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What are the possible configuration scenarios for the Machine Agent and SIM and App Agents, and their impact on an extension and its configurations?   Table of Contents APM Machine Agent Installation Independent Machine Agent Installation SIM with No App agents SIM with one or more app agents   APM Machine Agent Installation This case is when a Machine Agent (MA) is configured on the same host as one or more App Agents. For more details, please check APM Machine Agent Installation Scenario.   In this case, if app, tier and node names are NOT specified in the MA configuration, the MA will be resolved to  all  the APM app, tier and node associated on that host.  So, if in the extension's configuration metricPrefix is configured as  metricPrefix="Custom Metrics|Sample Monitor"  all the Custom Metrics from the extension  will be replicated under all the APM metric browsers associated to that host.    If the requirement  is to see the Custom Metrics under a particular application only, this can be done by specifying   metricPrefix = "Server|Component:<ID or Name>|Custom Metrics|Sample Monitor"    To find the Component ID, please refer to Configuring an Extension. In this case, the Custom Metrics from the extension will show up only in the Metric Browser of the application to which the Component ID (tier) belongs.    IMPORTANT:   The Component ID specified in the metric prefix of the extension should match to one of the resolved tiers of the MA. The extension cannot report to any tier other than any of the resolved tiers of its MA.       Independent Machine Agent Installation An independent  Machine Agent without any APM Agents is not supported by AppDynamics. There have to be App Agents running on the same host for the Machine Agent to run in standalone mode.  If the requirement is to use extensions without any APM Agents, a Server Visibility license needs to be purchased. Please check the SIM with No App agents   scenario.   SIM with no App Agents  In this case, metricPrefix should be configured as   metricPrefix = "Custom Metrics|Sample Monitor"   However, as mentioned in the APM Machine Agent Installation Scenario, if the requirement is to see the Custom Metrics from the extension under a particular application only, this can be done by following the steps mentioned below:        1. The app, tier and node name need to be specified in the controllerInfo.xml.         2. In the extension's configuration, the metricPrefix should be configured as             metricPrefix = "Server|Component:<ID or Name>|Custom Metrics|Sample Monitor"    IMPORTANT:   The component ID specified in the metric prefix of the extension should match to the tier specified in the controller-info.xml. The extension cannot report to any tier other than the tier pointed by the SIM agent.   SIM with one or more App Agents In this case, metricPrefix should be configured as   metricPrefix = "Custom Metrics|Sample Monitor"   All the Custom Metrics from  the  extension  will be replicated under all the APM metric browsers associated to that host.  If the requirement  is to see the Custom Metrics under a particular APM application only, this can be done by specifying: metricPrefix = "Server|Component:<ID or Name>|Custom Metrics|Sample Monitor"    To find the Component ID, please refer to Configuring an Extension. In this case, the Custom Metrics from the extension will show up only in the Metric Browser of the application to which Component ID (tier) belongs.     IMPORTANT: The host ID field helps the Controller to stitch the metrics from the Machine Agent or SIM Agents and App Agents together. This host ID field, by default, has the system hostname value. However, this can be overridden by using the uniqueHostId field on the agents. ... View more

AppDynamics extensions are divided into two broad categories: Monitoring extensions and Alerting extensions.    Monitoring Extensions These extensions run as monitors on AppDynamics Machine Agent and report metrics from an artifact to AppDynamics Controller. Examples of these are Cassandra Extension and  Memcached Extension.  A guide to building monitoring extensions using Java and Shell Scripts can be found in the product documentation here and here respectively.    Alerting Extensions These extensions are integrations that run as custom actions on the AppDynamics Controller. Most of these alerting extensions work only for dedicated (single-tenant) SaaS Controller or on-premises Controllers. Please refer to HTTP Request  Actions and Templates. Find more information in the AppDynamics Exchange. ... View more