Network Management

Applying Windows Updates in SolarWinds Environment

Recommended best practices and tips for patching Solarwinds Server in your environment.

First published date

11/10/2018 3:01 AM

Last published date

2/23/2025 4:14 PM

Overview

This article describes important steps you should take before applying Windows in your SolarWinds environment.

Product section

Orion Platform

Resolution

Before applying a Windows Update to any server that is part of your SolarWinds deployment ex: Main Poller(s), Additional Poller(s), Additonal Web Server (s), FlowStorage/Orion Database or OrionLog Database Server(s), we recommend following approach:

Important Notice:

  • Take a Snapshot or Backup of All  Application servers and DB Server(s):
  • If you have High Availability, disable HA globally. 
  1. Stop all SolarWinds services on all Solarwinds servers as per Start, Stop, or Restart Orion Services with the Orion Service Manager. If you have HA the only disable services on Standby servers if you are patching in multiple cycles (point 2 below). 
  2. Perform the Windows updates on all Solarwinds servers in same patching cycle. If you have Solarwinds High Availability then you may split the patching cycle into 2/3 cycles. One for Standby Servers and Second for Active servers and third for SQL server, the order of patching does not make a difference.

    Note: Solarwinds engineering team highly recommends to have all Solarwinds servers at same patching level otherwise application may behave unpredictably.

    NOTE: If reboot is required during patching cycles with High availability, SolarWinds is recommending to be running SolarWinds Platform 2024.2 and above as logic has been improved.  If they are standalone, you may need to re-stop services as they are automatic and will start on reboot.

  3. Once done with Windows Updates on all servers, then you can restart all SolarWinds services on all servers. Using the following KB article: Start, Stop, or Restart Orion Services with the Orion Service Manager.

    NOTE: If the Orion database server is rebooted after the Windows update is done, ensure that the SQL Server services are started before restarting the SolarWinds services.

This is since we leverage a lot of Windows services, and while they are being changed/paused, etc., to ensure they upgrade properly and our services do not freeze, our services should be stopped.