Helga has a web service that depends on the database service to provide her website.

In Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), the Service Analyzer visually represents service dependencies. Asolidline between services indicates a normal one‑way dependency where one service’s health contributes to another’s service health score. However, adottedline signifies acyclic dependency, meaning that two services are defined as depending on each other in a loop. This typically happens when a service is configured to depend on another service that, directly or indirectly, also depends back on the first service. In Helga’s scenario, because the web service is set to depend on the database using the Heartbeat KPI, and the configuration somehow established a reverse dependency (even inadvertently), the Service Analyzer shows the relationship as cyclic with a dotted line. To resolve this, Helga needs to check the service dependency configuration for the database service and ensure it doesnotmistakenly include the web service (or any chain of dependencies that leads back to it). Removing or correcting that erroneous dependency breaks the cycle, which will then change the representation to a solid line and properly reflect the dependency without circular references. It’s not related to KPI importance values in this context — importance affects health score calculation but does not cause a cyclic dependency indicator.