NPM (Network Performance Monitor)

Last updated: 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.

What it is

Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is the SolarWinds Orion module that polls network infrastructure — routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, wireless controllers — and tracks their availability and performance. NPM was SolarWinds' first Orion module and is still the most common one in production environments.

NPM polls devices via SNMP (v1, v2c, or v3), ICMP (for ping-based availability), and protocol-specific methods like CDP / LLDP for topology discovery. Most network device vendors are supported out of the box, with deeper integrations for Cisco, Juniper, Arista, HP, Aruba, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Checkpoint, F5, and Citrix.

What it monitors

• Node status — up / down / warning / unknown.
• Interfaces — operational state, admin state, traffic in/out, errors, discards, broadcast traffic.
• CPU and memory utilization on the device.
• Hardware health — fan, power supply, temperature sensors where the device exposes them.
• Routing tables, ARP tables, VLANs for supported devices.
• Network topology auto-discovered from CDP / LLDP neighbor data.

What PocketNOC shows from NPM

The PocketNOC Nodes screen, Node Health Dashboard, performance charts (CPU / memory / response time), and Interface Monitoring screen are all backed by NPM data. If you have NPM licensed, PocketNOC enables those screens. If you don't, they're hidden.

See also

• SAM — server / application equivalent.
• NCM — config management for the same devices NPM monitors.
• Orion Platform.