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The Logmetry Blueprint
The whole methodPhase 01 · FoundationPhase 02 · FootprintPhase 03 · AI triageEverything as codeAI native
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What you run · SolarWinds

The honest replacement

SolarWinds is the classic center-out monitor: a polling engine reaches out to every node over SNMP, WMI, and SSH on a schedule, discovers the topology, and raises alerts from thresholds and dynamic baselines in its console. It is licensed per node, and since August 2025 it sells only three-year subscriptions, so the renewal is where the bill moves. This is the one tier where replacement is honest: an open fleet and an open source time series database you own, with every alert rebuilt and proven in writing before anything is turned off.

01Today

How a SolarWinds estate looks today

A SolarWinds estate is polled from outside and licensed per node, whatever each node produces, and what per-node pricing prices now is the difficulty of leaving.

How a SolarWinds estate looks todayNothing is installed on the hosts. A polling engine reaches out to every server and every piece of network gear over SNMP and WMI on a schedule, status and metrics flow back, and the licence counts every node it reaches, whatever that node produces. The console holds years of accumulated SNMP knowledge, and renewals move in one direction.YOUR ESTATEServers, VMs, appliancesNOTHING INSTALLEDEvery node polled from outsideNetwork gear, SNMP and flowPolls every node over SNMP and WMILICENSED PER NODEStatus and metrics backSOLARWINDSAgentless, polling basedPOLLING ENGINEReaches out to everynode on a scheduleTHE CONSOLEDeep SNMP knowledge,accumulated over yearsWHAT YOU PAY FOREvery node licensed,whatever it produces.Renewals move in onedirection.What per-node pricingprices now is the difficultyof leaving.
How a SolarWinds estate looks today. The platform polls every node from outside and the licence counts every node it reaches, and what per-node pricing prices now is the difficulty of leaving.

What SolarWinds does best

SolarWinds earned its place: broad coverage across servers and network gear, SNMP depth that took years to accumulate, and a console generations of ops teams know cold. For a long time, renting that breadth was the only realistic way to have it.

That changed. Basic checks on ordinary infrastructure, CPU, disk, process, interface state, collect just as well on the OpenTelemetry Collector, which carries no per-node licence. What per-node renewals actually price now is the difficulty of leaving, and renewals move in one direction. This is the one page on this site where replacement is the honest story, because for SIEMs and APMs it is not.

02The five verbs

What we do to a SolarWinds estate

Keep it and govern what flows in, shrink its footprint, cut what it costs, extend it with an agent, and replace only where replacement is honest.

The Logmetry Blueprint applied to a SolarWinds estateThe honest replacement. Open collectors go on every host with no per-node licence, each host dials out to a control plane in your account over OpAMP, and metrics land in a store you own where every alert and dashboard is rebuilt as code and proven to behave as it does today, in writing. The alerts that used to just fire now also reach an agent that investigates them. SolarWinds keeps running until parity is proven, then retires tier by tier. Pins: replace on the collectors, cut on the store, keep and shrink on the old platform as it retires.YOUR ESTATEServers, VMs, appliancesOPEN COLLECTORSOpenTelemetry, no per-node licenceNetwork gear, SNMP and flowRYOUR GROUNDEach host dials out, config down, health upYOUR CONTROL PLANEIn your account, readingyour repository, over OpAMPMetricsYOUR METRIC STOREEvery alert and dashboardrebuilt as code, samecoverage, proven in writingCThe alertYOUR AGENTInvestigates each alert,reads your historyESOLARWINDSRuns until every alert isrebuilt and proven to behaveas it does today, in writing.Then retired, tier by tier.KSWHAT CHANGEDThe per-node licence linegoes to zero on this tier.Nothing is turned off beforeits alerts are proven.The console you watch isyours, in your repository.
The Logmetry Blueprint applied, the one honest replacement. An open fleet under OpAMP feeds a store you own, every alert is rebuilt and proven in writing before anything is turned off, and the per-node line goes to zero. The pins mark where each of the five verbs acts.
KKeep

Everything, until parity is proven. Nothing gets turned off before every alert is rebuilt and shown to behave as it does today, in writing.

SShrink

The licensed footprint shrinks tier by tier as parity lands, on your schedule, not on a cutover weekend.

CCut

The per-node licence line goes to zero on the ordinary tier, and the stack that replaces it costs a fraction of the meter you are on.

EExtend

The alerts that used to just fire now also reach an agent that investigates them, reading history from the Lake.

RReplace

Yes. This is the honest replacement case: OpenTelemetry collection, OpAMP fleet control, an open source time series database and dashboards you own, all as code in your repositories.

The letters mark where each verb acts in the drawing above

03The approach

How the replacement actually runs

The replacement is a parallel build with a written parity bar, so the risk sits with the method instead of with your coverage.

We export the monitors and alert rules through the platform's own interfaces so the parity bar is written down, then rebuild them on the open stack while the existing monitoring keeps running. Hosts move tier by tier as their alerts prove out. The fleet is controlled over OpAMP from a control plane in your account, and the console you watch it from is yours, in your repository.

What you own after: the collectors, the fleet plane, the open source time series database, every alert and dashboard, as code. The renewal conversation ends because there is no renewal.

04Questions

Asked about SolarWinds estates

Is this riskier than renewing?

The parity bar is what makes it honest: every alert is rebuilt and proven to behave exactly as it does today, tier by tier and in writing, before anything comes off the old platform. Until that bar is met, both systems run. The risk of renewal is certain and compounding.

What about the network gear SolarWinds watches?

SNMP-heavy network monitoring is scoped honestly in the review. Much of it collects cleanly on the open stack, and where something genuinely does not, we say so and scope it out rather than pretend. The ordinary server tier alone usually carries the economics.

Who runs the new stack afterwards?

Your administrators, and the handoff is designed in. The alerts are plain files, changing one means describing the change to a coding agent, and we operate alongside your team until they run it. The retainer after that is a choice, not a dependency.

Start with the review

You share your diagrams, we review them with you, and you leave with your version of the Logmetry Blueprint drawn on your SolarWinds estate. No system access, no obligation.

Book the reviewOr take the Logmetry Blueprint as a PDF →