Version 101 of the Cisco: AppDynamics PowerPack includes updates that enable the PowerPack to work on Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)-compliant SL1 systems, to monitor AppDynamics through a proxy server, and to align multiple credentials when using the Device Template. Additional updates were made to some of the PowerPack's Dynamic Applications, Device Classes, and Event Policies.
- Minimum Required SL1 Version: 8.8.0
NOTE: ScienceLogic recommends running the latest version of the AppDynamics Agent when monitoring Cisco AppDynamics applications in SL1.
Before You Install or Upgrade
Ensure that you are running version 8.8.0 or later of SL1 before installing "Cisco: AppDynamics" PowerPack version 101.
For details on upgrading SL1, see the relevant SL1 Platform Release Notes.
Installing or Upgrading the PowerPack
To install this PowerPack:
- Search for and download the PowerPack from the PowerPacks page (Product Downloads > PowerPacks & SyncPacks) at the ScienceLogic Support Site.
- In SL1, go to the PowerPacks page (System > Manage > PowerPacks).
- Click the Actions menu and choose Import PowerPack. The Import PowerPack modal appears.
- Click and navigate to the PowerPack file from step 1.
- Select the PowerPack file and click . The PowerPack Installer modal displays a list of the PowerPack contents.
- Click . The PowerPack is added to the PowerPack Manager page.
CAUTION: If you have installed a previous version of the PowerPack, installing the latest version will overwrite the device template "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Template". In the Dyn Apps tab of the device template, the credential for each Dynamic Application will be overwritten and will now reference the example credential included with the PowerPack. Before installing the new PowerPack, note the credential aligned with each Dynamic Application. After installing the new PowerPack, edit the device template "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Template". In the Dyn Apps tab of the device template, edit the credential aligned with each Dynamic Application to reflect the user-defined credential.
For more information about using the PowerPack, see the Monitoring Cisco: AppDynamics manual.
Features
This release includes the following features:
- Dynamic Applications to discover and monitor AppDynamics devices
- Device Classes for each type of AppDynamics component device SL1 monitors
- Event Policies that are triggered when AppDynamics component devices meet certain status criteria
- A sample SOAP/XML Credential for discovering AppDynamics devices
- Run Book Actions and Policies that automatically create AppDynamics Application virtual devices
- A device template that is used to align the PowerPack's Dynamic Applications to AppDynamics Application virtual devices
Enhancements and Addressed Issues
The following enhancements and addressed issues are included in version 101 of the "Cisco: AppDynamics" PowerPack:
- The PowerPack was updated to work on Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)-compliant SL1 systems.
- The PowerPack was updated to support the ability to monitor AppDynamics through a proxy server. To use this functionality, you will need to populate the Proxy Settings section of the SOAP/XML credential used to monitor AppDynamics. (For more information, see the Monitoring Cisco AppDynamics manual.)
- All of the PowerPack's Performance Dynamic Applications were updated to set their Summarization State settings to Enabled.
- The "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Template" example Device Template that is included in the PowerPack was updated to work with more than one credential at a time. To use this feature, you will need to create a new Device Template from the example template by saving it with a different name, create new credentials from the example SOAP/XML credential by saving them with different names, and then align the credentials to the Dynamic Applications in the Device Template.
- A new "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Renamed" Event Policy was added to the PowerPack. This event is triggered when an Application is renamed.
NOTE: When an Application is renamed, errors will appear in the system log until the Event Policy triggers the "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Discovery" Run Book Automation Policy to run, which in turn will rename the Application virtual device. This might occur for one polling cycle.
- The Event Policies included in the PowerPack were updated to ensure that events are auto-cleared properly.
- The Device Class categories and tiers were updated as follows:
| Device Class | Description | Category | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Tier | APM | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Node | APM | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Controller | APM | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Application | APM | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics .NET Application Server Tier | APM.Application | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Application Server Tier | APM.Application | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics C/C++ SDK Tier | APM.Application | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Golang SDK Tier | APM.Application | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Node.JS Server Tier | APM.Application | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics PHP Application Server Tier | APM.Application | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Python Server Tier | APM.Application | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics WMB Agent Tier | APM.Application | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Web Server Tier | APM.Application | 1 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics ActiveMQ Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Apache Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics DB Agent Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics DB Collector Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Glassfish Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics IBM DB2 Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics IBM MQ Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics IIS Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics JBoss Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Microsoft SQL Server Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics MySQL Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Oracle Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Postgres Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Pound Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Tomcat Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Weblogic Node | APM.Host | 5 |
| Cisco Systems | AppDynamics Websphere Node | APM.Host | 5 |
- An issue was addressed that was causing some Dynamic Application requests to occasionally generate the following error messages: "
Error collecting performance data. Error to retry the operation." or "Exception producing performance data. Error to retry the operation." - An issue was addressed that was causing the "Cisco: AppDynamics Tier Configuration" Dynamic Application to occasionally generate "
object of type 'NoneType' has no len()" error messages.
Known Issues
The following known issues affect version 101 of the Cisco: AppDynamics PowerPack:
- When a tier or node name is renamed from the AppDynamics portal, the PowerPack will not update the component device name automatically; instead, the component device will always retain its original name. This is because the Preserve Hostname option is enabled by default in the Preferences section of the component's Device Properties page (Registry > Devices > wrench icon). To update the tier or node name, uncheck the Preserve Hostname option.
- SL1 is unable to discover applications with names that include special characters.
- If a tier or node name includes special characters, SL1 replaces the special characters with empty spaces in the device name. This does not affect data collection, but it does prevent a relationship from being created between a physical server and a component node if the node's machine name contains special characters.
- When discovering a large number of component devices, the discovery process can cause the appearance of numerous critical events with the message, "
Large backlog of asynchronous jobs detected". You can safely ignore this alert as long as the number of asynchronous processes decreases over time. - Due to an API throttling issue, when monitoring an account with a large number of applications or component devices, some Dynamic Applications might generate an "
Exception producing performance data" error message and experience some data gaps in the performance metrics. In this scenario, SL1 will attempt to collect the data again, but the issue might still recur. - When an application is deleted from AppDynamics, it should be deleted from SL1 automatically. (This process will also cause the application's tiers and nodes to vanish.) If the application does not delete automatically, the Dynamic Applications aligned to the device will generate error messages in the log, and you might need to manually delete the application.