Glossary

SolarWinds Orion and network monitoring terminology, explained in plain language.

• Orion Alert Engine
  2026-05-24

  The Alert Engine is the part of the Orion Platform that evaluates alert conditions, manages alert state, and fires alert actions. PocketNOC reads alert state from here via SWIS.

• DPA (Database Performance Analyzer)
  2026-05-24

  DPA is SolarWinds' deep database-performance monitor. It runs separately from the rest of Orion and focuses on wait-time analysis for SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, and Sybase.

• IPAM (IP Address Manager)
  2026-05-24

  IPAM tracks IP address allocations, subnet utilization, DHCP scopes, and DNS records — the network plumbing nobody likes maintaining in a spreadsheet.

• NCM (Network Configuration Manager)
  2026-05-24

  NCM backs up, version-controls, audits, and pushes configuration changes to network devices. It tracks compliance, alerts on unauthorized changes, and automates bulk configuration deployment.

• NPM (Network Performance Monitor)
  2026-05-24

  NPM is the original SolarWinds Orion module — it polls network devices via SNMP and shows interface status, throughput, errors, and CPU/memory for routers, switches, and firewalls.

• NTA (NetFlow Traffic Analyzer)
  2026-05-24

  NTA collects NetFlow, sFlow, jFlow, and IPFIX records from network devices and shows who is consuming bandwidth — by host, application, protocol, or conversation.

• SolarWinds Orion Platform
  2026-05-24

  Orion is SolarWinds' enterprise IT monitoring framework. Modules like NPM, SAM, NTA, NCM, IPAM, and DPA all build on the same Orion core for storage, polling, and alerting.

• SAM (Server & Application Monitor)
  2026-05-24

  SAM monitors servers, processes, services, and applications. It polls via WMI, SNMP, SSH, JMX, PowerShell, and dozens of vendor-specific templates for Microsoft, VMware, AWS, Linux, and more.

• SWIS API (SolarWinds Information Service)
  2026-05-24

  SWIS is the SolarWinds Information Service — the REST + SOAP API that exposes data from the Orion Platform. PocketNOC uses SWIS to read node, alert, and performance data.

• SWQL (SolarWinds Query Language)
  2026-05-24

  SWQL is SolarWinds' SQL-like query language for the Orion data model. It is what the SWIS API accepts and what powers every custom report, alert trigger, and integration.