PerfStack is a powerful browser-based dashboard to troubleshoot performance issues for a
wide variety of problems at the application level. This visual and intuitive dashboard is fully
customizable including key metrics for all layers of your application that are stacked on top of
one another to correlate metrics, rapidly troubleshoot issues, and share data among teams.
Whether you are looking at network interface utilization, application performance counters, VM
host memory utilization, database wait metrics, or storage IOPS, PerfStack gives you the ability
to compare these data types side by side.
Primary Reasons to use PerfStack
● Intuitive interface to drag and drop metrics from each tier in your application for a
complete picture
● Ability to stack graphs with values for all levels of visualization
● Discovery of upstream and downstream resources from your application
● Smart data correlation with real-time and predefined interval-based data across all
SolarWinds modules
● Historical analysis with the ability to zoom into specific time periods
● Share fully customized templates with your team (all permissions based)
Collaborate across your companies needs
Reliably delivering apps and services to your end-users is crucial. Cross-functional collaboration
is a major tool for resolving problems as quickly as possible. If you are a network admin and you
rule out a network problem, PerfStack gives you the ability to easily share your data analysis
with your colleague on the systems team. Simply create a new analysis project and share the
URL across the team, and everyone sees the same data presented in a visually stunning
dashboard.
Starting to use PerfStack
PerfStack starts with a blank graph or you can use a predefined template to begin your
analysis. With the blank slate, select the application, server or resource you are familiar with
in the Metrics and then PerfStack will auto discover all of the dependent upstream and
downstream resources, which is called the Relationship Mapper.
From there you can select the metrics that apply to the resources and drag and drop them
from the Palette to the graphs to begin analysis and troubleshooting. Some metrics report
data in real time and others are on a predefined schedule. You have the ability to hover
your mouse over the graphs to get metrics for that time slice. At any point in time though
you can load real time data to take over averaged values by selecting “START REAL-TIME POLLING”
Using the ability to layer metrics provides for a multi tier approach for troubleshooting. You
can correlate alert timing to spikes in hardware metrics, drops in availability, and delays on
response time. One of the most powerful functions of the PerfStack is the ability to share
and collaborate with other team members. This is done by using the ”SHARE” feature in the
top right corner of the screen. This will automatically copy the link of your PerfStack project
to be shared with colleagues. Permissions can be baked into the use and sharing of
PerfStack data as well!
Using PerfStack to generate historical Bandwidth Reports
You can use the PerfStack feature when viewing an Interface. For example we have the In/Out
bits per second graph below. This was data defaulted to the last 24 hours of reporting on this
device. We have the option to hone in on more particular information by selecting “OPEN IN
PERFSTACK”. This will bring us to a live graph within the Performance Analysis section of
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor.
From here we can continue to layer further data, all while following a simple workflow directly from an interface.
Wrapping things up
In conclusion, PerfStack provides a diverse feature set that excels in troubleshooting,
performance analysis, and multiple data sources visualization. Utilizing PerfStack to it’s potential
will certainly aid all aspects of Network Monitoring within your Solarwinds environment.