Network Management

Monitoring AWS Direct Connect in the SolarWinds Platform

This article goes over the requirements to monitor AWS Direct Connect added in 2025.2.X and what metrics or data are visible.

First published date

1/22/2026 8:06 PM

Last published date

1/22/2026 8:06 PM

Overview

AWS Direct Connect:

AWS Direct Connect is a cloud networking service that establishes a private, dedicated network connection between your on-premises infrastructure and AWS. It uses fiber-optic Ethernet cables to bypass the public internet, ensuring lower latency, higher bandwidth, and enhanced reliability. 

The article will go over:

  1. Requirements to monitor AWS
  2. How to view the data/metrics in the web console
  3. What tables contain the data/metrics of AWS Direct Connect
  4. What logs files to review for troubleshooting.

Product section

Orion Platform

Cause

If AWS Direct Connect data is not visible, ensure the environment is on SolarWinds Platform 2025.2. and newer.

REF:

SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted 2025.2 release notes

Ensure the permissions/requirements are set for the AWS account:

Configure AWS accounts for cloud monitoring

Resolution

Upgrading to SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted 2025.2 and later brings the AWS Direct Connect feature.

The requirements for polling for the data/metrics:

By default, users and roles don't have permission to create or modify Direct Connect resources. To grant users permission to perform actions on the resources that they need, an IAM administrator can create IAM policies.

Add to the IAM policy json the following:

"directconnect:DescribeConnections",

REF: Configure AWS accounts for cloud monitoring | Identity-based policy examples for Direct Connect - AWS Direct Connect 

To access the view, navigate in the SolarWinds Web Console to My Dashboard > Cloud > AWS > Network tab to find the Direct Connect Connections:

Click on the widget to get to the Direct Connect entities page:

From here, you can click on the individual Direct Connect Connections:

The database tables for AWS Direct Connect:

The logs can be found at:

  • C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\Logs\CloudMonitoring
  • C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\Logs\VIM\CloudMonitoring