Configure WPM transaction dependencies

You can use the Dependencies feature in the SolarWinds Platform to associate objects in a parent-child relationship, indicating that one object has a dependency on another. For WPM, you can configure dependencies on transaction steps as well as transactions, providing an increased level of granularity to isolate dependencies at the level of single browser actions.

For the purposes of WPM, dependencies are useful in conjunction with NPM and SAM for tying nodes and applications to transactions and transaction steps to facilitate troubleshooting. This means that you can display the status of nodes and applications associated with a transaction in the following widgets in the Transaction Details and Step Details views to see how their performance affects a transaction or individual step:

• Transaction Application Dependencies
• Transaction Node Dependencies
• Step Application Dependencies
• Step Node Dependencies

You can also set up dependencies to reduce unnecessary alerts from child objects when only the parent object is experiencing problems. For example, if 50 devices at a remote site are connected to one server, you do not want to be swamped with 50 alert messages if the server goes down. If you specify that each device is dependent on the server, devices will appear as Unreachable if the parent server goes down, but alerts triggered by a Down status will be suppressed for the devices.

There are two ways to set up dependencies:

• Create dependencies when adding transactions
• Create dependencies on the Manage Dependencies page

To learn more about managing dependencies, see the SolarWinds Platform Administrator Guide.