Monitoring NCM on port 17778 with NPM

In the NPM SDK there are REST based calls you can make into NPM to ask it simple questions.

I can see that NCM is listening on port 17778 and does seem to respond to a basic http get on that port but I would actually like to ask it a question that causes it to exercise itself.

Why?

Our NCM is integrated with NPM and when NCM craps out, it takes out some functions in NPM.  I would like to build a SAM component monitor to include in my NPM self-monitoring.

Any suggestions?

Chris.