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Using Your Orion Network Tools to Locate and Block Unwanted Use

 

You know. You’ve always known. They’re back there, in darkened cubicles, playing WoW, downloading Heroes and slowing your network to a crawl. This must be stopped.

 

Now you have the tools to combat this insidious attack on your network. With SolarWinds Orion network tools at your disposal, you truly control the flow of information. And you have the power to prevent imbalances in that flow.

 

Your SolarWinds Orion network tools can help you take care of a variety of problems, from isolating an infected computer to blocking unwanted use.

 

Within your network, you can easily chart the increasing usage of your different uplinks. With the addition of Orion NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, you can chart utilization as you can with a basic Orion NPM installation. This also enables you to locate specific instances of unwanted use and take immediate corrective action.

 

Consider the following scenario:

The Problem

1. Your uplink to the Internet has been slowing progressively over the past six months, even though your head count, application use and dedicated bandwidth have all been stable.

 

2. You open the Orion NPM Web Console to see that the link to the net is up at your site. So, you click your specific uplink and consult your Current Percent Utilization of each Interface chart. You can see that the current utilization of your Web-facing interface is 80 percent.

 

Investigating the Issue

3. You click the Web-facing interface for more information about the problem. Using the Percent Utilization chart and customizing the chart to show the last six months, you see that there has been steady growth from 15 percent to 80 percent consumption over that time. There are even times when usage spikes into the high 90s.

 

4. You click the NetFlow Traffic Analyzer tab, and then click the uplink at that site. Here, you look at the top 50 endpoints and see that a group of computers in the 10.10.12.0-10.10.12.255 IP range is consuming the bulk of the bandwidth. These computers reside in your internal sales IP range. You begin to drill into each of the offending IP addresses.

 

Each IP you investigate shows the file-sharing program Kazaa (port 1214) and the MMORPG World of Warcraft (port 3724) in the Top 5 applications.

 

The Solution

5. You push a new configuration to your firewall using Cirrus Configuration Manager that blocks all traffic on these two ports.

 

6. Within minutes, you see the traffic on your interface drop back to 25 percent. You may also hear the curses of the internal sales staff, as they were right in the middle of a raid in Blackrock Spire and had half of the second season of “Lost” downloaded, but tell them to get over it and keep the raiding to their own time.

 

About the Author:

Stacey Crow is the sales manager for Corona Technical Services, the only certified SolarWinds training provider in North America. Sign up for their training course at http://www.coronaservices.net to learn all the ins and outs of the SolarWinds Orion network and make your life easier.

Using Your Orion Network and Tools to Locate and Isolate an Infected Computer

 

If you’re using SolarWinds Orion networks for your network administration, you have a whole host of network tools and applications at your fingertips that were designed to make managing your network as easy as possible. Unfortunately, you may not know how to use half of them.

 

You can use your SolarWinds Orion network tools to take care of a variety of problems, from blocking unwanted use to isolating an infected computer.

 

With your currently installed Orion network and the addition of Orion NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, you can quickly pinpoint and respond to the wide variety of self-propagating viruses that can attack your network.

 

For an example, consider the following scenario:

 

1) Discovery

A local branch of your banking network that handles all of your credit card transactions complains that the network is extremely sluggish, which is causing frequent timeouts during sensitive data transfers. Concerned, you immediately set out to investigate.

 

2) Investigation

You open the Orion NPM Web Console network tool to see that the link to the network is up at the branch site. You consult your Percent Utilization chart and see that current utilization at the site is 98 percent. You know normal utilization at that point is 15-25 percent. Your concern escalates as you realize your carefully protected network has been invaded.

 

3) Identifying the problem

You click the NetFlow Traffic Analyzer tab, and then click the link to the branch site. Taking a quick look at the Top 5 Endpoints, you see that a single computer in the 10.10.10.0-10.10.10.255 IP range is generating 80 percent of the load on the branch link. This is what’s slowing down the data transfers. You’re getting closer.

 

You know that this computer resides in a part of the branch that is accessible to customers for personal transactions using the Web. Further investigation reveals that 100 percent of the computer’s traffic for the past two hours has been over port 1883.

 

Because you know that you don’t have any devices using IBM MQSeries messaging in that location, nor any other services or protocols that require 1883, you can tell that this is a virus exploit. One you will shortly terminate.

 

4) Solution

You quickly use your configuration management tool, such as Cirrus Configuration Manager, to push a new configuration to your firewall that blocks port 1883. Within minutes, you see the usage percentage drop to its normal 15-25 range. This area is secured.

 

With SolarWinds Orion network tools, managing a network doesn’t have to be difficult. Your network tools may even have features that you don’t know about. Regular training is necessary to ensure that you can do your job quickly, efficiently, and with as few headaches as possible.

 

For more information about using your SolarWinds Orion network tools, visit Corona Technical Services online at http://www.coronaservices.net

 

About the Author:

Stacey Crow is the sales manager for Corona Technical Services, the only certified SolarWinds training provider in North America. Sign up for their training course at http://www.coronaservices.net to learn all the ins and outs of the SolarWinds Orion network and make your life easier.

Getting the Most out of Your SolarWinds Orion Network: Features and Add-ons

 

It’s an unfortunate truth that many network administrators don’t really understand how to get the most out of their network. The software may work, and you may figure out a roundabout way how to do what you want, but there may be a faster, more efficient way to do what you need.

 

There are a number of ways to get more out of your Orion network, either by utilizing built-in features or finding separate add-ons that give the network a new dimension of usability. Here are just a few things you may not know about your SolarWinds Orion network management tools.

 

Click Here for More Information on SolarWinds Training

 

This SolarWinds Orion feature allows you to administrate Web portals and limit what users can get into. This function is available from the menu bar on your SolarWinds Orion administration interface. This is an incredibly useful feature of Orion that allows you to configure Web user accounts to limit devices they can get information about or view reports on.

 

Web portal administration works to compartmentalize information and limit access so people only see what they need to see about the network. This applies to lower-level network administrators who need to administer parts of the network and also affects the receptionist working with a simple printer.

 

For example, if the receptionist’s printer is on network, you can configure their user account to only display that network device for them. For mid-level administrators directly responsible for a branch office network, you can limit their access to only the certain group of routers that office utilizes. Your network may have 15 routers spread out over many office locations. You can limit a user to seeing detailed performance info on two of them. 

 

For workplaces where data security is an issue, you can also build user accounts to maintain data security so people can’t get into places they shouldn’t be. Job-function-related restrictions can protect your employees from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

This feature makes it very easy to build in account restrictions and limitations. Orion gives you a list of a dozen pre-configured limitations, but you can also build in your own account limitations and tailor user accounts to the needs of the specific job description.

 

Engineer’s Toolset

 

The Engineer’s Toolset is a stand-alone product that has some very useful IP address management tools, especially for when you need to troubleshoot DNS issues.

 

With the Engineer’s Toolset, you can determine in a matter of seconds what IP addresses are taken or still available. When you’re managing a huge network, you know that things are changing all the time. It’s hard to find out what devices have been added or what cables have been plugged in without the users notifying the network administrators. This will help you eliminate that problem.

 

The Engineer’s Toolset also has a DNS audit tool and a DNS analyzer tool, both of which come in handy when you have to troubleshoot DNS.

 

Map Maker

 

Map Maker is an Orion network performance monitor that you can access through the system manager. With Map Maker, you can get a quick indication of the status of each remote site in your network.

 

The maps are ridiculously easy to make. All you have to do is drag your network node icons onto the map background. You can also view the status of various network nodes, as well as the status of a link between network objects.

 

Cirrus Configuration Manager

 

Like the Engineer’s Toolset, the Cirrus Configuration Manager is a separate product that can be seamlessly integrated with Orion. It enables you to track configuration changes on all your Cisco routers from one central console. Those could just be routers within an office, or even across remote sites.

 

You also have the ability to set a baseline configuration for a router as a comparison to subsequent configurations. That way, as things change from month to month, you can compare the changes to the ideal configuration, rather than having to examine the whole configuration line by tedious line.

 

In a situation where a space in the wrong place can cause you unimaginable misery, it makes life a lot easier to view both configurations in adjacent windows. Cirrus shows you by color and configuration indicators exactly where the changes are. Comparing changes is now a matter of a few minutes rather than a few hours.

 

NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

 

Have you ever wondered what applications are eating up your bandwidth over the lunch hour? That’s exactly what the NetFlow Traffic Analyzer can tell you. It’s a separate product that can be integrated with Orion, and not only does it tell you how much bandwidth is being used, but it also tells you exactly what applications are consuming it. You can see if it’s email or Internet applications, and you can even see what websites are visited in what countries.

 

This makes it so much easier to locate and identify security risks and plug security holes. You can bar subnets from accessing the network and close ports so that your bandwidth usage goes back to normal.

 

One of the best things you can do for your company and your job is to learn all the features of your SolarWinds Orion network. By making the most of these add-ons and features, you can open up a whole new world of network monitoring that will make your job faster and more efficient than you ever thought possible.

 

About the Author:

Stacey Crow is the sales manager for Corona Technical Services, the only certified SolarWinds training provider in North America. Sign up for their training course at http://www.coronaservices.net to learn all the ins and outs of the SolarWinds Orion network and make your life easier.

SolarWinds Training Courses Now Open to Network Managers and Resellers

 

Corona Technical Services has opened enrollment for its three-day SolarWinds training courses on May 20, June 17 and July 19.

 

TULSA, Okla. (PRWEB) Date, 2008 – Corona Technical Services has opened enrollment for its three-day SolarWinds training courses on May 20, June 17 and July 8. Network managers and resellers looking to expand their knowledge of SolarWinds software are invited attend.

 

“SolarWinds training courses are the best way to fully understand the capabilities of the software,” said Brett Organ, an instructor for Corona Technical Services. “For network managers, this means making it easier and more efficient to manage your networks. For resellers, this means you become more knowledgeable about your products.”

 

Malcolm Antonio, a network technician at the Network Operations Center for Belize Telemedia Limited, was one student who was very satisfied with Corona’s SolarWinds Training classes and professionalism.

 

“The Corona team did a wonderful job in training and further working with us to gain this knowledge (of how to handle the SolarWinds software),” Antonio said. “I was surprised at how personal they treated our issues, and the enthusiasm that the trainers showed when dealing with them was impressive.”

 

The SolarWinds software training courses developed by Corona Technical Services are designed to meet a variety of training needs, whether the students seek knowledge on the day-to-day administration of a SolarWinds Orion system, or want to learn how to customize and modify their current system.

 

Students will have both lectures and labs that will cover everything from installation and administration to node population and maintenance.

 

“The courses enable students to better understand how to analyze the information collected and presented by the Orion system,” Organ said. “Our goal is to give all our students the tools they need to get the most out of their SolarWinds software.” 

 

The May course runs from May 20-May 22, the June course from June 17-June 19, and the July course from July 8-July 10. Sign up today by visiting Corona Technical Services online at http://www.coronaservices.net/training/

 

About

Corona Technical Services is a full-range supplier and support organization for all SolarWinds software products. They also provide consulting services, including Microsoft support, network security, and network design, including wireless and VOIP systems. Additionally they offer training courses for administrators wanting to fully utilize the SolarWinds software and Orion systems.

 

Contact

Stacey Crow

stacey.crow@coronaservices.net

www.coronaservices.net

918-398-8052