You may want to resolve a backend to a tier if it represents a more logical view of your environment, for example, if a database runs on the same machine as an application server. Another reason to resolve backends to a tier is to combine similar backends.

For example, if there appear to be multiple databases that are actually the same database using different namespaces, the default flow map is likely to display the databases separately. You can resolve the database backends to a new tier of type "Database Server" so they display as one and the tier metrics are together. If a backend is taken out, the historical data for the backend is retained at the tier level.