Network Management

Best practices for Windows Updates or Security hardening and SolarWinds patches in the SolarWinds Orion platform

This article provides recommendations, tips and warnings when applying updates or server hardening changes to SolarWinds servers.

First published date

10/24/2018 9:55 PM

Last published date

10/4/2023 1:08 AM

Overview

SolarWinds tests and releases their products on the latest fully patched builds available.

While all SolarWinds products are thoroughly tested by our product development teams, additional updates (such as a hotfixes) may be released throughout the year to address unforseen bugs and vulnerabilities.

Microsoft will also release OS updates (security and recommended updates) after our product has been released throughout the course of the release cycle and this is obviously a best practice to keep your servers updated and secure.

Product section

Orion Platform

Cause

N/A

Resolution

General recommendation before updating or hardening the server(s)
  1. Always backup or snapshot the server(s)
  2. Always backup the Orion database(s)
Dry Run Approach before updating or hardening the server(s)
  1. If you are not prepared to simply rollback and restore the database after finding issues (as it could occur only days later) then you should do a dry run of the changes in a test environment.
  2. You can install the product with a new database and it will function in evaluation mode and perform the changes then test functionality.
Full Staging Environment
  1. If you want to fully replicate the production servers, you will need to contact our sales team for lab licenses that will enable you to create a full staging environment.
  2. The benefits of this is that you can also perform hotfix updates and full upgrades on this environment prior to applying them on their production environment.
How should I apply the changes?
  1. Please follow Applying Windows Updates in SolarWinds Environment
What to do if you have issues after patching?
  1. In the unlikely event that you run into some issues with updates SolarWinds will be happy to work with you to resolve any possible issues that may arise due to the changes.
  2. Before any roll back of the changes, please first Collect the Orion diagnostics 
  3. Please Submit a ticket with SolarWinds Technical Support.
  4. It will be essential to provide the exact changes that you have made and also to inform them when you started to see issues exactly, what type of issues you saw so we can reproduce the issue ourselves. Please see our Tips and Tricks on opening a support case for more information.