Documentation forServer & Application Monitor
Monitoring your applications and environment is a key capability of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) and is available in the Essentials edition. Server & Application Monitor (SAM) is also available in a standalone module.

Troubleshoot miscellaneous application dependency issues

This section contains additional troubleshooting tips for the Application Dependencies feature.

Check Application Dependencies services

The following table describes which logs to check to ensure Application Dependencies services are functioning. See also Application Dependencies log files.

Description Log type Expected results
Check nodes that will be polled Collector Service log See polling plans for nodes with active applications.
Check planned jobs

Polling Plan log

See jobs created for node active applications.
Check that a publish-subscribe pattern (pubsub) succeeded

Business Service log

See the cache that was created, along with inventory messages received for node with active applications.

Monitor Windows Communication Foundation data

The Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) application uses the Net.TCP Port Sharing service to share ports across multiple processes to reduce the number of ports that need to be open on a firewall. That service listens on port 17777, which is the same port where several SolarWinds Platform services listen so they can forward communication to the SolarWinds Platform through an internal, non-TCP communication channel.

Use the Application Dependencies feature with Windows Failover Clusters

When used with Windows Failover Clusters (WFCs), the Application Dependencies feature creates dependencies between connected clients and listening servers on the server side for a cluster Virtual IP (VIP) instead of the active cluster member.

Here is the required configuration for this scenario:

  • Only one agentless SolarWinds Platform node has an IP address that matches the virtual IP address of the clustered role.

    Roles were called "Services and Applications" in SQL Server 2012 and earlier.

  • Each VIP node has a unique IP address to support the feature's cluster-matching algorithm.

  • A SAM application monitor, such as AppInsight for SQL, uses agentless polling to collect data for the node.

  • Application Dependency polling deploys agent plugins to agent-monitored cluster member machines so they can be assigned to non-cluster VIP addresses.

The following diagram shows an example of MSSQL running on a WFC:

https://cp.solarwinds.com/download/attachments/91841056/sql-cluster.png?version=5&modificationDate=1498478421453&api=v2

Note these details about this figure:

  • An agentless node has the same IP address, 10.###.###.20, as the SQL Cluster VIP role and AppInsight for SQL is assigned to the node.
  • The cluster includes two nodes with unique IP addresses, monitored by SolarWinds Platform agents.
  • The SolarWinds Platform server is monitored by an SolarWinds Platform server template.
  • The SolarWinds Platform server instance uses the cluster VIP address, 10.###.###.20, for the SQL Server datastore.

SAM recognizes the database connection between the SolarWinds Platform server and SQL database as a connection between an application (the SolarWinds Platform SQL Server, as monitored by a template) and AppInsight for SQL (MSSQLSERVER) even though the target of the database connection is SQL running on an active cluster member.