500-430 Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer(CAPI) Questions and Answers

To prepare a Linux environment for the installation of an AppDynamics Controller with a Large performance profile, which is suitable for monitoring up to 1000 agents, you need to perform the following steps:

Install libaio on the host machine if it does not already have it installed. This library facilitates asynchronous I/O operations on the system, which are required by the Controller. You can use the package manager of your Linux distribution to install libaio, such as yum or apt-get.  For example, on CentOS, you can run  yum install libaio 1 .

Verify the open file descriptor limit on the system. The file descriptor limit determines how many files a process can open at a time. The Controller requires a high file descriptor limit to handle the large number of connections and transactions. AppDynamics recommends setting the file descriptor limit to at least 65535 for the user account that runs the Controller.  You can check the current file descriptor limit by running  ulimit -n  and modify it by editing the  /etc/security/limits.conf  file 2 .

Verify the process limit on the system. The process limit determines how many processes a user can run at a time. The Controller requires a high process limit to handle the large number of threads and subprocesses. AppDynamics recommends setting the process limit to at least 65535 for the user account that runs the Controller.  You can check the current process limit by running  ulimit -u  and modify it by editing the  /etc/security/limits.conf  file 2 .

Other steps that are not required but recommended for the Controller installation are verifying the user account permissions, configuring the virus scanners, installing the netstat network utility, and setting the NUMA configuration 2 .  You do not need to install MySQL or Java separately, as they are included in the Controller installation package 3 .  References :  Prepare Linux for the Controller ,  Install the Controller on Linux , and  Controller System Requirements  in the AppDynamics documentation.

The AppDynamics REST API to retrieve metrics allows you to get values generated for metrics by specifying the path of the metric and the time frame for the data 1 .  Some of the valid reasons to use this API are 1 2 :

To archive 1-minute granularity data. The AppDynamics Controller stores metric data at different levels of granularity depending on the retention period. For example, it stores 1-minute granularity data for 8 days, 10-minute granularity data for 32 days, and 1-hour granularity data for 365 days. If you want to archive the 1-minute granularity data for longer than 8 days, you can use the API to retrieve and store the data in an external database or file system.

To calculate a new metric based on two existing metrics. The AppDynamics Controller provides some built-in metrics such as average response time, calls per minute, errors per minute, etc. However, you may want to calculate a new metric that is not available in the Controller, such as the ratio of errors to calls, or the percentage of slow transactions. You can use the API to retrieve the values of the existing metrics and perform the calculation using your own logic or formula.

To retrieve health rule violations. Health rules are the rules that define the performance and availability thresholds for your application components. When a health rule is violated, the AppDynamics Controller generates an event and optionally triggers a policy action. You can use the API to retrieve the list of health rule violations for a given application, time range, and severity level. This can help you monitor and troubleshoot the health of your application and take corrective actions if needed.  References :  Retrieve Metric Data ,  Health Rule API

To install a .NET Agent patch, which is a minor update to the existing .NET Agent version, you do not need to uninstall the old agent or restart the machine. You only need to follow these steps:

Download the .NET Agent patch from the AppDynamics Download Center.

Launch an elevated command prompt with full administrator privileges.

Execute the Installer.bat file from the patch archive. The batch file installs the patch and starts the AppDynamics Agent Coordinator service.

Restart the instrumented applications, such as IIS, Windows services, or standalone applications.

References :  .NET Agent  and  How do I deploy a .NET Agent?  in the AppDynamics documentation and community.

According to the Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer (CAPI) documents, the correct method to perform a NET Agent upgrade is to perform the agent upgrade on the application server host by running the MSI Installer Package 1 2 . This method will install updated agent files and maintain legacy configurations. You do not need to uninstall the old agent first when you upgrade from the NET Agent > = 3.9, except for patch releases. You need to stop IIS, instrumented Windows services, and instrumented standalone applications before running the MSI Installer Package. You also need to launch an elevated command prompt with full administrator privileges and specify your account access key for single-tenant Controller accounts. After the installation, you need to restart Windows services and standalone applications.

The incorrect options are:

Perform the agent upgrade on a remote server host by using the AppDynamics Controller REST API. (B) This is not a valid method for upgrading the NET Agent, because the AppDynamics Controller REST API does not provide any endpoint for agent installation or upgrade.  The REST API is mainly used for retrieving or updating configuration data, metrics, events, snapshots, and other information from the Controller 3 .

Perform the agent upgrade on the application server host by running the Agent Configuration Utility. © This is not a valid method for upgrading the NET Agent, because the Agent Configuration Utility is a tool for modifying the agent configuration after installation, not for installing or upgrading the agent.  The Agent Configuration Utility allows you to change the Controller connection settings, the agent logging level, the proxy settings, and other advanced options 4 .

Perform the agent upgrade via the AppDynamics Controller UI. (D) This is not a valid method for upgrading the NET Agent, because the AppDynamics Controller UI does not provide any feature for agent installation or upgrade.  The Controller UI is mainly used for monitoring, analyzing, and troubleshooting the performance of the applications, business transactions, tiers, nodes, and other entities that are instrumented by the agents 5 .

References :

1 : Upgrade the .NET Agent for Windows - AppDynamics

2 : Release Upgrade Checklist for .NET Agents - AppDynamics

3 : REST API - AppDynamics

4 : Configure the .NET Agent - AppDynamics

5 : AppDynamics Application Performance Monitoring Platform - AppDynamics

The AppDynamics Controller properties that govern how long metric data is retained in the database are 1 :

metrics.ten.min.retention.period: This property specifies the number of days to retain metric data at 10-minute granularity. The default value is 32 days.

metrics.retention.period: This property specifies the number of days to retain metric data at 1-hour granularity. The default value is 365 days.

metrics.min.retention.period: This property specifies the number of hours to retain metric data at 1-minute granularity. The default value is 4 hours.

The other options are incorrect because 1 :

metrics.ten.sec.retention.period: This property does not exist in the AppDynamics Controller. The finest granularity for metric data is 1 minute.

metrics.day.retention.period: This property does not exist in the AppDynamics Controller. The coarsest granularity for metric data is 1 hour.

metrics.week.retention.period: This property does not exist in the AppDynamics Controller. The metric data retention is based on days, not weeks.  References :  Database Size and Data Retention

According to the Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer (CAPI) documents, the two symptoms that occur if an AppDynamics Controller is not scaled correctly are:

The Controller’s metric reporting is 7 to 10 minutes behind the current time. (D) This is a valid symptom because the AppDynamics Controller collects, processes, and stores metrics from the agents that monitor the applications, tiers, nodes, and other entities. If the Controller is not scaled correctly, it may not have enough resources, such as CPU, memory, disk space, or network bandwidth, to handle the incoming metrics data. This may result in a backlog of metrics data that causes the Controller to lag behind the current time.  The Controller’s metric reporting delay can affect the accuracy and timeliness of the performance analysis and troubleshooting 1 2 .

The Controller UI performs slowly. (E) This is a valid symptom because the AppDynamics Controller UI is a web-based application that allows users to access, visualize, and interact with the performance data and configuration settings of the AppDynamics platform. If the Controller is not scaled correctly, it may not have enough resources, such as CPU, memory, disk space, or network bandwidth, to serve the UI requests.  This may result in a slow or unresponsive UI that affects the user experience and productivity 1 2 .

The incorrect options are:

Snapshots are not available after 2 weeks. (A) This is not a valid symptom because the AppDynamics Controller does not store snapshots for more than 2 weeks by default. Snapshots are detailed records of the execution context and call graphs of the business transactions that are monitored by the AppDynamics platform. Snapshots are useful for diagnosing performance issues and errors, but they also consume a lot of disk space. The AppDynamics Controller automatically purges the snapshots that are older than 2 weeks, unless the retention policy is changed by the user.  The availability of snapshots is not affected by the Controller scaling, unless the disk space is exhausted 3 4 .

Health rule violations occur more frequently. (B) This is not a valid symptom because the AppDynamics Controller does not cause health rule violations to occur more frequently. Health rule violations are triggered when the performance or availability metrics of the monitored entities exceed the thresholds that are defined by the user. Health rule violations indicate the presence of performance issues or errors in the monitored applications, tiers, nodes, or other entities, not in the Controller itself.  The frequency of health rule violations is not affected by the Controller scaling, unless the Controller fails to collect or process the metrics data 5  .

The average response times of tiers are higher than normal. © This is not a valid symptom because the AppDynamics Controller does not affect the average response times of tiers. The average response time of a tier is the average time that the tier takes to process the incoming requests from the business transactions that are monitored by the AppDynamics platform. The average response time of a tier is influenced by the performance and behavior of the application code, the infrastructure, the dependencies, and the workload of the tier, not by the Controller itself. The average response time of a tier is not affected by the Controller scaling, unless the Controller fails to collect or process the metrics data .

References :

1 : Controller System Requirements - AppDynamics

2 : Controller Sizing Guidelines - AppDynamics

3 : Transaction Snapshots - AppDynamics

4 : Configure Data Retention - AppDynamics

5 : Health Rules - AppDynamics

The user under which the JVM runs must have write privileges to the conf and logs directories in the Java Agent home. This is because the conf directory contains the agent configuration files, such as controller-info.xml and agent-config.xml, which may need to be modified or updated by the user. The logs directory contains the agent log files, such as agent.log and agent-errors.log, which are generated by the agent and may need to be accessed or rotated by the user. The user can install the agent as the same user that owns the JVM or as an administrator on the host machine.  The user can restrict the remaining contents of the agent directory, such as the lib and bin directories, to read-only access 1 2 .  References :  Install the Java Agent ,  Java Agent fails to start

According to the Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer (CAPI) documents, the recommended way to add capacity to the Events Service cluster is to add nodes running on machines with identical hardware matching the existing nodes 1 2 . This will increase the data storage, replication, and redundancy of the cluster, as well as the processing power for queries.  The Events Service cluster is horizontally scalable, so nodes can be added as your data storage requirements grow 3 2 .  The Events Service must run on dedicated machines with identical directory structures, user account profiles, and hardware profiles 1 .  For heap space allocation, AppDynamics recommends allocating half of the available RAM to the Events Service process, with a minimum of 7 GB up to 31 GB 1 .  Solid-state drives (SSD) can significantly outperform hard disk drives (HDD), and are therefore recommended for production deployments 1 .

The incorrect options are:

Add a new Events Service cluster to share the load. (A) This is not recommended because it will create additional complexity and overhead for managing multiple clusters and routing data and queries to the appropriate cluster. It will also require more license units to enable analytics on multiple clusters.

Add more storage to the master nodes of the cluster. © This is not recommended because it will not increase the data replication and redundancy of the cluster, nor the processing power for queries. It will also create an imbalance in the cluster, as the master nodes will have more storage than the worker nodes, which may affect the performance and stability of the cluster.

Add more storage to as many of the existing nodes as possible. (D) This is not recommended because it will not increase the data replication and redundancy of the cluster, nor the processing power for queries. It will also create an imbalance in the cluster, as some nodes will have more storage than others, which may affect the performance and stability of the cluster.

References :

1 : Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer (500-430)

2 : Events Service Requirements - AppDynamics

3 : Events Service Deployment - AppDynamics

4 : Events Service Deployment - AppDynamics

AppDynamics can collect sensitive data such as credit card numbers from various sources, such as SQL queries, error messages, HTTP headers, cookies, and so on. To protect this data from unauthorized access or exposure, an administrator should configure the user permissions for the following features:

SQL Bind Variables: This feature enables the agents to capture the values of the parameters that are passed to SQL queries. These values can contain sensitive data such as credit card numbers, passwords, or personal information. To prevent this data from being stored or displayed in the Controller UI, the administrator should disable the Capture SQL Bind Values permission for the users who do not need to see this data. Alternatively, the administrator can enable the Mask SQL Bind Values permission, which replaces the values with asterisks (*) in the UI.  The administrator can also configure the agent properties to exclude or mask certain bind variables based on patterns or keywords 1 .

Diagnostic Data Collectors: This feature enables the agents to collect additional data from the application code, such as method arguments, return values, HTTP headers, cookies, and so on. These data can also contain sensitive information that should not be exposed to unauthorized users. To control the access to this data, the administrator should disable the View Diagnostic Data Collectors permission for the users who do not need to see this data.  The administrator can also configure the agent properties to exclude or mask certain data collectors based on patterns or keywords 2 .

Other features that can collect sensitive data and require user permissions are Error Detection, Memory Monitoring, and Policies. However, these features are less likely to capture credit card numbers than SQL Bind Variables and Diagnostic Data Collectors. Therefore, the best answer is option C and E.  References :  Sensitive Data Collection and Security ,  SQL Bind Variables , and  Diagnostic Data Collectors  in the AppDynamics documentation.

The AppDynamics .NET Agent can instrument both 32-bit and 64-bit processes, as long as they are running on a supported .NET Framework version and operating system. The agent automatically detects the process architecture and loads the appropriate profiler DLL.  You can also specify the process architecture manually in the agent configuration file 1 . The AppDynamics .NET Agent also supports instrumentation of multiple instances of the same application, such as Windows services or standalone applications. You can configure the agent to assign different tier and node names for each instance, based on the process name, process ID, or command line arguments.  This allows you to monitor the performance and health of each instance separately 2 .

The other statements are false because:

A. AppDynamics .NET Agent does support instrumenting processes running multiple App domains. The agent can monitor multiple App domains within a single process, as long as they are running the same .NET Framework version.  The agent can also monitor multiple applications within a single App domain, by using the Standalone Applications element in the agent configuration file 3 .

B. AppDynamics .NET Agent does not automatically discover all the Windows services to be instrumented. The agent automatically instruments IIS applications only. For Windows services or standalone applications, you need to manually configure the agent by editing the agent configuration file and adding the Windows Services or Standalone Applications element.  You also need to provide the executable name, tier name, and node name for each service or application 4 .

D. AppDynamics .NET Agent does not require that the Windows services are running under the “App.pool identity user” account. The agent can instrument Windows services running under any user account, as long as the account has sufficient permissions to load the agent profiler DLL and access the agent configuration and log files.  The “App.pool identity user” account is only required for IIS applications that run in an application pool 5 .

References :  .NET Agent Configuration Properties ,  Configure the .NET Agent for Windows Services and Standalone Applications ,  Instrument the DefaultDomain for Standalone Applications ,  Install the .NET Agent for Windows ,  Administer the .NET Agent

To upgrade an EUM Server that is currently in production, the administrator should follow these steps:

Stop the EUM Server before the upgrade. This ensures that the EUM Server does not process any incoming data from the EUM agents during the upgrade process.  The administrator can use the  eum.sh  or  eum.bat  script to stop the EUM Server gracefully 1 .

Run the new installer on the EUM host machine. The installer will detect the existing EUM Server installation and prompt the administrator to upgrade it to the latest version. The installer will also migrate the EUM data from the old version to the new version, if needed.  The administrator should follow the instructions on the installer wizard to complete the upgrade 2 .

The other options are not necessary or correct for upgrading the EUM Server. The administrator does not need to stop or upgrade the EUM agents, as they are compatible with the new version of the EUM Server. The administrator does not need to update the EUM Server access key, as it remains the same after the upgrade.  The administrator does not need to install MySQL, as it is bundled with the EUM Server installation package 2 .  References :  Upgrade the Production EUM Server  and  Start and Stop the EUM Server  in the AppDynamics documentation.

The default configuration of the Mobile SDK enables  crash reports  and  network requests 1 2 .  Crash reports capture and report any unhandled exceptions or signals that cause the app to terminate abnormally 1 .  Network requests monitor the performance and errors of HTTP and HTTPS requests made by the app 2 .  These features are enabled by default and do not require any additional code or configuration to work 1 2 .  References :  Crash Reports ,  Network Requests