SolarWinds details Orion telemetry integration with Network Copilot

SolarWinds’ Network Copilot integration moves Orion telemetry into a unified, real-time data layer by using the SWIS API and Kafka streaming, then exposing normalized device, interface, hardware, and health data through Copilot queries.

Research Overview

The vendor describes SolarWinds Orion as a source of network telemetry, including inventory and performance counters. It also states that this information can remain siloed within Orion’s database or user interface.

The blog frames the integration as addressing siloed access, manual data sharing, and limited real-time integration by connecting Orion data to Network Copilot’s open data platform.

Technical Breakdown

The integration is presented as the “SolarWinds Collector for Copilot,” implemented as a containerized microservice that connects to Orion using the SWIS API. It runs scheduled queries to fetch inventory and metrics at configurable intervals and applies schema normalization before publishing data.

For data movement, the collector converts records into JSON and streams them into Kafka topics so the data is available to Copilot. The blog says the normalization step aligns SolarWinds data with Copilot’s unified data model.

Data Coverage and Queryable Content

The blog states the collector queries Orion entities via the Orion SDK (SWIS API) to provide both static and dynamic information. It lists categories including device inventory, interface inventory, hardware inventory, and performance metrics.

For device inventory, the article references Orion.Nodes and Orion.AssetInventory.ServerInformation and includes fields such as IP address, hostname, model, serial number, OS, uptime, and availability status. For interface inventory, it references Orion.NPM.Interfaces joined with Orion.Nodes, including interface name, alias, admin and operational status, MTU, speed, and an index for correlation with counters.

For hardware inventory, the blog cites Orion.HardwareHealth.HardwareItem and related entities, covering fan presence and PSU presence along with operational state and attributes such as model, serial number, voltage, current, wattage, and thresholds. For performance metrics, it lists CPU load from Orion.CPULoad, memory utilization from Orion.Volumes, and interface counters from Orion.NPM.InterfaceTraffic and Orion.NPM.InterfaceErrors.

Operational Use in Network Copilot

The blog describes a workflow in which the collector authenticates to SolarWinds using configured credentials, extracts data securely, and publishes normalized JSON records to Kafka for Copilot consumption. It characterizes the result as enabling troubleshooting, inventory inspection, and health monitoring through natural-language queries.

Example Copilot prompts in the article include checking whether a switch rebooted in the last 24 hours, listing interfaces whose admin and operational status changed, listing devices with uptime less than 24 hours, listing voltage thresholds for power supply units, and identifying devices running high CPU or interfaces with high error or discard rates.

Operational Impact Compared With Native Orion Access

The blog provides a before-and-after contrast between SolarWinds-native access and use through Copilot. It states that Orion inventory, CPU and memory monitoring, and interface counters can require manual drilldowns or CSV/API exports prior to integration.

After integration, the article says these items become directly queryable in Copilot, with answers produced via natural-language prompts and unified insights across connectors. It also describes fan and PSU visibility as becoming readable as structured inventory rather than residing only in hardware health tables.

This vendor blog describes how the SolarWinds Collector for Network Copilot uses the SWIS API, JSON normalization, and Kafka streaming to make Orion device, interface, hardware, and performance telemetry queryable in Copilot for troubleshooting, inventory, and health monitoring. Blog Signals brief is a fact-based summary of the vendor blog.