See the following links for information about the Orion Application Performance Monitor:
How Orion APM Works - By using UDP, TCP, SNMP, and WMI calls to your network framework and application servers, Orion Application Performance Monitor (APM) provides real-time feedback on your applications and trending through statistics stored in the Orion NPM database.
Requirements for APM v4.2 - Chapter 2 of the APM Admin Guide discusses all the requirements and instructions for installation.