Revised: 2/5/2010

Why Install this Version

Fixed Issues

Open Issues

Network Atlas

Fixes in Previous Versions

Licensing

Configuring Virtual Directories

UTC Server Time Synchronization

Troubleshooting

Legal

These release notes provide additional guidance for SolarWinds Orion Enterprise Operations Console v1.2.

Why Install this Version

This version of Orion Enterprise Operations Console provides the following customer-driven, key features:

Updated for the latest versions of SolarWinds Orion products: This version of Orion EOC is fully-compatible with the latest versions of Orion NPM, Orion APM, Orion IP SLA, Orion NCM, and Orion NTA, incorporating the latest technologies and resource views from each.
Monitor Orion NCM 5.5.2 and later: Orion EOC can now read Orion NCM data from any Orion NPM server on which you have installed the Orion NCM Integration module.
Adding Orion NPM servers made easier: The web site URL fields in the Add Orion Servers page are filled in automatically for your convenience.
New resource: User-defined links: User-defined links give you quick access to external web sites or customized views.
Select all events or Syslog items for acknowledgement: You can now acknowledge events or Syslog items using the new Select All command.
Administrators can now personalize EOC views by default: Members of the administrator group no longer need to grant themselves permission to personalize views.
Performance improvements: We improved the Home view and the Global Active Alerts resource to load quickly even if displaying thousands of elements.
Orion EOC and Orion NPM can now be installed together on either 32-bit or 64-bit Windows server: You can now install Orion EOC and Orion NPM together on either 32-bit or 64-bit Windows servers.

Fixed Issues in this Release

This release of Orion EOC contains several fixes:

Fixes an issue where Syslog message counts incorrectly included cleared messages.
Fixes an issue that made it possible to enter invalid SQL statements into a resource filter.
Fixes an issue where the Last XX Events resource was not added to the web console after upgrading to the latest version of Orion EOC.
Fixes an issue where the Wireless view generated invalid Orion NPM web page links if the Orion Auto-Login option was checked.
Fixes an issue where maps could time out before loading.
Fixes an issue where auto-refreshing maps caused a memory leak in Internet Explorer.
Fixes an issue where the view editing page displayed multiple copies of the same resource incorrectly.
Fixes an issue where the same custom property could appear erroneously multiple times in list menus.
Fixes an issue that could prevent editing user-created views.

Open Issues in this Release

This release of Orion EOC includes the following open issues:

Data from Orion IP SLA 3.1 are not polled correctly.
Data from the Orion NCM 5.5.2 integration module on an Orion NPM server are not polled correctly.
Data from Orion APM statistics are not polled correctly.
Log files written to ThresholdStreams\temp can rapidly fill up the hard drive.
IP SLA resources do not contain links to the Orion Web Console.
The Orion Auto-Login option fails if the Orion NPM password contains ampersand (&) characters.
If the data for a call path has not been collected, the corresponding call path entry in the Global VoIP Call Path resource appears empty. Please wait a few minutes for data to be collected.
VoIP call paths display invalid Quality of Service values if the source site or the destination site are down.
You cannot remove a user from Orion EOC if the Windows account for that user has been deleted.
Duplicate custom properties appear if custom properties from different Orion NPM servers have identical names but different value types.
The Copy View command does not work if the view name contains an asterisk '*' or a slash '/' symbol.
The Global VoIP Call Managers resource does not display hosts that do not have any collected data.

Open Issues Related to Network Atlas

Do not uninstall Orion Network Atlas from the Orion EOC server. If you uninstall Orion Network Atlas from the Orion EOC server, the Orion web console map resources stop working.
Orion Network Atlas does not support Orion NPM login credentials that use Integrated Windows Authentication. To connect Orion Network Atlas to Orion NPM servers, you must provide an Orion NPM credential that was created in the Orion Account Manager.
Performing more than ten Undo actions in a row in Orion Network Atlas marks the map as having been saved.

Fixes in Previous Versions

Previous versions of orion EOC have included the following additions and fixes:

Orion EOC v1.1

Features

Updated for the Latest Versions of SolarWinds Orion Products
Expanded Platform and Infrastructure Support
Auto-login to Orion NPM Servers
New Solarwinds Licensing

Fixes

Fixes an issue where the Error and Warnings threshold page rejected decimal values entered in the regional number format of the Orion EOC server.
Fixes an issue where the Configuration Wizard failed if creating a virtual directory for the Orion EOC web site.
Fixes an issue where domain users and local users who had the same user names could not see Orion EOC data in the web console.
Fixes an issue where changes to column layouts were not propagated to all user views even if the Reset view for all users option was checked.
Users who have not been given access to any Orion NPM servers by the Orion EOC administrator are now given a notification message to contact the administrator.
Fixes an issue where the Applications in the Global Top XX resources could not be grouped by node.
Fixes an issue where events triggered by devices not in the Orion NPM database were given invalid, clickable hyperlinks.
Fixes an issue where the map links to Orion NPM servers were invalid unless the Orion NPM web site URL setting was prefixed with http:// when adding Orion NPM servers to Orion EOC.
Fixes an issue where acknowledging an alert provided the wrong acknowledgement time until the next polling cycle.
Fixes an issue where deleting a menu bar containing an apostrophe symbol in the name crashed the web console.
Fixes an issue where if the MOS value of a VoIP call path was a null value, all of the resource nodes appeared in a down state.
Fixes an issue where menu bars with the "Open in new window" option enabled were instead opened in the same window.

Using the New Licensing System

After installing the software through the setup wizard, you are prompted to enter the licensing information for your product.

To evaluate the software without a license:

Click Continue Evaluation.

To license the software on a server with Internet access:

Click Enter Licensing Information.
Select I have internet access and an activation key.
Click the http://www.solarwinds.com/customerportal link to access the customer portal on the SolarWinds web site.
Log on to the portal using your Solarwinds customer ID and password.
Click License Management on the left navigation bar.
Navigate to your product, choose an activation key from the Unregistered Licenses section, and then copy the activation key.
If you cannot find an activation key in the Unregistered Licenses section, contact SolarWinds customer support.
Return to the Activate EOC window, and then enter the activation key in the Activation Key field.
If you access Internet web sites through a proxy server, click I access the internet through a proxy server, and enter its proxy address and port.
Click Next.
Enter your email address and other registration information, and then click Next.

To license the software on a server without Internet access:

Click Enter Licensing Information
Select This server does not have internet access, and then click Next.
Click Copy Unique Machine ID.
Paste the copied data into a text editor document.
Transfer the document to a computer with Internet access.
On the computer with Internet access, complete the following steps:
1. Browse to http://www.solarwinds.com/customerportal/licensemanagement.aspx and then log on to the portal with your SolarWinds customer ID and password.
2. Navigate to your product, and then click Manually Register License.
3. If the Manually Register License option is not available for your product, contact SolarWinds customer support.
4. Provide the Machine ID from Step 5, and then download your license key file.
Transfer the license key file to the server.
Return to the Activate EOC window, browse to the license key file, and then click Next.

Managing your Open Issues in Licensing

For information about managing your licenses for SolarWinds products, including how to deactivate or reuse a license, see SolarWinds License Manager.

Open Issues in Licensing

Applying Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) to a licensed Orion EOC server invalidates the existing license. To reactivate your license, contact SolarWinds customer support.
If you enter the activation key from another SolarWinds product by mistake, the activation key for the other product is considered registered even though your actual product remains unlicensed. To return the activation key to your pool of unregistered licenses, contact SolarWinds customer support.

Configuring Virtual Directories

The Configuration Wizard lets you set up the Orion EOC web console as a virtual directory of an existing web site, but does not check to see if the web site is running. If you set up the web console as a virtual directory of a stopped web site, the Configuration Wizard fails with an error. To avoid this problem, make sure the web site you choose for your virtual directory is running.

UTC Server Time Synchronization

The coordinated universal time (UTC) of the Orion NPM server must be within five minutes of the UTC of the Orion EOC server. If there is a time discrepancy greater than five minutes, a secure connection to the Orion NPM server cannot be established. If you receive an invalid credential error even though you are sure the credentials are correct, check the UTC of both servers.

The coordinated universal time (UTC) of any computers running Orion Network Atlas must be within five minutes of the Orion NPM or Orion EOC server to which you are connecting. If the time discrepancy is greater than five minutes, it is not possible to connect to the Orion NPM or Orion EOC server.

Troubleshooting

Adding an Orion NCM server fails.

Did you install Orion NPM to a drive other than C:? The Orion NCM integration module installs to the wrong location if you installed Orion NPM to a drive other than C:. To fix this:

Move the C:\Program Files\SolarWind\Orion\NCM folder into your Orion NPM folder in the correct location.
Restart the "SolarWinds Information Service" service.

Are you trying to add an Orion NCM server directly to Orion EOC? You cannot directly add Orion NCM servers to Orion EOC. Instead, you install and configure the Orion NCM integration module on an Orion NPM server and then add that Orion NPM server to Orion EOC.

Software Requirements

Orion NCM and integration module version 5.5.2 or later
Orion NPM version 9.5.1 or later

Credential Requirements

You must have correctly configured the Orion NCM Integration module with a valid Orion NCM server and a valid Orion NCM credential.

The Orion NPM credential you specify in Orion EOC must not have any account limitations that would prevent access to the Orion NCM integration module.

A database initialization string error occurs while running the Configuration Wizard.

Passwords containing special characters can sometimes cause an error during completion of the Orion EOC Configuration Wizard. If you receive the following error, check that there are no special characters in the database password: Format of the initialization string does not conform to specification starting at index 86.

The database section of the Configuration Wizard does not list your database.

During the database section of the Configuration Wizard, the browse function of the wizard may fail to locate 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.

Adding an Orion NPM server fails.

While adding an Orion NPM server to Orion EOC, if you receive the error "Failed test. Cannot connect to a SolarWinds Orion Information Service. You may have mistyped the Orion NPM server address or the SOIS may not be running", the following steps can help you troubleshoot and fix the problem:

Verify that the SolarWinds Orion Information Services is running on the Orion NPM server.
Verify that a firewall on the NPM Windows machine is not blocking incoming data on port 17777.
Verify that a firewall on the EOC Windows machine is not preventing EOC from opening port 17777 for communication.
Check the Application log on the Orion NPM server (use Windows Event Viewer) for any .Net-related errors. The following third-party security applications are known to interfere with Orion products:
- Wave Systems EMBASSY Trust Suite. On DELL machines the EMBASSY suite is installed and is known to cause the .Net TCP Port Sharing service to crash. If this is the problem, try installing the .NET hotfix from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923028. If this does not resolve this issue, uninstall the Wave Systems EMBASSY Trust Suite software.

Legal

Copyright© 1995-2010 SolarWinds, all rights reserved worldwide. No part of this document may be reproduced by any means nor modified, decompiled, disassembled, published or distributed, in whole or in part, or translated to any electronic medium or other means without the written consent of SolarWinds All right, title and interest in and to the software and documentation are and shall remain the exclusive property of SolarWinds and its licensors. SolarWinds Orion™, SolarWinds Cirrus™, and SolarWinds Toolset™ are trademarks of SolarWinds and SolarWinds.net® and the SolarWinds logo are registered trademarks of SolarWinds All other trademarks contained in this document and in the Software are the property of their respective owners.

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