarWinds supports in-depth monitoring for certain advanced switch platforms. According to the latest SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide:

"Network Insight for Cisco Nexus provides advanced visibility into the health, configuration, and performance of Nexus switches. This includes inventory, configuration changes, interface health, VDCs, and more."

Other switch families such as Brocade, Juniper, and Meraki are not currently supported by Network Insight.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Enabling DNS resolution but not storing hostnames immediately results in:

Reduced database memory/storage used for DNS info, as hostnames aren’t stored with each flow record.

Less database space used for flows, since flow records will reference IPs rather than resolved DNS names.

Reduced SQL server reads/writes since the platform does not immediately resolve and store hostnames with every received flow, decreasing load.

DNS names will still appear in reports where resolved dynamically, so option C is incorrect.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Flow sampling reduces resource usage by analyzing a subset of traffic. The following protocols support sampling:

Cisco NetFlow (except v1): Most NetFlow versions support sampling.

IPFIX: Supports flow sampling as part of its standard.

NetFlow Lite: Designed to provide sampled flow data.

NetFlow V1 does not support flow sampling.

Exact Extract from Official Guide:

"NetFlow (except v1), IPFIX, and NetFlow Lite support flow sampling, enabling high-performance monitoring of large traffic volumes."

— (Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide, “Flow Protocols and Sampling” section)

Universal Device Pollers (UDPs) are tied to the polling engine on which they are created. This means if a UDP is created on the main polling engine, it will only collect data for devices polled by that engine. To collect data from devices polled by an additional polling engine, you must create or assign the UDP on that engine as well.

Exact Extract from Official Guide:

“Universal Device Pollers are tied to the polling engine on which they are created. To monitor devices assigned to an Additional Polling Engine, the UDP must be created or assigned on that engine.”

— (Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide, “Universal Device Pollers” section)

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

If a node is up but its interfaces show as “unknown,” this usually means the interfaces are not currently being managed/monitored in the SolarWinds platform.

From the documentation:

“If interfaces are not selected for management during discovery or have been removed from monitoring, their status appears as ‘unknown’ even though the parent node is up.”

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

To edit trigger conditions for flow alerts in SolarWinds, the SolarWinds Query Language (SWQL) is required. SWQL is a proprietary subset of SQL designed specifically for the SolarWinds Orion Platform. The documentation specifies:

“Editing advanced alert trigger conditions and custom queries for flow-based alerts requires the use of SWQL, not PowerShell, Python, or standard SQL.”

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

NetFlow is the Cisco IOS feature designed for monitoring and analyzing network traffic to pinpoint specific applications or endpoints consuming bandwidth or causing network slowness. It captures detailed flow information, including source/destination, ports, and protocols.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

For organizations with very large environments and strict requirements for data freshness and availability, SolarWinds documentation prescribes several specific steps:

A. Deploy multiple additional polling engines (APEs) in each regional datacenter and configure load balancing."For environments exceeding 20,000 monitored interfaces, deploy multiple Additional Polling Engines (APEs) to distribute load and maintain polling intervals. Place APEs close to monitored devices to reduce latency."

B. Implement SolarWinds High Availability (HA) pools for both the main and polling engine servers, with active-passive failover."SolarWinds HA pools provide automatic failover for platform and polling engines, ensuring service continuity in case of hardware or network failures."

C. Configure the SolarWinds database server in a Microsoft SQL Server Always On Availability Group."To protect against database outages, deploy the SolarWinds database in a SQL Server Always On Availability Group or Failover Cluster Instance (FCI)."

Option D is incorrect; overlapping node groups are not a requirement and, in fact, the documentation suggests using dynamic assignment to balance load, not strictly static node groups.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Hiding an IP address group in IPAM management means that group will not appear in dashboards, charts, or reports, but the underlying data and group definition remain intact and are not deleted.