SWIS API (SolarWinds Information Service)

Last updated: 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.

What it is

SWIS (SolarWinds Information Service) is the official API layer of the SolarWinds Orion Platform. It exposes a queryable view of everything Orion knows — nodes, interfaces, alerts, performance counters, application monitors, NetFlow records, IP allocations, and configuration backups — across all installed modules (NPM, SAM, NTA, NCM, IPAM, DPA).

SWIS speaks both SOAP (the original protocol, still supported) and REST/JSON (added in later Orion versions). Most modern integrations use the REST endpoint on TCP port 17778, served from the Orion server itself.

Why it matters

Any tool that needs to read or write Orion data without going through the Orion Web Console UI uses SWIS. That includes:

PocketNOC uses SWIS exclusively — it does not embed a browser, scrape the web UI, or rely on email parsing. Every screen in the app is backed by a SWIS query.

How it works

A SWIS request is an HTTP POST to https://<orion-server>:17778/SolarWinds/InformationService/v3/Json/Query with a SWQL query (see SWQL) and Basic Auth credentials. The response is JSON.

Authentication uses an Orion account — local or Active Directory. PocketNOC recommends a dedicated read-only account scoped to the views the user actually needs.

Common ports and endpoints

See also