How to Create a Universal Device Poller (UnDP) in NPM

10/11/2018 10:20 AM

7/8/2026 7:13 PM

Create a Universal Device Poller (UnDP) to define a custom statistic to monitor.

Note: UnDP is only applicable to SNMP polled nodes as it uses OID to gather the necessary information.
Note: You can only create one UNDP at a time.

You can see a walk-thru by our Head Geeks in the Lab Bits video:
Lab Bits: Setting Up Universal Device Pollers (UnDP's)

Before you begin, consult your vendor documentation, and find out which OID you want to monitor.

Network Performance Monitor

1. On the SolarWinds Platform server, click Start > All Programs > SolarWinds Platform > Universal Device Poller to open the Orion Universal Device Poller.
2. When the SolarWinds Platform Universal Device Poller starts, click New Universal Device Poller.
3. If you know the OID of the device that you want to monitor, put it in the OID field. Otherwise, browse/search the default MIB Tree to find suitable OIDs.
4. Expand the Show Advanced Options to choose the data formatting.
   In the Show Advanced Options section you can define the data type and the SNMP GET method.

   If you are unsure, select the "Raw Value" option, with Format set to "None" and an SNMP Get Type of either "GET" or "GET NEXT". This covers most scenarios without getting into the complexities of SNMP.

5. Select Keep Historical Data if you need to store the data for that device.
6. Enable the poller if you want to start polling immediately.
7. Choose a group for your UnDP. This setting determines the group the UnDP is contained in the lower-left pane of the Orion Universal Device Poller application.
8. On the next page, assign your UnDP to the nodes to be polled.
   Click Test to verify that the nodes support the OID and view the polling results.
   1. Go to Settings > Manage Nodes.
   2. Select the group of nodes.
   3. In the More Actions drop-down, click Poll Now.
9. Define how the data is displayed in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. Select the resources and pages to display data polled by the UnDP in the Orion Web Console (if applicable). To see historical data, be sure Keep Historical Data is selected (see step 5).

The UnDP is created and added to All Defined Pollers in the UnDP application. If Enabled, selected nodes are polled with the poller, and you can see the data in the selected resources.

 

Change the polling interval on the UnDP

To change how often data are polled with a UnDP on selected nodes, change the polling interval.

1. Open the Universal Device Poller application.
2. Under All Defined Pollers, select the UnDP.
3. Once the UnDP info is displayed on the application, Click edit properties.
4. Expand Show Advanced Options, and enter how often you want to poll the OID into the Polling Interval field (1 - 600 minutes excepted).
5. Click Finish.

The UnDP poller polls the nodes it is assigned using the specified polling interval.

 

Additional Resources

• Create custom monitors  in the NPM Administrator Guide
• Update the SolarWinds MIB Database
• Monitor custom statistics with UnDPs  in the NPM Administrator Guide
• View Universal Device Poller statistics in the SolarWinds Platform
• Add resources to views  in the NPM Administrator Guide to add custom poller resources to views