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What kind of alerts and data behavior can I expect during SaaS maintenance?   AppDynamics makes new releases available every 6 weeks. Our goal is for all customers to be on the latest release so they have access to the latest features and fixes.   Note : You must have a current contract for access to SaaS maintenance.   Table of Contents What do I need to know about build configuration? When are the maintenance windows in my region ? What downtime should I expect during maintenance? Where can I view the SaaS service status? How does AppDynamics alert customers of maintenance? What is AppDynamics’ Maintenance Alert Policy? What if an upgrade or maintenance can’t be completed? What if I have questions or need help? Related Links   What do I need to know about build configuration? AppDynamics will strive to upgrade your pre-production Controller before your production Controller. For older Controller environments with mixed pre-production and production Controllers in the same environment, we are not always able to upgrade pre-production first.   When are the maintenance windows in my region? The following table shows all maintenance windows, by region. Zone Pacific Standard Time Local Time Days US 9pm - 12am 12 - 3am EST Sunday through Thursday Europe 4 - 6pm 12 - 2am GMT Monday through Friday Asia 10am - 1pm 2 - 5am JST Monday through Friday India 11:30am - 2:30pm 11pm-2am IST Monday through Friday   The typical maintenance window is 2 hours.    What downtime should I expect during maintenance? There is typically no downtime of the Controller during upgrade maintenance. Logged-in user sessions will expire and force users to sign in again.   There is not typically a gap in metric data — however, customers may occasionally see up to a 2-minute gap when the old and new Controller instances are swapped out.   Where can I view the SaaS service status? The SaaS Service Status displays data related to your upgrade schedule . You can find it at appdynamics.com/support , by clicking the  Service Status button in the top right corner of the page. See Where can I view the SaaS Service Status? for step-by-step instructions.    Note: To see SaaS service status details, you need to be: Associated with a license  Logged in to www.appdynamics.com     How does AppDynamics alert customers of maintenance? Customers can be notified in two ways: Email SaaS Status page Customers register to opt-in or opt-out for email notifications at the individual level. Here are the instructions for how to opt-in .   What is AppDynamics’ Maintenance Alert Policy? For planned maintenance, AppDynamics uses the following maintenance and upgrades policy to alert customers : Notify customers a minimum of 48 hours in advance of regular maintenance. The only exception is for emergency maintenance. Notify customers before and again after the maintenance.  In the event of an issue during the maintenance window, the AppDynamics operations team will notify you within that timeframe, rather than waiting until the window closes.     What if an upgrade can’t be completed?  AppDynamics operations team will notify you if an upgrade needs to be re-scheduled, or if an upgrade is attempted and could not be completed.   What if I have questions or need help? If you have questions or concerns, please create a ticket on the Support Portal, at https://www.appdynamics.com/support/.   Related Links Blog : The Top 5 Advantages of SaaS-based Application Performance Management SaaS Controller Secure Connections Where can I view the SaaS Service Status? How do I subscribe or unsubscribe from Product email notifications? ... View more

What do I need to consider when designing a custom dashboard?   A custom dashboard lets the user display a specific set of metrics and data points on a single screen. Custom dashboards can show application, server, and database metrics reported by AppDynamics Agents.  By presenting metrics of interest to a specific audience, custom dashboards offer a supplement to AppDynamics' built-in dashboards.   FAQ How can I create a sample custom dashboard? What are some best practices when designing custom dashboards? What are some things to avoid? What kinds of custom dashboards can a user create? Can a read-only user edit a custom dashboard? Can a user change a dashboard's name and metric series' color? How can I learn more?   How can I create a sample custom dashboard? Use the JSON file in each of the following links to create a custom dashboard. Dev teams Ops teams Ops management QA teams Browser real-user monitoring Application key metrics Business transaction reports   What are some best practices when designing custom dashboards? C onsider the following approach:   Identify the list of key metrics that the dashboard should display. For each metric, determine the appropriate widget to render the metric data. Sometimes a chart representation works best. Other times a metric value will be sufficient. Some data is best displayed in a pie chart. Design health rules that represent the health of business transaction, service or subcomponent. Consider the appropriate health rule thresholds carefully to avoid false alerts, especially for critical violations. Note that unlike alerts, status lights do not indicate which condition or which node, tier or business transaction violated the health rule. Health rules that will be used for status lights, therefore, need to be specific to a given node, tier or business transaction. Design the dashboard layout. Consider how to fit all the metrics on the dashboard, and which layout best presents the data. Pick a color scheme, not just for visual appeal, but also to make the data stand out. Once built, plan for a tuning period. For example, the time range might need to be adjusted, or health rule thresholds changed, to avoid false alerts. After encountering a production issue, evaluate each dashboard, and identify what additional metrics should be captured, and what changes should be made, in case the same or a similar issue happens again. If needed, design additional dashboards.  Do create dashboards that watch metrics associated with previous production issues.     What are some things to avoid? The best dashboards have enough metrics to be informative, but not so many as to cause performance issues or become confusing to the users. The exact number of metrics depends on your team.  Additionally: Don't make dashboards larger than your screen resolution. A custom dashboard that requires scrolling is not ideal. Don't set the refresh timing to 60 seconds as 5 minutes is usually sufficient.    What kinds of custom dashboards can a user create? Different custom dashboards  are of interest to different teams:   Executive Dashboards - The executive dashboards should include a number of status lights for each key user or system journey step health and performance, as well as any KPI or SLA metrics. These dashboards also show any business metrics or impact information.   Operations Dashboards - The operations dashboards should include a number of status lights for each service (tier and/or Top BT), to provide a global overview of the health of the application infrastructure. These dashboards can also contain an Events List.   Application Dashboard - These dashboards target an application and show the health of key business transactions, highlighting call volumes, response times, and error rates (for a given application or tier). It also uses status lights to indicate the health of each top business transaction.   Service Dashboards - These dashboards each target an individual service and show key health metrics for the service (tier), including the call volume, response time and error rate for the service overall as well as for important API calls. The service dashboard can also show CPU and memory consumption as well as garbage collection statistics for each node in the tier. A corresponding status light that provides a visual health indicator can accompany each metric.   Can a read-only user edit a custom dashboard? Yes, if the read-only user is given permission to edit a custom dashboard on the Administration page.   As an Admin, click the gear icon in the Controller UI. Select Administration from the drop-down menu. Click on the Roles tab. Select the read-only user's name from the list of usernames on the left. Click on the Custom Dashboards tab. Use the checkboxes to allow the read-only user to view, edit, or delete custom dashboards. Click the Save button.   Can a user change a dashboard's name and metric series' color? Yes, anyone with permission to edit custom dashboards can  edit the name and colors.   Click on the Dashboards & Reports tab in the Controller UI. Click on the pencil icon. Select Edit Dashboard Properties from the drop-down menu. Edit dashboard name:  Edit metric series colors:       How can I learn more? If you have an active AppDynamics account, visit AppDynamics University and enroll in the "Custom Dashboards and Dashboard Templates" self-paced course to learn how to build your own custom dashboards.  Standard self-paced courses are available to Standard University subscribers, and are available at no cost to AppDynamics customers.    AppDynamics also offers the "APM223 - Proactive Monitoring and Dashboards" instructor-led course for more insight on creating dashboards, reports, and widgets.  Instructor-led courses are available to Premium University subscribers; contact your Account Manager for pricing.    Visit the AppD University Group Hub for University FAQs and how-to articles.   Additional Resources Blog: 7 steps to great APM dashboards by Justin Vaughan-Brown Blog: AppD on AppD: Scaling Our Custom Dashboards Platform by Mandar Khoje Accessing your performance data with the AppDynamics REST API by Dustin Whittle Join the conversation on the Dashboards discussion board ... 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To make sure you have all of the information you need when troubleshooting Agent issues, we've indexed several articles below that will guide you through how to resolve common issues and answer frequently asked questions.   Table of Contents Agents not reporting to the Controller Difficulty installing, starting, or upgrading an Agent Agent crashes and overhead, timeout issues, and errors General functionality   Agents not reporting to the Controller If your Agents aren’t reporting data to the Controller, we have multiple articles to help you resolve this issue for different types of Agents: Why aren't Application Agents reporting to the Controller? Why isn’t the Machine Agent reporting? How do I resolve an Agent connectivity issue related to the "SSLEnabled" property? Why is the Java Agent not reporting to the Controller? All Java Agents have been registered but are reporting status as down. What do I do? How to resolve Analytics Agent failing to connect to the Controller registration endpoint How to troubleshoot missing custom metrics or extensions’ metrics in the Controller Documentation:   Connect the Controller and Agents Documentation:   Dynamic Language Agent Proxy Documentation:   Machine Agent FAQs and Troubleshooting   Difficulty installing, starting, or upgrading an Agent Users who are installing a new Agent, upgrading an existing Agent or trying to resolve an Agent startup failure should follow the steps outlined in these resources: Troubleshooting Agent Issues - Installation and Start-up How to resolve errors while deploying the Java Agent AppDynamics Upgrade Checklist For Any Release   (Note: This is a good resource for users who are upgrading to the latest version of AppDynamics.) Documentation:   Troubleshooting Java Agent Issues Documentation:   Resolve .NET Agent Installation and Configuration Issues Documentation:   Troubleshooting Analytics Agents Issues   Agent crashes and overhead, timeout issues, and errors The resources below can help you troubleshoot issues pertaining to crashes and increased overhead, timeouts, and errors. Agent overhead or crash Database Agent Resource Overhead Timeout issues Errors pertaining to account keys   General functionality If you have questions related to Agent functionality that don’t fall into the categories above, we may have addressed them in the resources below.   Troubleshooting Agent Issues - FAQs   Note: This article addresses several functionality-related questions, including export capabilities and assigning Agents to multiple applications How do I delete an abandoned Machine Agent? What is the best way to set up alerts for App Agent and Machine Agent status? Documentation:   Troubleshooting Analytics Agents Issues   Note: In addition to touching upon installation issues, this document describes specific scenarios you may encounter with workarounds.   Last Updated: 3/28/19 ... View more

Updated 9/28/18   The following article is intended for users who wish to implement custom correlation between .NET applications/tiers using the AppDynamics' .NET App Agent version 3.8 and higher.   You can also implement custom correlation using the AppDynamics' .NET Core Microservices Agent version 4.5.2 and higher by following slightly different steps.   For information regarding the Java Agent, see here: Custom Correlation for Java Applications   Contents: What is Custom Correlation? When is Custom Correlation Needed? Use Cases Implementation Steps to Configure Custom Correlation Identify the Producer and Consumer Methods to Instrument Configure the Producer Configure the Consumer Configure Custom Correlation for the .NET Microservices Agent Restart the coordinator and the instrumented applications   What is Custom Correlation?    Custom correlation enables the user to configure AppDynamics to correlate transactions across tiers, or across parent-child threads in complex multithreaded applications when the default detection mechanisms are not capable of auto-correlating.    Correlation establishes the relationship between exit points on upstream tiers to entry points on downstream tiers. For transaction correlation to work, you must install the .NET Agent on both tiers.   To correlate a distributed invocation, the AppDynamics agent must propagate a unique correlation key by using the extension points of the distributed protocol or by decorating the payload.   The AppDynamics agent needs to know what methods to measure. When defining a custom correlation consider: How to propagate the correlation key. What exactly you want to measure.   When is Custom Correlation Needed?    Use custom correlation when monitoring applications that use unsupported frameworks and protocols.   Use custom correlation XML configuration for business transaction correlation across tiers when the following conditions exist:   Producer There is an easily-defined method call to configure as an exit point on the producer. There is a method call where one of the parameters or a return value exposes the payload object, and that method call occurs during execution of the exit point on the producer. Consumer There is an easily-defined method call to configure as a POCO entry point on the consumer. There is a method call where one of the parameters or a return value exposes the payload object.   In custom correlation, the  producer   refers to the originating tier that makes the exit call. The  consumer   refers to the downstream tier that is the destination for the producer's exit call. If the .NET Agent automatically discovers the exit point for the transaction on the producer, you don't have to manually configure a producer. If it discovers the entry point on the consumer, you don't have to manually configure a consumer.     Use Cases    For custom correlation on communication protocols between nodes such as HTTP and JMS: Add transaction contextual information for remote calls. For example, AppDynamics can add transaction context onto HTTP headers and JMS message properties. For custom correlation within a node: For ESB job objects and ExecutorService thread workers, save the transaction context against thread hand-offs so they can be picked up when async segments start.   Implementation   To implement custom correlation, use XML configuration to specify how to instrument the application. The primary factors governing the exact configuration are the data structures and the sequence of code execution. Use the attached  sample XML configuration  as a starting point.     NOTE:  For AppDynamics version 3.8, the correlation element does not inherit instrumentation element configuration from parent producer or consumer elements. Configure a different method in the correlation Instrumentation element for correlation to work.  In most cases, the producer and consumer reside on separate machines, so they would have separate configuration files. The attached sample file demonstrates two standalone applications on the same machine: Producer.exe and Consumer.exe.   Steps to Configure Custom Correlation:   Before you begin:  Install and configure the .NET Agent on both the producer and the consumer. If the producer is a Windows service or standalone application that  does not implement any of the frameworks we instrument by default, configure a  POCO entry point  for a class/method in your service for the agent to begin instrumentation.   Identify producer and/or consumer methods to instrument. Configure a custom exit point on the producer and/or POCO entry point on the consumer. Configure the producer to add the correlation metadata to the exit point. (Optional) Configure and identify validation methods on the producer. Configure the consumer to read the entry point. (Optional) Configure and identify validation methods on the consumer. Restart the coordinator and instrumented applications.   To identify producer and consumer methods to instrument:   Before you configure custom correlation, you must identify the methods to instrument on both the producer and the consumer.   On the producer identify the following: An exit point method that calls to the consumer. A payload method that executes within the exit call method execution and whose parameters or return value expose the payload object.   On the consumer: A POCO entry point method that handles the producer's exit call. A payload method whose parameters or return value expose the payload object.   Currently, for the .NET Agent, the instrumentation method (exit or entry point) and the payload methods must be different methods.   To configure the producer:   Configure the agent properties in the config.xml file in the agent c onfig  directory. See .NET Agent Directory Structure. All custom correlation configurations go inside the activities element, a child of the App Agents element. See .NET Agent Configuration Properties.   Configure the exit point for the producer in the producer Instrumentation   element. Configure the payload method in the correlation Instrumentation   element.   The following is a sample  a ctivities   element with a  p roducer  element:   <activities>      <producer>          <!-- Configure the exit point. -->          <instrumentation>              < class -name>Producer.IdentifyTransaction</ class -name>              <method-name>Test</method-name>              <match-type>MATCHES_CLASS</match-type>              <param-types>Producer.IdentifyTransaction</param-types>          </instrumentation>          <identifiers>              <identifier name= "IdentifyTransactionTest" >                                <data-gatherer-type>INVOKED</data-gatherer-type>                  <getter-chain> this </getter-chain>                  <user-defined-name>IdentifyTransactionTest</user-defined-name>                  <transformer-type>USER_DEFINED_NAME</transformer-type>              </identifier>          </identifiers>          <correlation>              <!-- Configure the payload method. -->              <instrumentation>                  < class -name>Producer.IdentifyTransaction</ class -name>                  <method-name>TestCorrelation</method-name>                  <match-type>MATCHES_CLASS</match-type>                  <param-types>Producer.IdentifyTransaction</param-types>              </instrumentation>               <payload-pointer>                  <data-gatherer-type>POSITION</data-gatherer-type>                  <position> 0 </position>                  <getter-chain> this </getter-chain>                  <transformer-type>GETTER_METHODS</transformer-type>              </payload-pointer>              <payload-operation>                  <access-type>method</access-type>                  <access-method>setCorrelationKey</access-method>                  <param-types>String</param-types>              </payload-operation>          </correlation>      </producer>        </activities>   To configure the consumer:   Configure the agent properties in the config.xml file in the agent c onfig  directory. See .NET Agent Directory Structure. All custom correlation configurations go inside the activites element, a child of the App Agents element. See .NET Agent Configuration Properties. Configure the entry point for the producer in the consumer Instrumentation   element. Configure the payload method in the correlation Instrumentation   element. The following is a sample activities element with a consumer element:   <activities>          <consumer identify-transaction= "true" >              <!-- Configure the entry point. -->              <instrumentation>                  < class -name>Consumer.IdentifyTransaction</ class -name>                  <method-name>Test</method-name>                  <match-type>MATCHES_CLASS</match-type>              </instrumentation>              <correlation>                  <!-- Configure the payload method. -->                  <instrumentation>                      < class -name>Consumer.IdentifyTransaction</ class -name>                      <method-name>TestCorrelation</method-name>                      <match-type>MATCHES_CLASS</match-type>                  </instrumentation>                  <payload-pointer>                      <data-gatherer-type>POSITION</data-gatherer-type>                      <position> 0 </position>                      <getter-chain> this </getter-chain>                      <transformer-type>GETTER_METHODS</transformer-type>                  </payload-pointer>                  <payload-operation>                      <access-type>method</access-type>                      <access-method>getCorrelationKey</access-method>                  </payload-operation>              </correlation>          </consumer>      </activities>   Configure Custom Correlation for the .NET Microservices Agent:   You can implement custom correlation configuration for the .NET Core Microservices Agent in much of the same way as instructed above. The difference is that the location of the XML configuration goes into the AppDynamicsConfig.json file and not the  config.xml file.   Configure the file that contains the custom correlation XML in the AppDynamicsConfig.json file. NOTE: The supplied file name can contain an absolute or relative path. If the path is relative (or only a file name is supplied), the location is resolved relative to the AppDynamicsConfig.json file. {     "controller" : {         ...     },     "application" : {         ...     },    "instrumentors" : {        "customCorrelationConfig" : "custom-correlation.xml" , "enable" : [ ... ], "disable" : [ ... ] },    .... } See AppDynamicsConfig.json File for a sample .json file. Populate the custom correlation configuration file:   <?xml version= "1.0" encoding= "UTF-8" standalone= "no" ?> <activities>     <consumer identify-transaction= " true " >         <instrumentation>             < class- name>Application.Program</ class- name>             <method-name>Method</method-name>             <match-type>MATCHES_CLASS</match-type>         </instrumentation>         <correlation>             ....         </correlation>     </consumer> </activities> The XML inside the <activities> element has the exact same schema as the existing custom correlation XML found under the <activities> element in config.xml (MSI agent). Restart the coordinator and the instrumented applications:   After you complete the configuration on the producer and consumer, you must restart the AppDynamics.Agent.Coordinator service and instrumented applications.         Published on 6/5/2015. Updated for 4.5.2 on 9/28/2018. ... View more

Table of Contents Use Cases Problem Solution Example API script   Many of our customers use the  Controller Metrics and Events API to retrieve metric data information and information on various types of activities in a monitored environment, including Controller events. This article outlines a customer's use case and includes a generalized example script.    Use Case   The customer is using the AppDynamics metrics API every minute to load the metric data from the Controller to an external system. The customer has multiple Controllers in the AppDynamics SaaS environment and hosts hundreds of applications. They load dozens of metrics from each application.   The customer is using the API for the following use cases: Use a third-party tool for troubleshooting in cases where they need 1-minute granularity for longer than 24 hours. For example, the customer often needs to perform root cause analysis but does not get to it until a few days after the incident occurred.  Use third-party tools to calculate percentiles, consolidate metrics across different controllers at the app or tier level as required and create alerts. Use  a third-party tool  to retain data for several years. Since their peak periods occur just once per year, customers might need data to be retained for 3 years to provide meaningful comparisons and plan their future deployments better.   Problem   The customer uses a set of python scripts to retrieve the metrics. They consistently run into timeout errors and worry that the APIs are not scaling to their requirements.     Our team engaged with the customer and offered to review their process and scripts. Upon review, we found that the python script opens 1000+ of concurrent connections to the Controller. There are only 10 threads dedicated to processing the REST requests on the server side.  As a result, the threads wait indefinitely and then timeout.     Solution   Use a thread pool to invoke the REST APIs. This way the customer will have control on the concurrency. This should help to sustain 10 concurrent requests on the server side, getting the best performance.   Decrease the frequency of the job. For example, run the job every 5 minutes rather than every one minute.  We recommend restricting the number of Metric data points returned per REST call to less than 50K.   Metric REST API Example A RESTful API is an application program interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET data. The following section gives some examples of wildcards usage on Metric Data REST API. (This section scrolls horizontally.) The same example is included in the attached Metric REST API Example document for easy copy and paste.     URL:  /controller/rest/applications/100/metric-data?metric-path=<metric-path>&time-range-type=BEFORE_NOW&duration-in-mins=1&rollup=true Method: GET URL Parameters:  metric-path: Business%20Transaction%20Performance%7C%2A%7C%2A%7C%2A%7C%2A%7C%2A%7C%2A time-range-type: BEFORE_NOW duration-in-mins: 1 rollup=true Success Response: Response headers: HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: AppDynamics Content-Type: application/xml Error Response:  REST endpoints can fail is many ways. From unauthorized access to wrongful parameters etc. Listed few error types: HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden Server: AppDynamics Content-Language: Content-Type: text/html Incorrect Parameters: Data type ("text"|"bin"|""): text Response code: Non HTTP response code: java.net.URISyntaxException Response message: Non HTTP response message: Malformed esAPPDe Sample Request Call: GET   https://hostname/controller/rest/applications/100/metric-data?metric-path=Business%20Transaction%20Performance%7C%2A%7C%2A%7C%2A%7C%2A%7C%2A%7C%2A&time-range-type=BEFORE_NOW&duration-in-mins=1&rollup=true Cookie Data: JSESSIONID=c45eeb9747d8aa24338bc2b973cf; X-CSRF-TOKEN=9a3dddf1c54ebca291c46ab10522faa7bae7c477 Request  Headers: Connection:keep-alive Accept-Language:en-US,en;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding:gzip, deflate User-Agent:Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.9; rv:30.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/30.0 Accept: application/json, text/plain, */* Authorization: Basic Q2FwaXRhbE9uZS1Qcm9kJTQwQ2FwaXRhbE9uZS1Qcm9kOnRlc3QxMjM= X-CSRF-TOKEN:9a3dddf1c54ebca291c46ab10522faa7bae7c477 Sample Response Data:  <metric-datas><metric-data>  <metricId>1578650</metricId>  <metricPath>Business Transaction  Performance|Business Transactions|APPDInterface_PROD/APPDWebServices|BVLInterfaceWS2.Process|Individual  Nodes|IP-200-254-23-APPDInterface_PROD/APPDWebServices|Average Block  Time(ms)</metricPath>  <metricName>BTM|BTs|BT:23889|Component:617|Average  Block Time (ms)</metricName>  <frequency>ONE_MIN</frequency>  <metricValues>           <metric-value>           <startTimeInMillis><timeInMilliseconds></startTimeInMillis>           <value>0</value>           <min>0</min>           <max>0</max>           <current>0</current>           <sum>0</sum>           <count>0</count>          <standardDeviation>0.0</standardDeviation>           <occurrences>0</occurrences>           <useRange>true</useRange>           </metric-value>  </metricValues> </metric-data> </metric-datas> Metric Calls example of wildcards at various level:  1.Six wild card (|*|*|*|*|*|*)  <metricPath>BusinessTransactionPerformance|BusinessTransactions|APPDInterface_PROD/APPDWebServices|BVLInterfaceWS2.Process|IndividualNodes|IP-200-254-23-APPDInterface_PROD/APPDWebServices| METRIC-NAME</metricPath> 2.Five wild card (|*|*|*|*|*)  <metricPath>BusinessTransactionPerformance|Business Transactions|APPDInterface_PROD/APPDWebServices|BVLInterfaceWS2.Process|IndividualNodes | METRIC-NAME</metricPath> 3.Four wild card (|*|*|*|*)  <metricPath>BusinessTransactionPerformance|Business Transactions|APPDInterface_PROD/APPDWebServices |BVLInterfaceWS2.Process|METRIC-NAME</metricPath> 4.Three wild card (|*|*|*)  <metricPath>Business TransactionPerformance|Business Transactions| APPDInterface_PROD/APPDWebServices|METRIC-NAME</metricPat> 5.Two wild card (|*|*)  <metricPath>BusinessTransactionPerformance|Business Transactions |METRIC-NAME</metricPath> 6.One wild card (|*)  <metricPath>BusinessTransactionPerformance|METRIC-NAME</metricPath> Request  to keep metrics under 50K:  https://<HostName>/controller/rest/applications/<ApplicationID>/metric-data?metric-path=Business%20Transaction%20Performance%7C%2A%7C TOMCAT-APP %7C Transactions.SA %7C%2A&time-range-type=BEFORE_NOW&duration-in-mins=1&rollup=true If REST Call is fetching more than 50K metrics, you can replace wild characters with hard-coded values (e.g. TOMCAT-APP & Tranaction.SA), which will control metric count.       Find a test API script on Github here:  Appdynamics / metric-loader   ... 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How do I troubleshoot installation and startup errors when installing a new Agent?   Table of Contents Agent Installation Errors When installing a Machine Agent, how do I handle an initialization error? Can I install the AppDynamics Database Agent without using the wizard? I'm having trouble installing a PHP Agent. What steps should I take? Agent Upgrade Considerations   What are the steps to upgrade a Mobile Agent? Where can I find information on how to upgrade an Agent?  Resolving Agent Start-up Errors How do I resolve the Analytics Agent failure to start, with a NoSuchMethod error message? My Analytic Agent fails to start and logs show it failed to connect to the Controller endpoint More Troubleshooting Guides   Agent Installation Errors When installing a Machine Agent, how do I handle an initialization error?  I get the following error message when installing a Machine Agent. How should I proceed?  Failed to find Premain-Class manifest attribute in /usr/share/appdynamics/machineagent.jar Error occurred during initialization of VM   The error message shows that the Machine Agent jar was used as a Java Agent. >java -javaagent:d:\AppDynamics\installs\3.5.6\MachineAgent\machineagent.jar -version Failed to find Premain-Class manifest attribute in d:\AppDynamics\installs\3.5.6\MachineAgent\machineagent.jar Error occurred during initialization of VM.  Agent library failed to init: instrument   Verify the command being used to start the Machine Agent. Follow the documentation to Install the Machine Agent.  Open a separate command prompt and start the Machine Agent using  java -Dmetric.http.listener=true -jar machineagent.jar command.   Can I install the AppDynamics Database Agent without using the wizard? Question: Is there a way to install the AppDynamics database agent without the wizard, such as configuring the installation XML files?  I want to monitor a client but am having trouble when installing the Agent. I cannot log in to the DB from outside the network and opening up the listener port on the DB for me right now is an issue. Is there a workaround?   You do not necessarily have to install the Database Agent on the database server. The Database Agent can reside on any server as long as that server can communicate to the database host. See Database Visibility System Requirements.    I'm having trouble installing a PHP Agent. What steps should I take? After PHP Agent installation there are a few cases when the Agent does not report to the Controller. Refer to the PHP Agent installation troubleshooting guide for the basic troubleshooting steps that verify the installation and place the Agent configuration files in the proper place.    Is it possible to deploy an agent using Puppet? Every deployment is different,  so this task doesn't lend itself to a single master Puppet script maintained by AppDynamics. However, this Agent deployment using Puppet sample can help you get started on your own Puppet module. Back to  Table of Contents   Agent Upgrade Considerations  What are the steps to upgrade a Mobile Agent?  See the steps to upgrade iOS and Android here:   Upgrade iOS SDK and Upgrade the Android Mobile Agent     Where can I find information on how to upgrade an Agent?   The following documents provide the requirements and steps for upgrading an agent: Upgrade the .NET Agent Upgrade the Node.js Agent Upgrade the Java Agent Upgrade the PHP Agent Upgrade the Python Agent Upgrade Analytics Agent Upgrade the Database Agent Upgrade the Machine Agent Upgrade the Apache Agent   Back to  Table of Contents   Resolving Agent Start-up Errors How do I resolve the Analytics Agent failure to start, with a NoSuchMethod error message? My Analytics Agent fails to start and throws the following error message. What steps should I take?       java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: io.dropwizard.logging.LoggingFactory.bootstrap       This error message is normally caused by the presence of a duplicate jar file from a different version of the Analytic Agent. This duplication can occur when the user unzips a new version of their machine-agent.zip file into the same directory where the older Machine Agent resides.   The solution is to take a backup of the old agent, either delete or rename the Machine Agent, then unzip the new machine-agent.zip   My Analytic Agent fails to start and logs show it failed to connect to the Controller endpoint Analytics agent failed to connect to the controller registration endpoint.   This issue occurs when using a self-signed certificate for the Controller. The Analytics Agent uses a truststore for the JRE to validate the certificate of the connecting server. The truststore does not have self-signed certificates added to the store by default.   Import the client certificate to the JRE trust store, which is located in the Java directory used by the Analytics Agent by default. Example:   JAVA_HOME/lib/security/cacerts    Back to  Table of Contents   More Troubleshooting Guides FAQs Why aren’t Application Agents reporting to the Controller?   First  published 2/26/2018 ... View more

How can I troubleshoot Agent issues?   Table of Contents Delete an abandoned Machine Agent Set up alerts for Agent status Issue with account keys Agent overhead or crash Timeout issue Multiple apps on the same server List of Agents   How do I  delete an abandoned Machine Agent when it is not attached to any APM agents?  There are two ways to delete the abandoned machine agent, either from controller UI by creating a dummy application or through a manual step to delete the agent from the database. See the steps for either process under  Delete abandoned machine agent.     What is the best way to set up alerts for App Agent Status and Machine Agent Status?  There are two solutions for this, found in Agent Status on .NET      What does the error message "account key doesn't match with the current account for machine id" mean? The "account key doesn't match with the current account for machine id" message indicates that the account key generated by the AppDynamics Controller during the registration may be now changed. This could happen if you migrate the Controller without shutting down the agents.   Restart the agent to resolve the error.     How do I resolve an Agent causing overhead or crash? Follow these steps to troubleshoot: Check the agent logs for any communication errors between Agent and Controller. Make sure ALD has not been turned on for a long time. The Agent requires 30 MB of permgen space. Set this parameter ( -XX:MaxPermSize=<value> ) to a higher value (256m at least) and try again. Get the crash report and heap dump for analysis. Check the agent log level is set to INFO (default log level value if not changed to debug/trace) at agent_dir/conf/logging/log4j.xml . Make sure periodic sampling and occurrence request sampling is not set to a low value (default 100 requests and 10 min, update/disable as per requirement). Check the agent logs if any repetitive exceptions are logged. Disable the agent from the node dashboard and monitor the heap usage whether the overhead/crash is still happening to find whether agent/webapp instrumentation is raising the issue.     When requesting Agent logs, the log status times out On requesting Agent logs in <Application> -> Servers -> App Servers -> <tier> -> <node> -> Agents , you may experience a timeout of the log status.   One possible cause is that someone first requested the log and reset the agent before the log sends to the Controller. To resolve the error, reset the Agent before requesting the agent log.       Can I assign a Machine Agent to multiple applications on the same server? To assign a Machine Agent to multiple applications on the same server, run   one Machine Agent process for each application   on a machine. Add the VM parameter ( -Dappdynamics.agent.uniqueHostId=<<some unique value per application>> ) to both Machine Agent and the App Agent. Provide the same value to the machine - app agent pair. For example, if you have 2 nodes (n1 and n2 ) reporting to applications (a1 and a2). Let's say m1 and m2 are your machine agents for the corresponding nodes. You will need to pass   -Dappdynamics.agent.uniqueHostId=a1   for n1 and m1. and   -Dappdynamics.agent.uniqueHostId=a2   for n2 and m2. The uniqueHostId value can be any unique value but should be different for each application. Restarting the JVMs with the above options. you should see machine agents associating with corresponding applications.      How do I export a list of Agents and details into a spreadsheet? Other than viewing the list of AppDynamics Agents in Settings, can I get a list of those Agents and their details in a spreadsheet format?    It's not out of the box,  but there is a workaround: Create a small program which can read  /controller/rest/applications List all applications and get list of nodes from /controller/rest/applications/<application-name|application-id>/nodes Go to AppDynamics Agents page. Take a screenshot of the AppDynamics Agents page Trim the picture and copy it to One Note Right-click the picture in OneNote and select  Copy to Text   More Troubleshooting Guides: Installation and Start-up Why aren’t Application Agents reporting to the Controller?   Published 2/26/2018 ... View more