SolarWinds
Encyclopedia
SolarWinds is a developer and marketer of network, applications, virtualization and storage management
software.
The company sells downloadable software products that maintain, monitor and troubleshoot IT networks. It also provides several free tools relating to its core commercial products, and hosts an online community
of more than 93,000 users called Thwack.
In Q2 2009, SolarWinds completed its initial public offering
of $100–139 million.
. The company was conceived to create faster, easier network management tools. It was profitable its very first year in business.
SolarWinds moved to Austin, Texas in 2006 and has had aggressive growth ever since. From 2005 to 2007 the company more than doubled its revenue
, growing from $27.9 million to $61.7 million annually.
In 2007, SolarWinds raised funding from Austin Ventures
, Bain Capital
and Insight Venture Partners
to fuel “strategic acquisitions.” Following the funding, SolarWinds acquired several companies including Neon Software and ipMonitor Corp. and opened a European sales office in Ireland
.
In 2009, the company also announced its professional certification program
, the SolarWinds Certified Professional Program (SCP) for network management which tests professionals in five areas: network management fundamentals, network management planning, network management operation, network performance troubleshooting and Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) administration and service.
In January 2010, the company acquired assets of Tek-Tools, Inc., a storage resource management company.
In July 2011, the company acquired TriGeo Network Security
, a log management company.
's Well-Connected Award Finalist
In 2009, SolarWinds received Redmond
Readers Choice Award.
The company also won the 2009 Tech Innovation Award from Austin Business Journal.
SolarWinds was chosen as a finalist for the 2009 24th Annual CODiE Awards.
In 2010, SolarWinds was recognized as a "Hot Texas
Company" by Lead411.
In 2008, the company announced a free Cisco NetFlow tool, a free tool to monitor a single VMWare server and, in June, marked the anniversary of thwack.com by releasing a free SolarWinds Exchange Monitor.
Free Tools
Fault and Performance Monitoring
Configuration and Compliance
Storage and Virtualization Management
Storage management
Storage management can refer to one of the following:* ADSTAR Distributed Storage Manager* Automatic Storage Management* Enterprise storage management* Hierarchical storage management* IBM Tivoli Storage Manager* OpenView Storage Area Manager...
software.
The company sells downloadable software products that maintain, monitor and troubleshoot IT networks. It also provides several free tools relating to its core commercial products, and hosts an online community
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
of more than 93,000 users called Thwack.
In Q2 2009, SolarWinds completed its initial public offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
of $100–139 million.
History
SolarWinds was founded in 1998 by two brothers, Dave and Don Yonce in Tulsa, OklahomaTulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
. The company was conceived to create faster, easier network management tools. It was profitable its very first year in business.
SolarWinds moved to Austin, Texas in 2006 and has had aggressive growth ever since. From 2005 to 2007 the company more than doubled its revenue
Revenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
, growing from $27.9 million to $61.7 million annually.
In 2007, SolarWinds raised funding from Austin Ventures
Austin Ventures
Austin Ventures is a private equity firm focused on venture capital and growth equity investments in business services and supply chain, financial services, new media, Internet, and information services companies nationally with a focus on Texas. The firm, which is based in Austin, Texas, was...
, Bain Capital
Bain Capital
Bain Capital LLC is a Boston-based private equity firm founded in 1984 by partners from the consulting firm Bain & Company. Originally conceived as an early-stage, growth-oriented investment fund, Bain Capital today manages approximately $65 billion in assets, and its strategies include private...
and Insight Venture Partners
Insight Venture Partners
Insight Venture Partners is a New York-based private equity and venture capital firm founded in 1995 by Jeff Horing and Jerry Murdock. The firm focuses exclusively on software and Internet-enabled businesses and currently has a capital base of approximately $5 billion.The firm’s Executive Advisory...
to fuel “strategic acquisitions.” Following the funding, SolarWinds acquired several companies including Neon Software and ipMonitor Corp. and opened a European sales office in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
In 2009, the company also announced its professional certification program
Professional certification (Computer technology)
Professional certifications in computer technology are non-degree awards made to those who have achieved qualifications specified by a certifying authority. Depending on the particular certification, qualifications may include completing a course of study, proof of professional accomplishments,...
, the SolarWinds Certified Professional Program (SCP) for network management which tests professionals in five areas: network management fundamentals, network management planning, network management operation, network performance troubleshooting and Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) administration and service.
In January 2010, the company acquired assets of Tek-Tools, Inc., a storage resource management company.
In July 2011, the company acquired TriGeo Network Security
TriGeo Network Security
TriGeo Network Security is a United States-based provider of security information and event management technology. The company helps midmarket organizations proactively protect networks and data from internal and external threats, with a SIEM appliance that provides real-time log management and...
, a log management company.
Awards & Recognitions
In 2002 - 2005, SolarWinds becomes Network ComputingNetwork computing
Network computing is a generic term in computing which refers to computers or nodes working together over a network.It may also mean:*Cloud computing*Distributed computing*Virtual Network Computing...
's Well-Connected Award Finalist
In 2009, SolarWinds received Redmond
Redmond
Redmond may refer to:In people:*Redmond In places:* Redmond, Washington, best known as the home of Microsoft and Nintendo of America* Redmond, Oregon* Redmond, Utah...
Readers Choice Award.
The company also won the 2009 Tech Innovation Award from Austin Business Journal.
SolarWinds was chosen as a finalist for the 2009 24th Annual CODiE Awards.
In 2010, SolarWinds was recognized as a "Hot Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
Company" by Lead411.
Items & Services
SolarWinds’ products are all downloadable and the company’s primary method of product support is its large online community at www.thwack.com, which allows users to help each other and add and share custom functionalities, templates and plug-ins.In 2008, the company announced a free Cisco NetFlow tool, a free tool to monitor a single VMWare server and, in June, marked the anniversary of thwack.com by releasing a free SolarWinds Exchange Monitor.
Free Tools
- Advanced Subnet Calculator - compute addresses for IP subnets
- Exchange Monitor - continuously monitor Exchange in real time
- IP Address Tracker – scan, track, and consolidate IP address information
- IP SLA Monitor – offers real-time Cisco IP SLA statistics to troubleshoot slowdowns and understand performance one network path and device at a time
- Kiwi Syslog Server - receive, log, display and forward syslog messages from network devices
- Kiwi CatTools - manage and backup the network
- NetFlow Configurator - configure NetFlow v5 via SNMP on supported Cisco devices
- Real-time NetFlow Analyzer - capture and analyze traffic on your network
- TFTP Server - upload and download executable images and configurations to network devices
- VM Monitor - continuously monitor a VMware ESX Server and its virtual machines
- Wake-on LAN - remotely power up network PCs
- WMI Monitor –monitor a single Windows application and server in real time, using built-in, community-sourced, and customizable application templates
- Network Config Generator - configure VLANs and other network device features without opening the CLI
Fault and Performance Monitoring
- Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) - fault and network performance management platform
- Orion NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA) - provides visibility into network traffic
- Orion Application Performance Monitor (APM) - extends Orion NPM's monitoring capabilities to give visibility into the performance of applications and the underlying operating systems and servers
- Orion Synthetic End User Monitor (SEUM) - provides visibility into the performance of web applications, specifically business-critical web transactions from the end-user’s perspective
- Orion IP SLA Manager – leverage Cisco IP SLA to monitor site-specific or WAN-related network performance, replaces Orion VoIP Monitor
- Orion IP Address Manager (IPAM) – provides detailed visibility into the IP address space
- Orion User Device Tracker (UDT) - capable of identifying where a machine is connected in the network, keeping track of machines with suspicious hostnames, and port utilization
- Orion Enterprise Operations Console (EOC) - consolidated command center for unified visibility into remote Orion deployments
- Orion Scalability Engines - scales the fault and performance management capabilities of Orion NPM
- ipMonitor – up-down monitoring for network, server and application availability
Configuration and Compliance
- Orion Network Configuration Manager (NCM) (formerly Cirrus Configuration Manager) - change and configuration management
- Engineer’s Toolset - 49 desktop tools for managing, monitoring and troubleshooting networks
- LANsurveyor - automatically discovers LAN or WAN and produces comprehensive network diagrams that can be exported into Visio
- LANsurveyor Express - LANsurveyor Express integrates with Microsoft Visio 2007 to perform network mapping from within the Visio application
Storage and Virtualization Management
- Storage Manager (Powered by Profiler) - multi-vendor based, agentless heterogeneous monitoring and reporting of the performance and capacity of physical and virtual storage infrastructure. It delivers visibility and insight into how your storage infrastructure maps to your virtualized environment.
- Backup Profiler - a cross-vendor, Web-based backup reporting and analysis solution
External links
- SolarWinds web site
- SolarWinds Redefines Network Configuration Management, ChannelInsider
- SolarWinds Expands Thanks to Thriving Community, Windows IT Pro