What is the purpose of generating a report?

The reporting engine in the SolarWinds Platform is designed to provide historical documentation and summary data for management and technical analysis. According to theSolarWinds Platform Reporting Guide, reports are distinct from alerts; while alerts focus on real-time "critical incidents needing immediate attention" (Option B), reports focus on aggregated data over time.

Specifically, the two primary purposes shown in the options are:

Availability and Response Time Reports (A): These provide a summary of how infrastructure has performed over a specific period (daily, weekly, monthly). This is used for Service Level Agreement (SLA) reporting to show that devices at a particular location maintained required uptime and performance metrics.

Status Summaries (D): Reports can be generated to show the current or historical distribution of node health. A report on the "number of nodes in warning or critical states" provides an executive-level view of environmental stability, identifying which areas of the network are experiencing the most frequent issues.

Option C is incorrect as database dependencies are typically visualized live inAppStackorIntelligent Mapsrather than in a static report. Option B describes the function of theAlerting Engine, which is intended for immediate operational response rather than the post-hoc analysis provided by reports.