Database agent VS Machine agent

[Sandor.Bihary]

Hi All!

I have an MS SQL box which is monitored with an appd agent collector. I also wanted to install the machine agent on the MS SQL box to make sure I get even more HW metrics. (Also HW monitoring with the DB collector due to WMI policies is not possible).

However, when the machine agent is running no SQL data is captured. If I stop the machine agent on the SQL server the data collection starts again.

Is there any way to run a machine agent on a SQL box?

Best,

Sandor

[Eric.Miller]

The database agent works pretty seemlessly with MS SQL, so you really don't need to enable hardware monitoring, it'll automatically track all that information for you (The documentation actually says it's unecessary). If you have multiple databases on the same server AND the database agent sitting on that server, then it basically sits there as a collection point for all of the "collectors" you setup for each database on itself. I could be wrong, but if you want to add a machine agent on top of that then you basically need to treat it as any other application server and make sure it has it's own Tier and Node name, and monitor it's stats under the "Server" tab. If you have an available Server Visibility License, that'll give you everything else you need.

[Link.Ponder]

Good topic!

Testing the Oracle collection, it was running fine.  The developer/application owner messaged me this morning asking why the UI was showing "Error: The agent is currently not reporting any data".  After much research, I put 2 and 2 together and realized that this started after I started up the machine agent.

So I have a remote DB Agent coming in via port 1521 and a local machine agent and some of the data collection starts failing for the remote DB Agent.  I don't recall seeing any information about this documented.

I guess our DB servers will not have server visibility or hardware monitoring because there will be no SSH approvals in the DB servers.  Not the end of the world, but just something that could be clarified a bit better.

[Eric.Miller]

You can actually go "agentless" for the most part with database agents, by installing 1 DB agent on your Controller or one of your other servers and just have them poll the database servers with an authenticated account with the correct permissions. This way you can have a machine agent on the database if needed, and it shouldn't intefere with your DB collector. Depending on how you set it up, you might have to go to two different places in order to get all the metrics, but they should be there.

Permissions and all that are in the documentation:

https://docs.appdynamics.com/display/PRO45/Configure+Oracle+Collectors

[Link.Ponder]

Yes, we have a Linux server running the dbagent that connects over the network via port 1521.  Everything is fine until I start up the machine agent.  The dashboard page then displays that error and statistics on that page stop reporting.  Stop the machine agent and within a minute the stats start reporting again.

[Sandor.Bihary]

What is the uniqid/hostname you use in the machine agent?

Try to add a JAVA-MA extra string to the name.

If you are using the default naming for machine agent on a DB instrumented with a DB collector AppD gets confused. So try to change the uniqid/hostname  in you machine agent config. 

[Link.Ponder]

Perfect!

I reinstalled the agent and tested again and yes, as soon as the machine agent starts, the "Databases" -> "Dashboard" for the DB server stops.  I killed the agent and the DB Agent collection began reporting again.

I then changed the machine agen'ts controller-info.xml by setting the unique-host-id as the short hostname with a "-ma"

<unique-host-id>examplehost-ma</unique-host-id>

I started the machine agent and after 5 minutes, the DB Agent collection is still reporting data as expected.

[Mehbubur.Rahman]

I am also facing the same issue. Were you able to find any solution to this?

Please share.

Thanks in advance

Mehbubur

[Sandor.Bihary · Accepted solution]

Hey Mehbubur!

You just need to rename the machine agent unique-host-id.

See my last post. Hope this helps:)

I reinstalled the agent and tested again and yes, as soon as the machine agent starts, the "Databases" -> "Dashboard" for the DB server stops.  I killed the agent and the DB Agent collection began reporting again.

I then changed the machine agen'ts controller-info.xml by setting the unique-host-id as the short hostname with a "-ma"

<unique-host-id>examplehost-ma</unique-host-id>

I started the machine agent and after 5 minutes, the DB Agent collection is still reporting data as expected.