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Congratulations on your purchase of SolarWinds Orion Network Configuration Manager (Orion NCM). Orion NCM is a comprehensive, intuitive solution designed to streamline and automate network configuration management. Orion NCM increases availability, saves time, improves security, and ensures policy adherence. The automation capabilities of Orion NCM reduce the amount of time network engineers spend on mundane network tasks, allowing them to focus on business-critical network projects.

This Orion NCM version adds the following key features:

Fixes in this Release

Note: If you have applied Service Packs or Hotfixes to your product, they were delivered with readme.txt files. These files contain fixes that supersede the information found in the Release Notes.

This release of Orion Network Configuration Manager includes the following fixes:

Version 7.0

Previous Version Fixes:

Version 6.1

Version 5.5

Version 5.1.1

Version 5.1

Known Issues in this Release

The following issues have been identified in version 7.0:

Failover Engine and Custom Properties

Customer properties are SolarWinds Information Service database objects that currently do not get replicated between the primary and backup sites you define with the SolarWinds Failover Engine. If you define and use a customer property to manage nodes, for example, and your primary site goes down, those custom properties are replaced in the website on your secondary site as error messages.

Export to PDF Unavailable

This feature in the Orion NCM integrated web resources is currently unavailable. This feature depends on ongoing work to Orion and will return in a future release.

Access to Orion Web Console Blocked After NCM Installation

This happens if the SQL account you have assigned to your Orion Core database has not been configured with apppropriate permissions. You must create a new SQL account with required permissions as detailed in this Knowledge Base article.

NCM Policy Reporter Loads Slowly

At start-up the Policy Reporter loads all reports, policies and rules. There will be a delay in presenting the interface when the reporting logic involves a dataset with hundreds of reports, policies, and rules. SolarWinds recommends using the NCM web-based policy management features, which loads pages of data as needed instead of loading it all at once during an application start-up.

Backup of Citrix Netscaler 9.3 Doesn't Capture Entire Config

If the command prompt is defined as ">" and that character appears within the config being transferred, the Netscaler device responds to the character as a 'Quit' command and immediately terminates the operation. The solution is to define the prompt as string that does not appear within the config being uploaded.

Config Download Aborts

When downloading a config from a device, if the config line (for example, the hostname on a line by itself in the banner text) exactly matches the length of the device's prompt, the download ends.

Since the issue is almost always triggered by banner text, make sure that you surround any such text with comment operators. For example, if your hostname appears in the banner text as LGC6509E, you would change it to "*LGC6509E*

NCM Scheduled Job Mismatch

If a job moves position in the list its displayed name is the same; however, the name is associated with a different job, which can be seen by attempting to edit it.

No Support for User Created Databases

Orion NCM does not support user created databases. In installing Orion NCM, you have the option either to let Orion NCM create a new database for the instance, or to associate the new instance with an existing database previously created by Orion NCM.

NCM Repair and Change Processes

If you are running NCM server on Windows 2008, and you need to repair NCM or change its installation, follow the steps in this Knowledge Base article.

Internet Explorer Issues

The following issues have been identified with Internet Explorer and are being investigated.

Telnet Icon

The Telnet icon on the NCM Node Details page and the Configuration Change Report results page of the Orion NCM Web Console does not launch the Telnet window. To correct this issue, add the following registry value: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_DISABLE_TELNET_PROTOCOL] "iexplore.exe"=dword:00000000. This is a known issue with Internet Explorer 7.

Orion NCM Integration for Orion NPM - Inventory Reports

If you are using Internet Explorer 8, you need to be running in Compatibility mode to ensure Inventory report navigation works correctly.

Search Does Not Find Partial Word Values

Due to the use of Full-Text Search, partial word searches are not supported. You can find the beginning of a word, but you cannot specify the middle or end of a word on which to search.

EnergyWise

The following EnergyWise issues are being investigated:

Importance

Currently, the importance of policy updates is hard coded to 100. At this time, this is caused by a limitation imposed by the EnergyWise MIB data collection mechanism.

Time

The time returned by and EnergyWise device is based on the device time. Therefore, recurrence policies (based on chron jobs) respect the time set on the device, not the time of Orion NPM or Orion NCM.

Recurrence Policy and Chron Jobs

Do not use a 7 to represent Sunday in the day of the week option of your recurrence policy. At this time, 7 is not recognized by Orion NPM as Sunday and will cause problems with your EnergyWise Policy Overview Calendar.

Internationalization

A number of areas in the Local Client application, the Web Console, and the Orion NCM Integration for Orion NPM display the wrong time format when you change the system settings to display an international time setting. This is a known issue and will be corrected in an upcoming release.

Adding Orion NPM Resources to Orion NCM Node Details or Summary views

Adding Orion NPM summary or node details resources to Orion NCM views can result in the Orion NPM resources no longer respecting node filtering, essentially providing a network-wide view.

Installing this Version

This version of Orion NCM 7.0 depends on Orion common components (most notably, the polling engine, network sonar discovery, the alert engine) with which Orion NCM is tightly integrated during the installation and configuration processes. As part of this new architecture, regardless of whether or not Orion NCM is integrated with another Orion product (such as Orion NPM), the installation software creates a new Orion Core database where nodes are primarly managed. So, essentially, Orion NCM uses an Orion Core database to manage all nodes, and an Orion NCM database to manage node configs. During the installation/upgrade process, two different Configuration Wizards run; one for the Orion Core database, the Orion website and services; and another for the Orion NCM database and services.

If you are aware of your own deployment type and the installation process it entails, installing this version of Orion NCM should go smoothly. However, SolarWinds strongly recommends that you carefully follow the procedures in the "Installing Orion Network Configuration Manager" section of either the Orion Network Configuration Manager Administrator Guide or the Orion Network Configuration Manager QuickStart Guide as you are installing and configuring this version of the product.

You do not need to uninstall your previous version before installing this version of Orion NCM. Shutdown any running Orion NCM applications, and then run the setup program. The setup program will detect and uninstall your previous version without a loss of customizations, other than customizations to the toolbar. Toolbar customizations are overwritten to ensure new toolbar options are included.

Licensing Orion NCM

You must license Orion NCM from the appropriate server in your deployement.

See "Obtaining a Software License Key" in the Orion Network Configuration Administrator Guide for details on licensing Orion NCM.

Upgrading Orion NCM

Backup your database before performing any upgrade of Orion NCM.

If you are an existing customer, and your current version does not qualify for a direct upgrade to Orion NCM version 7.0, you first need to install the versions of Orion NCM that at least bring your installation to Orion NCM version 6.0. For example, if you are running Orion NCM version 5.5, you need to install Orion NCM versions 5.5.1, 5.5.2, and 6.0 before you can install Orion NCM 7.0. Additionally, in this case, should you want to gain access to the latest NCM/NPM integration features, you would need to upgrade your SolarWinds Network Performance Manager software to version 10.2 or higher.

If you need previous versions of Orion NCM, Contact Customer Service and Support (customerservice@solarwinds.com).

During the upgrade process, the NCM installer checks your existing Orion NCM database for duplicate nodes. You must remove duplicate nodes from your database for the Configuration Wizard to complete successfully.

Note: In upgrading a deployment that is already integrated with Orion NPM, the Orion NCM installer will shutdown all SolarWinds services on the host machine where Orion NPM is running. Bear this in mind in choosing a time to perform your upgrade.

Upgrading Real-time Change Detection

Orion NCM version 7.0 uses the SolarWinds Orion Syslog and Trap Services to process syslog and trap data received from devices. As a result, to conform the operation of real-time change detection and notification to the filtering rules you setup in a previous standalong version of NCM, you must replicate those rules.

If you were already using Orion NPM to handle syslog and trap messages, you were already using the SolarWinds Orion Syslog and Trap Services and you do not need to replicate your rules.

In either case, as an existing user of Orion NCM standalone or as a user of Orion NCM integrated with Orion NPM, you should redefine your Alert Actions to use the new SolarWinds.NCM.RTNForwarder.exe instead of the AutoConfigDownloader.exe. For detailed steps on correctly enabling real-time change detection, see "Configuring Realtime Configuration Change Detection" in the Orion Network Configuration Administrator Guide.

If you were an Orion NCM standalone user, use the procedures relevant to your RTCD implementation as a guide to replicating your Alert Action rules.

To replicate syslog filtering logic:

  1. Open both the Orion NCM Syslog Server(SolarWinds Orion Network Configuration Manager > Orion NCM Syslog Server) and the SolarWinds Syslog Viewer (SolarWinds Orion > Syslog and SNMP Traps > Syslog Viewer).
  2. Click View > Alerts/Filter Rules in both applications.
  3. Use the existing filtering logic in Orion NCM Syslog Server as a reference as you setup the same logic in SolarWinds Syslog Viewer.
  4. In creating your Alert Actions in SolarWinds Trap Viewer, instead of the AutoConfigDownloader.exe used in previous releases, use SolarWinds.NCMRTNForwarder.exe to execute your actions, as follows:

For details on setting up Alert Actions for SolarWinds Syslog Viewer and SolarWinds Trap Viewer, see "Configuring Realtime Configuration Change Detection" in the Orion Network Configuration Administrator Guide.

To replicate trap filtering logic:

  1. Open both the Orion NCM Trp Server(SolarWinds Orion Network Configuration Manager > Orion NCM Trap Server) and the SolarWinds Trap Viewer (SolarWinds Orion > Syslog and SNMP Traps > Trap Viewer).
  2. Click View > Alerts/Filter Rules in both applications.
  3. Use the existing filtering logic in Orion NCM Trap Viewer as a reference as you setup the same logic in SolarWinds Trap Viewer.
  4. In creating your Alert Actions in SolarWinds Trap Viewer, instead of the AutoConfigDownloader.exe used in previous releases, use SolarWinds.NCMRTNForwarder.exe to execute your actions, as follows:

For details on setting up Alert Actions for SolarWinds Syslog Viewer and SolarWinds Trap Viewer, see "Configuring Realtime Configuration Change Detection" in the Orion Network Configuration Administrator Guide.

Updated Requirements

Orion NCM no longer supports Windows 2000, nor does Orion NCM support SQL 2000, SQL 2000 MSDE, or Microsoft Access database as datastores.

Typically you can monitor between 8,000 and 10,000 devices with a single NCM instance; however, the total depends on your system hardware, the types of devices monitored, and the number and concurrency of the jobs you run. Should you need to manage more devices, and you decide to add NCM instances, please consider consolidating your views of multiple instances with the Orion Enterprise Operations Console. For more information about scaling NCM, please contact your account manager.

Documentation Updates

For the Nortel 520-48T (1.2.6.1.4.1.45.3.59.2) and 470-48T-PWR (1.2.6.1.4.1.45.3.64) switches, the device templates included in the Orion NCM installation directory ( C:\Program Files\SolarWinds\Configuration Management\Device Types, by default) contain a value for the EnterCLI command that is valid only if the device is running as a standalone switch. In this case, as a user needs to do in order to enter CLI mode, the template inputs 14 consecutive down arrow keystrokes.

However, if either Nortel device is configured in stack of two or more devices, the result of 14 down arrow keystrokes is a reboot of all devices in the stack. When configured in a stack, to enter CLI mode, the user (in this case, the template) must input 16 down arrow keystrokes. To edit the existing device templates, you would add two additional ${DownArrow} instructions to the value of the EnterCLI command:

<Command Name="EnterCLI" Value="${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${DownArrow}${CRLF}" Delay="300" RegEx=""/>

A new device template command is available in Orion NCM 5.5. If your device does not use the Username: prompt when waiting for the username, you can add the following lines to your device template: <Command Name="CustomUserNamePrompt" Value="Username:"/>

A new time frame, As of last update, was added to the Web Console charts provided in both the Orion NCM Web Console and in the Orion NCM Integration for Orion NPM. This time frame lets you see data based on the latest action, for example, the last download of a configuration file will be used for the Devices Backed Up Vs Not Backed Up resource.

Administrator Requirement to Run NCM Windows Console

Your user account must be a member of the Administrators group in the operating system to run the NCM Windows console.

SQL Express

SQL Express, a free version of SQL Server 2005 with a 4GB database limit, is a supported database platform for Orion NCM.

Specifying Your Instance

During the database section of the Configuration wizard, it is possible that the browse function of the wizard will not find your database. If you experience difficulty browsing to your SQL Express instance, type ServerName\sqlexpress in the SQL Server field on the Login to SQL Server dialog, where ServerName is the pre-Windows 2000 name of your SQL Server.

Creating Data Directories

The Configuration wizard does not create nor offer to create data directories for the database you install during the Setup Database section of the wizard. If you create new data directories using Windows Explorer or some other tool while on the Create/Connect to Database dialog, you must click Back to return to the Login to SQL Server dialog, then click Continue. You will be able to select the newly created directory for your database data.

Cisco Catalyst Issues

The following issues have been identified with the use of Orion NCM and Cisco Catalyst devices.

Indirect Download

The device template provided with Orion NCM was designed for software version 8.1(3). If you are experiencing issues downloading a config using TFTP from a CatOS device, change the DownloadConfigIndirect command in the device template to the following: <Command Name="DownloadConfigIndirect" Value="copy ${ConfigType} ${TransferProtocol}://${StorageAddress}/${StorageFilename}${CRLF}${StorageAddress}${CRLF}y"/>. For more information about command template variables, see the Administrator Guide.

Last Transmitted/Last Received

Cisco Catalyst switches do not provide Time since last data Received nor the Time since last data Transmitted values to the Orion NCM client user interface.

Script Error When Editing Jobs

When editing a job, you may receive an error stating: An error has occurred in the script on this page. Click Yes to confirm that you want to continue running scripts on the page. This will allow you to continue working without losing data.

Connections and Cancellations

When Orion NCM experiences connection loss and when operations are cancelled, dialogs and notifications may not always clearly reflect the appropriate message.

Scheduled Jobs and Node Filters

When creating a scheduled job and specifying a condition of "Where Node Name starts with ABC". Devices that begin with ABC are not being selected when the job runs. As a workaround, change the filter for the node selection to be "Where System Name starts with ABC".

Realtime Changes and Baselines

When utilizing the Realtime Configuration Change Detection feature, if a baseline configuration has not been established for a node, the last configuration file received will be used for the comparison.

Indirect Transfers with Multiple IP Addresses

When using indirect transfers on a server that has multiple IP addresses (for example, a main IP and a vpn IP), the retrieved TFTP IP address may not be the desired IP address. To manually specify a TFTP IP address, click File > Settings > TFTP Server, and then clear Do not automatically retrieve IP, and then type the desired TFTP IP address.

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