SCP-500 SCP-500 Network Performance Monitoring 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What SNMP version provides encryption and authentication, making it the most secure option supported by SolarWinds NPM?
- SNMPv3 (Correct answer)
- SNMPv2c
- SNMPv1
- SNMP Trap v2
Correct answer: SNMPv3
SNMPv3 introduces user-based security with MD5/SHA authentication and DES/AES encryption, unlike the community-string-based v1/v2c.
Question 2: In SolarWinds, a 'node down' alert is generated based on which underlying check?
- ICMP ping response failure (Correct answer)
- NetFlow export interruption
- Syslog message receipt
- CPU threshold exceeded
Correct answer: ICMP ping response failure
SolarWinds uses ICMP echo requests (ping) to determine node availability; consecutive failures trigger a node-down alert.
Question 3: Which SolarWinds polling engine component handles data collection from monitored nodes and is distinct from the main web server?
- Additional Polling Engine (APE) (Correct answer)
- Orion Web Console
- Advanced Alert Manager
- Report Scheduler
Correct answer: Additional Polling Engine (APE)
APEs distribute polling load across multiple servers, allowing SolarWinds to scale monitoring to tens of thousands of nodes.
Question 4: What SolarWinds feature captures and stores syslog and SNMP trap messages for event correlation and troubleshooting?
- Syslog and Trap Viewer (Correct answer)
- Network Atlas
- Config Change Templates
- WPM Recorder
Correct answer: Syslog and Trap Viewer
The Syslog and Trap Viewer in Orion collects unsolicited messages from devices, enabling correlation with monitored metrics.
Question 5: In SolarWinds NPM, what metric represents the percentage of transmitted packets that did not reach their destination?
- Packet loss percentage (Correct answer)
- Interface utilization
- Response time (ms)
- Polled discards
Correct answer: Packet loss percentage
Packet loss percentage is calculated from ICMP probes or interface counters and indicates network path quality.
Question 6: Which SolarWinds Orion database is used to store all collected performance data, alerts, and configuration by default?
- Microsoft SQL Server (Correct answer)
- Oracle Database
- MySQL
- SQLite
Correct answer: Microsoft SQL Server
SolarWinds Orion requires Microsoft SQL Server as its backend database for storing all monitoring data and configuration.
SCP-500 SCP-500 Network Performance Monitoring 2
What SNMP version provides encryption and authentication, making it the most secure option supported by SolarWinds NPM?