SCP-500 Case Studies & Practical Application 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A network team notices intermittent latency spikes on a critical WAN link every weekday between 9–11 AM. In SolarWinds NPM, which feature is BEST suited to identify the specific traffic types causing this congestion?
- NetFlow Traffic Analyzer to examine flow data by application and conversation (Correct answer)
- SNMP polling with a 1-minute interval on the interface
- Creating a custom SWQL query against the Orion database
- Enabling syslog collection on the WAN router
Correct answer: NetFlow Traffic Analyzer to examine flow data by application and conversation
NetFlow Traffic Analyzer correlates flow data to show top applications, sources, and destinations consuming bandwidth during the spike window.
Question 2: An organization's NOC receives hundreds of redundant alerts whenever a core switch fails because all downstream nodes report as down. What SolarWinds NPM feature should the architect configure to suppress the child alerts?
- Alert suppression rules based on node status
- Network topology-aware alert dependencies (Correct answer)
- Maintenance windows on all downstream nodes
- Custom SNMP thresholds on child nodes
Correct answer: Network topology-aware alert dependencies
Alert dependencies use topology awareness to suppress child-node alerts when a parent device is down, preventing alert storms.
Question 3: A SolarWinds administrator must prove to management that a leased MPLS circuit is meeting its SLA uptime guarantee over the past quarter. Which report type should they use?
- Current status summary report for the interface
- Availability report filtered to the specific interface over 90 days (Correct answer)
- Real-time bandwidth gauge for the interface
- SNMP MIB walk export for the router
Correct answer: Availability report filtered to the specific interface over 90 days
An availability report scoped to the interface over the 90-day quarter provides historical uptime data suitable for SLA verification.
Question 4: During a capacity planning review, an engineer uses SolarWinds to forecast when a core router's CPU will exceed 80%. Which Orion feature generates this forward-looking analysis?
- PerfStack correlation dashboard
- Capacity forecasting and trending in NPM (Correct answer)
- Threshold-based alerting with email notification
- Network Atlas topology map
Correct answer: Capacity forecasting and trending in NPM
NPM's capacity forecasting uses historical polling data and trend analysis to project when a resource will breach a defined threshold.
Question 5: A customer has 500 Cisco switches that need their running configs backed up nightly and compared for unauthorized changes. Which SolarWinds product addresses this requirement?
- SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
- SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) (Correct answer)
- SolarWinds IP Address Manager (IPAM)
- SolarWinds User Device Tracker (UDT)
Correct answer: SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
NCM automates config backups, version comparisons, and change detection across network devices to enforce configuration compliance.
Question 6: An administrator finds that a monitored node's SNMP polling fails intermittently. Packet captures confirm the device responds, but Orion marks it 'down.' What is the MOST likely cause?
- The node's CPU is too busy to generate SNMP responses
- The SNMP community string in Orion does not match the device (Correct answer)
- The polling engine's firewall is blocking outbound SNMP traps
- The Orion database is full and dropping poll results
Correct answer: The SNMP community string in Orion does not match the device
A mismatched SNMP community string causes authentication failures that appear as intermittent or full polling failures even when the device is reachable.
Question 7: A company acquires a new data center with 200 devices and needs to onboard them into SolarWinds quickly while minimizing manual entry. What is the recommended approach?
- Manually add each node via the Orion web console Add Node wizard
- Use Network Sonar Discovery with defined IP ranges and credential profiles (Correct answer)
- Import nodes via a CSV file using the SolarWinds REST API
- Deploy an additional polling engine and let it auto-detect all nodes
Correct answer: Use Network Sonar Discovery with defined IP ranges and credential profiles
Network Sonar Discovery scans IP ranges with defined credential profiles to automatically identify and onboard devices into Orion.
SCP-500 Case Studies & Practical Application 2
A network team notices intermittent latency spikes on a critical WAN link every weekday between 9–11 AM.
In SolarWinds NPM, which feature is BEST suited to identify the specific traffic types causing this congestion?