Default Correlators

Correlators are used to track parent and child transactions. A primary or parent transaction can contain several component or child transactions nested within it. Child transactions can contain other child transactions. It can be useful to know how much each child transaction contributes to the total response time of the parent transaction. If a parent transaction fails, knowing which child transaction contains the failure is useful.

Correlators can be recorded when you use the ARM appender. You obtain correlated transaction by default when you use the MANAGECORRELATORS parameter. When specified, transaction correlation is enabled for all ARM transactions processed by the ARM appender. The transaction correlators are in the SAS logging facility configuration file or in your SAS program. See ARM Appender Configuration Parameters for the appropriate format and specification for the configuration file.

The following table shows the transaction correlation behavior in certain events when the MANAGECORRELATORS parameter is enabled (VALUE=TRUE) by the SAS logging facility:

SAS 9.3 Transaction Correlator Behavior

Event	SAS Logging Facility Transaction Correlator	Behavior
SAS initialization	ARM.CurrentCorrelator	A default SAS transaction is started and ARM.CurrentCorrelator is created by the default SAS transaction. The default SAS ARM.CurrentCorrelator becomes the ARM.ParentCorrelator. Each %ARMSTRT or %PERFSTRT macro creates a new ARM.CurrentCorrelator.
SAS 9.1 and 9.3 %ARMSTRT macro; SAS 9.3 %PERFSTRT macro	ARM.ParentCorrelator	The previous ARM.CurrentCorrelator becomes the ARM.ParentCorrelator.
SAS 9.1 and 9.3 %ARMSTRT macro; SAS 9.3 %PERFSTRT macro	ARM.CurrentCorrelator	The value is created by the correlator associated with the %ARMSTRT or %PERFSTRT transaction event.
SAS 9.3 ARMSUBSYS=START transaction event	ARM.ParentCorrelator	The previous ARM.CurrentCorrelator becomes the ARM.ParentCorrelator.
SAS 9.3 ARMSUBSYS=START transaction event	ARM.CurrentCorrelator	The value is created by the correlator associated with the %ARMSTRT or %PERFSTRT transaction event.
SAS 9.1 and SAS 9.3 %ARMSTOP macro; SAS 9.3 %PERFSTOP macro; or ARMSUBSYS=STOP transaction event	ARM.ParentCorrelator ARM.CurrentCorrelator	All information associated with the current transaction is cleared from the ARM infrastructure and the parent transaction is maintained.

If the MANAGECORRELATORS parameter has VALUE=FALSE, you must define and manage the parent correlators.