SCP-NPM Practice Exam Questions with Answers SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) Exam Certification

Response time is the amount of time it takes for a service request to return a response. It is a critical SLA performance metric for a hosted data center service, as it directly affects the user experience and satisfaction. High response time can indicate network congestion, server overload, or other performance issues that can degrade the quality of the service. By tracking response time, you can monitor the availability and reliability of the service, identify and troubleshoot potential problems, and ensure that the service meets the SLA expectations and standards. References: How to measure your SLA: 5 Metrics you should be Monitoring and Reporting, Data Center SLA Frequently Offer a 100% Uptime Guarantee, How To Measure SLA Performance in 4 Steps (With Tips).

To add a new subnet of 500 devices for monitoring, the first step is to perform a network discovery using the Network Sonar Wizard in NPM. This wizard allows you to scan your network by IP address range, subnet, or seed device and automatically discover and add nodes and interfaces to NPM for monitoring. You can also specify credentials, polling settings, and custom properties for the discovered devices. Performing a network discovery can help you quickly and efficiently incorporate new devices into NPM without manually adding them one by one. References: Discover your network devices, Specify subnets, Discover devices by subnets

To show the connection between two devices on an Orion map, you need to meet the following requirements1:

• The devices must be monitored by NPM.
• The devices must support topology and be interconnected.
• The devices must have the corresponding interfaces monitored and identified as full or half duplex.
• The Orion Maps feature must be enabled and configured.

If you do not see the connection between two devices on an Orion map, you should first verify that you are monitoring Layer 2 and 3 topologies for the devices. You can do this by checking the NPM Network Topology widget on the device details page. This widget will reflect what connections will be automatically drawn in Orion Maps2. If the widget does not show the expected connection, you may need to enable topology polling for the devices or check the SNMP credentials and configuration3.

If you are monitoring the correct topologies and still do not see the connection, you can build a custom connection between the devices using the Orion Maps feature. In the Map Editor, you can add the two devices to the canvas, select them, and click the Connect Objects button. Here you can specify the interface on either side and choose to add the manual connection to the database2.

Building a new Orion map and adding the related entities instead of the nodes will not resolve the issue, as the related entities are based on the same topology data as the nodes. Changing the monitoring method from SNMP to CLI will not resolve the issue, as CLI is not supported for topology polling3.

References: Orion Maps; Orion Map Devices not connect - Forum; Polling methods used by Orion.

 NetPath is a feature of NPM that helps you identify network problems faster by automatically creating a map of the problem area, with a wide variety of supporting information. NetPath displays the performance details of devices inside and outside of your network. NetPath can analyze paths to any network segment, whether it is on-premise, cloud, or hybrid. NetPath uses distributed monitoring and path analysis to discover how applications are delivered through the network to your users. You can deploy agents on Windows computers that act as synthetic users and use advanced probing to discover and test the network path that traffic takes to any network endpoint, such as your local file print server, your website, or external websites. NetPath can also incorporate data from NPM, NCM, and NTA about your on-premises gear, as well as data from the Internet nodes and providers12. References: 1: Discover your network paths in NPM3, 2: NetPath - Easy Visual Network Path Analysis | SolarWinds4

 Traps are unsolicited messages sent by network devices to report events or issues. The Orion Platform can receive and process traps from any device that supports SNMP. To alert on a select message, you can use the Traps in Orion Alerts feature, which allows you to configure the default trap alert to fire on the trap message you select to alert on. You can also customize the alert conditions, actions, and triggers to suit your needs. For example, you can alert on traps thatmatch a specific OID, source, or severity, and send an email, log a ticket, or run a script when the alert is triggered. References: Configure SNMP traps in NPM, Traps in Orion Alerts, Create alerts for SNMP traps

According to the SolarWinds Platform Agent requirements, the average resource consumption of an agent is less than 1% CPU, max 1 MB of memory, and 1 MB storage on the target computer. The agent software is designed to be lightweight and efficient, and does not impact the performance of the monitored devices. The other options are incorrect, as they either overestimate or underestimate the resource consumption of the agent, or imply that the agent does not use any local resources at all. References: SolarWinds Platform Agent requirements, section “SolarWinds Platform Agent resource consumption”.

 Map status thresholds determine how the status of a map is calculated based on the status of its child objects. If you set the map status threshold to above 50%, it means that the map will be up if more than half of its child objects are up, regardless of the severity of the down objects. This can cause a situation where half of your objects in a nested map are down, but the top level map is up, because the top level map only considers the status of the nested maps, not the individual objects within them. To avoid this, you can lower the map status threshold to a value that reflects the desired level of availability for your network, or use custom map status thresholds to specify different values for different maps. References: Set map status thresholds in NPM, Create nested maps in NPM, How to map through a deeply nested array of objects?

 The best way to monitor an SNMP metric that NPM is not monitoring out-of-the-box is to create a custom poller using the Universal Device Poller (UnDP) tool. A custom poller allows you to monitor specific aspects of your network devices using SNMP, by selecting the OIDs that correspond to the metrics you want to collect. You can then assign the custom poller to the devices you want to monitor, and view the results in the Orion Web Console, as charts, tables, or gauges. You can also use custom pollers to create alerts and reports based on the collected data. References: Monitor custom statistics based on OIDs with Universal Device Pollers in NPM, Create a custom poller, Assign Universal Device Pollers to devices monitored in NPM

 The easiest and fastest way to change the polling method for multiple nodes is to use the Manage Nodes feature in the web console. You can select up to 1000 nodes at a time and edit their properties in bulk. You can choose the polling method from the available options, such as ICMP, SNMP, WMI, or Agent, and provide the required credentials or settings. This will apply the changes to all the selected nodes without affecting their existing data oralerts. References: Choose the polling method to use in the SolarWinds Platform; Polling Intervals - Best Practices; SOLARWINDS NETWORK PERFORMANCE MONITOR

 According to the SolarWinds NPM Administrator Guide, you can edit the node properties of any device and change the polling method to suit your needs. The polling method determines what data is collected and displayed for the node. The “Most Devices: SNMP and ICMP” polling method collects and displays the most comprehensive data, including CPU load, memory utilization, interface statistics, and more. The “Status Only: ICMP” polling method only collects and displays the node status, average response time, and packet loss. If you want to monitor the other statistics on switch A, you should change the polling method to “Most Devices: SNMP and ICMP”. This will not affect the historical data that has already been collected for switch A, as it will be stored in the database. However, deleting switch A and adding it again, or adding switch A again without deleting it first, will result in losing the historical data or creating duplicate nodes. References: SolarWinds NPM Administrator Guide, page 78-79; Polling methods used by Orion

To allow the finance department to view select reports from NPM without a user account, you can enable the Link only option on the report. This option allows you to generate a direct link to the report that can be shared with anyone who has access to the Orion Web Console URL, even if they do not have a user account or login credentials. The Link only option also bypasses any report limitations or account restrictions that might apply to the report. To enable the Link only option on a report, you need to edit the report and select the Link only option in the Report Properties page. You can then copy the link and send it to the finance department via email or other methods. The finance department can then view the report by clicking the link and opening it in a web browser1. References: Share a web-based report with non-Orion Platform users

 Account limitations are a way of restricting the access of Orion user accounts to specific network objects, such as nodes, interfaces, groups, maps, or alerts. You can use account limitations to prevent a user from seeing or working with select monitored entities through the SolarWinds server. For example, you can limit a user to see only the nodesin a certain group, or only the maps that they have created. You can apply account limitations to individual users or user groups, and you can choose from predefined limitations or create custom limitations based on custom properties. The other options are not effective ways of limiting user access to monitored entities, as they either affect the monitoring status of the entities (unmanage), the permissions of the entities themselves (configure permissions), or the alerting scope of the entities (configure alert limitations). References:

• Limit user access to network areas with account limitations
• Predefined Orion Platform account limitations
• Create custom account limitations

 One possible cause of this issue is that the user account has the No Reports limitation applied to it. This limitation prevents the user from accessing any reports in the Orion Console, regardless of the report group or category. To resolve this issue, you need to edit the user account and change the report limitation to either No Limitation (to allow access to all reports) or a specific report limitation category (to allow access to only the reports with that category). You can also create custom report limitation categories and assign them to the reports and users as needed. References: Restrict who can access reports in the SolarWinds Platform, Define what users can access and do in the SolarWinds Platform.

 By default, Orion NPM retains Syslog messages in the database for seven days before discarding them. This means that any Syslog messages older than seven days are deleted from the database and cannot be viewed or searched in the web console. To change the default Syslog retention period, you need to modify the Database Settings on the Orion Polling Settings page in the web console. You can also use the Database Manager tool to manually delete or archive Syslog messages from the database. References: SolarWinds SCP Study Aid - NPM, page 19; NPM Administrator Guide, page 111.

An alert limitation is a filter that restricts the scope of an alert to a specific set of objects, such as nodes, interfaces, applications, or groups. You can use an alert limitation to create an alert that only applies to a select set of nodes in your network, and exclude the rest. To set an alert limitation for the nodes to be included in the alert, follow these steps1:

• Click Alerts & Activity > Alerts > Manage Alerts.
• Find the alert that you want to edit or create a new alert.
• On the Trigger Condition tab, define the condition that triggers the alert, such as Percent Loss is greater than or equal to 50.
• On the Scope of Alert tab, select Limit the scope of this alert to a specific subset of objects.
• Choose the method to define the subset of objects, such as Select objects manually, Use a custom SWQL query, or Use a custom SQL query.
• Select or enter the criteria to filter the objects, such as the node name, IP address, group, custom property, or any other attribute.
• Click Add Selected Objects to add the objects to the alert limitation.
• Click Next and complete the rest of the alert configuration.

You can now save and enable the alert, and it will only notify you when packet loss meets or exceeds 50% for the nodes that you have selected in the alert limitation. References: 1: Limit the objects an alert applies to

Capacity planning is available for the following metrics of monitored nodes, interfaces, and volumes: CPU utilization on nodes, memory usage on nodes, space usage on volumes, receive(in) utilization on interfaces, and transmit (out) utilization on interfaces1. Capacity planning allows you to monitor capacity usage trends on the network and forecast capacity issues based on historical data and customizable thresholds. You can view capacity forecasting graphs and tables on the details views of nodes, interfaces, and volumes, or use the Top XX Capacity Problems widget to see a list of objects whose usage trend is rising2. References: Monitor capacity usage trends on the network and forecast capacity issues in NPM, Forecast capacity for nodes, interfaces, or volumes in NPM

Capacity usage trends are calculated based on historical data. By default, the longest time period taken into account for calculating the capacity forecast is 180 days. The more historical data up to 180 days are available, the more precise is the calculated forecast. Forecast calculation methods include peak calculation and average calculation, which can be set globally or customized for individual objects. Capacity forecasting is available for nodes, interfaces, and volumes that meet certain requirements, such as being managed in NPM and having enough historical data in the database. References: Monitor capacity usage trends on the network and forecast capacity issues in NPM, Forecast capacity for nodes, interfaces, or volumes in NPM, Real-Time Network Monitoring Tool