SolarWinds released a new version of their Orion Network Performance Monitor this week. The new version, Network Performance Monitor 10 (NPM 10) is packed full of new features to help with increasing complexity and virtualized data-centers.

As the data-center reliance on virtualization grows, tools need to evolve to help administrators manage multi-vendor virtual machines and virtualized network equipment. At the same time, many administrators are working harder than ever, leaving little time to manage the management system.

NPM 10 is designed to meet those needs. According to Sanjay Castelino, VP product management and product marketing:

“Virtualization has introduced benefits along with new challenges for IT teams. As new architectures are forcing IT managers to deal with the interdependencies of physical and virtual across servers, storage and the network, we recognize a need for new visibility to manage these dynamic changes as they happen, not from a single snapshot… With Orion NPM’s new and updated features, IT professionals are empowered to gain a comprehensive outlook into the environment’s availability and performance.”

NMP 10 will communicate with VMware servers to monitor both the host servers and also individual virtual machines, making it possible to ensure that applications have the physical resources they need for high-performance. Further helping to manage virtualized networks, NPM 10 supports Cisco Nexus 1000V virtualized switches. Native support should make it easier to manage the virtual network as if it were physical hardware.

Another new feature in NPM 10 is the ConnectNow Topology Mapper, that will automatically discover devices on your network, and then draw connections between them – helping to save time spent on documentation. The mapper will help to visualize the network by allowing creation of custom maps, where network devices can be dropped onto their locations on the map.

SolarWinds sums up the new features this way:

Orion NPM v10 highlights

• ConnectNow™ Topology Mapping – Automatically display connections between devices on network maps.
• Virtual Data Center Monitoring – Monitor VMware vSphere, ESX 3.5 and ESXi hosts as well as underlying virtual machines. Automatically track VM performance through vMotion and virtualized Cisco Nexus 1000V switches.
• Automated Scheduled Network Discovery – Automate the ongoing discovery of new network elements, servers, and virtual infrastructure that are added to the network.
• Redesigned Point and Click Menu Navigation – Quickly get to information with a new user interface, complete with new module tabs, drop down lists, a notification bar and SolarWinds’ Orion blog featuring valuable product tips from the company’s product managers.

NPM 10 continues to be sold in a modular format, so additional features can be added to the base NPM package as needed. Additional applications in the Orion family include the Netflow Traffic Analyzer, Network Configuration Manager, and Application Performance Manager.

SolarWinds hosts a live-demo of NPM, so you can take it for a test-drive. To see how it would work in your environment, you can download the free 30-day trial of NPM.