Versions:
Dependency Agent, published by Microsoft Corporation, is a lightweight system utility whose sole purpose is to map every running process inside a Windows or Linux virtual machine to the external processes, services, sockets, and ports on which it depends. Installed as a background service, the agent passively captures real-time TCP and UDP traffic, DNS resolutions, and process launch events, then compresses and forwards this metadata to Azure Monitor for VMs, Azure Service Map, or any third-party SIEM that consumes the Log Analytics agent schema. The resulting dependency graph lets cloud administrators visualize hidden cross-tier traffic, validate micro-segmentation rules before enabling NSG lockdowns, document baseline communication patterns for compliance audits, and accelerate root-cause analysis by revealing whether an outage stems from a failed external API, database, or domain controller. Because the tool records only connection metadata—never packet payloads—it adds minimal CPU overhead (<1 %) and generates roughly 20 MB per day for a typical VM, making it safe to leave running continuously on production hosts. Version 9.10.18, the first generally available release, supports Windows Server 2008 R2 through 2022 and major Linux distributions, automatically updating its data model when new ports or processes appear so that maps remain current without manual refresh. The agent is classified in the system monitoring & inventory category and is normally deployed at scale through Azure Policy, PowerShell DSC, or Ansible playbooks that silently install both the Dependency Agent and the required Log Analytics agent prerequisite. Dependency Agent is available for free on get.nero.com, with downloads provided via trusted Windows package sources (e.g. winget), always delivering the latest version, and supporting batch installation of multiple applications.
Tags: