SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor Training Course
| Course code | SD-IT-020 |
|---|---|
| Duration | 5 days |
| Level | Foundation to Intermediate |
| Category | Information Technology |
| Delivery | Classroom or live online |
| Language | English |
| Certificate | Certificate of completion |
Course overview
Network teams are expected to identify service degradation before users raise tickets, yet many SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) deployments are limited to basic device-up/device-down alerts. This leaves engineers reacting to noisy notifications, struggling to isolate whether a fault sits in an interface, routing path, WAN circuit, wireless dependency or device resource, and producing status reports that do not explain business impact. This five-day course turns NPM into an operational monitoring system rather than a dashboard viewed only during incidents.
Participants learn to install and administer NPM components, onboard network devices using SNMP, organise monitored assets with custom properties and groups, and build meaningful node, interface, volume and hardware-health monitoring. The course covers polling methods, discovery profiles, alert logic, dependencies, dynamic baselines, custom thresholds, alert suppression, topology visualisation and report construction. Participants also investigate realistic incidents using PerfStack, historical charts, event data and alert history, then configure escalation workflows that distinguish actionable service faults from maintenance activity.
Delivery combines instructor demonstrations with guided work in a SolarWinds lab environment. Each day uses a connected network scenario containing routers, switches, firewalls and WAN links, requiring participants to configure monitoring, interpret telemetry and document decisions. By the end of the course, each participant produces an NPM monitoring design pack: a device-onboarding checklist, custom-property model, alert catalogue, dashboard specification, reporting plan and a 30-day implementation backlog that can be adapted for their own environment.
The course is suited to network operations staff and administrators who use, support or are about to implement SolarWinds NPM. It starts with core platform administration and progresses to intermediate monitoring design, troubleshooting and operational reporting.
Course objectives
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Configure SolarWinds NPM polling engines, credentials, discovery profiles and monitored-object settings
- Onboard routers, switches, firewalls and interfaces using secure SNMPv3 credential profiles
- Design custom properties, groups and dependencies that model network services and ownership
- Build dynamic baselines and threshold policies for node, interface, hardware-health and volume metrics
- Create actionable alert definitions with trigger conditions, reset logic, suppression and escalation actions
- Investigate network incidents using PerfStack, historical performance charts, events and alert history
- Produce role-based dashboards, scheduled reports and executive availability summaries in NPM
- Develop a 30-day NPM monitoring improvement plan with prioritised configuration actions
Benefits of attending
For you
- Gain practical confidence configuring NPM rather than relying on default discovery and alert settings
- Build evidence-based incident investigations using correlated performance, event and alert data
- Develop a reusable alert and dashboard design approach for network operations roles
- Strengthen credibility when explaining availability, capacity and root-cause evidence to management
- Create a documented NPM improvement plan that demonstrates immediate value after the course
For your organisation
- Reduce alert fatigue by replacing generic threshold alerts with service-aware, suppressed and escalated rules
- Improve incident triage through consistent use of interface, device, event and historical performance evidence
- Increase monitoring coverage through repeatable discovery, credential and device-onboarding procedures
- Provide managers with clearer availability and capacity reports based on monitored operational data
- Lower implementation risk by returning staff with a documented monitoring design and prioritised action plan
Target competencies
Who should attend
- Network Administrators — who need to configure and maintain reliable monitoring for network infrastructure
- Network Operations Centre Analysts — who must triage alerts and isolate likely causes quickly
- Network Engineers — who investigate interface errors, latency, packet loss and device-capacity issues
- SolarWinds Administrators — who administer the platform and need a structured NPM operating model
- IT Infrastructure Managers — who need defensible availability reporting and clearer operational escalation
- Systems Administrators — who support shared infrastructure and need to understand network dependencies
Requirements and prerequisites
Participants should understand basic IP networking, including IPv4 addressing, DNS, routing, switching, VLANs, interfaces and common network-device roles. Familiarity with Windows Server administration, web-based administration consoles and the purpose of SNMP is helpful; participants should be able to interpret simple interface utilisation and packet-loss figures. Experience using SolarWinds is not required. This is a foundation-to-intermediate course, so complete beginners should expect an initial learning curve with network terminology and should review basic TCP/IP and SNMP concepts before attending. No scripting, database administration or prior SolarWinds certification is required.
Training methodology
The course is delivered through instructor-led explanations, live SolarWinds demonstrations and guided configuration in a dedicated lab. Participants work with simulated routers, switches, firewalls and WAN circuits to run discovery, assign SNMPv3 credentials, monitor interfaces, build dependencies and tune alerts. Incident case studies require teams to use PerfStack, charts, events and alert history to justify a diagnosis. Short design workshops convert lab work into an alert catalogue, dashboard specification and 30-day application plan for each participant’s operating environment.
Course outline
Day 1: NPM architecture and monitored-object foundations
- SolarWinds Platform and NPM component architecture
- Polling engines, polling intervals and data-retention concepts
- Orion Web Console navigation and role-based views
- SNMP versions, community strings and SNMPv3 security
- Network discovery profiles and import options
- Node, interface, volume and hardware-health monitored objects
- Credential testing and monitoring-status validation
Workshop: Participants discover a branch-office network, assign SNMPv3 credentials, select monitored interfaces and produce a validated device-onboarding record.
Day 2: Monitoring design, organisation and visibility
- Custom properties for location, service owner, criticality and maintenance class
- Static groups, dynamic groups and group-status roll-up
- Dependencies and service-aware alert suppression
- Node details, interface details and widget configuration
- Network topology views and Intelligent Maps fundamentals
- Interface utilisation, errors, discards and bandwidth interpretation
- Dynamic baselines and deviation-from-baseline analysis
Workshop: Participants model a regional network service with custom properties, groups and dependencies, then create an operations dashboard for its health.
Day 3: Alert engineering and operational response
- Alert trigger conditions and object-level scope
- Multiple-condition logic, time-of-day rules and warning states
- Alert reset conditions and acknowledgement behaviour
- Alert suppression through dependencies and maintenance scheduling
- Email, webhook and ticketing-action configuration principles
- Escalation levels, ownership routing and notification content
- Alert history analysis and false-positive reduction
Workshop: Participants build and test a multi-stage WAN interface alert with suppression, escalation and an actionable notification template.
Day 4: Performance analysis and network troubleshooting
- PerfStack project creation and metric correlation
- Historical charts, time-range selection and data interpretation
- Event logs, alert history and node-status timelines
- Latency, packet loss and response-time troubleshooting patterns
- Interface saturation, errors and discards root-cause patterns
- CPU, memory and hardware-sensor performance analysis
- Capacity trend interpretation and evidence-based escalation
Workshop: Participants investigate a simulated intermittent WAN degradation incident and produce a timeline, probable cause and escalation recommendation.
Day 5: Reporting, governance and implementation planning
- Report Writer data selection and report layout design
- Availability, utilisation and alert-volume reporting
- Scheduled reports and distribution controls
- Executive dashboards versus operational dashboards
- Monitoring standards, naming conventions and ownership models
- NPM health checks, account permissions and configuration governance
- 30-day monitoring improvement roadmap prioritisation
Workshop: Participants complete an NPM monitoring design pack containing an alert catalogue, dashboard specification, reporting schedule and prioritised 30-day roadmap.
Tools & standards covered
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Platform, SolarWinds PerfStack, SNMPv3
A typical training day
| 08:30 – 10:30 | First session |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Refreshment break |
| 10:45 – 12:30 | Second session |
| 12:30 – 13:30 | Lunch and networking |
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Third session |
| 15:00 – 15:15 | Refreshment break |
| 15:15 – 16:30 | Workshop and daily review |
Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.
What the fee includes
- Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
- Full course workbook and materials
- Exercise files, templates and case studies
- Certificate of completion
- Refreshments and lunch (classroom deliveries)
- Post-course application plan
- Facilitator follow-up on request
- Group rates from five participants
How you can take this course
Classroom
Scheduled sessions in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Dubai and Cape Town.
Live online
The same facilitator and materials, delivered live for distributed teams and individuals.
In-house
Delivered privately for your team, at your offices or a venue of your choice, tailored to your context. Request a proposal.
Certification
Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.
Frequently asked questions
Upcoming sessions
New dates are being scheduled. Ask us about the next session or an in-house delivery for your team.
Ask about datesGroup of 5+?
Request in-house delivery or group rates →Related courses in Information Technology
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