SAM (Server & Application Monitor)

Last updated: 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.

What it is

Server & Application Monitor (SAM) is the SolarWinds Orion module that monitors server health, application performance, and operating-system-level metrics. Where NPM handles network gear, SAM handles servers and what runs on them.

SAM polls via multiple protocols depending on the target:

• WMI for Windows hosts.
• SNMP for any device exposing MIBs.
• SSH for Linux / Unix metrics.
• JMX for Java applications.
• PowerShell scripts for custom Windows checks.
• REST / HTTP for application-specific endpoints.
• Cloud APIs (AWS, Azure, GCP) for cloud workloads.

What it monitors

• OS health — CPU, memory, disk, network on Windows / Linux / Unix.
• Processes — running, expected, restart counts.
• Services — Windows services, systemd units.
• Application response — HTTP endpoints, SQL queries, custom scripts.
• Vendor application templates — Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory, IIS, Apache, Nginx, MySQL, Oracle, VMware vCenter, Hyper-V, SharePoint, hundreds more.

SAM is the module most teams pair with NPM. NPM tells you the network device is up; SAM tells you the app running on the server connected to that network device is up.

What PocketNOC shows from SAM

The Services screen in PocketNOC surfaces SAM-monitored services and processes. Performance charts include SAM-collected metrics for the relevant nodes. Auto-detected the same way as the other modules — if SAM is licensed, the relevant screens appear.

See also

• NPM — network-side equivalent.
• DPA — deeper database-specific monitoring than SAM provides.
• Orion Platform.