Cisco: AppDynamics PowerPack Release Notes, version 103

Version 103 of the Cisco: AppDynamics PowerPack includes updates to Dynamic Applications and the PowerPack's Run Book action.

• Minimum Required SL1 Version: 12.1.0

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 12.1.0 or later of SL1 before installing "Cisco: AppDynamics" PowerPack version 103.

For details on upgrading SL1, see the relevant SL1 Platform Release Notes.

Installing or Upgrading the PowerPack

To install this PowerPack:

1. Search for and download the PowerPack from the PowerPacks page (Product Downloads > PowerPacks & SyncPacks) at the ScienceLogic Support Site.
2. In SL1, go to the PowerPacks page (System > Manage > PowerPacks).
3. Click the Actions menu and choose Import PowerPack. The Import PowerPack modal appears.
4. Click Browse and navigate to the PowerPack file from step 1.
5. Select the PowerPack file and click Import. The PowerPack Installer modal displays a list of the PowerPack contents.
6. Click Install. 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 Windows Systems with PowerShell 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 this release of the "Cisco: AppDynamics" PowerPack:

• Updated the PowerPack to be Python 3-compatible.
• Added the following Dynamic Applications to the PowerPack to monitor AppDynamics Database objects: 
  • Cisco: AppDynamics Database Configuration
  • Cisco: AppDynamics Database Discovery
  • Cisco: AppDynamics Database Event
  • Cisco: AppDynamics Database Performance
  • Cisco: AppDynamics Database Service Discovery
• The "Cisco: AppDynamics Database Events" Dynamic Application triggers the Database Health Rule Events on the database level when certain criteria are met. You might experience events that trigger on the controller level when first-time devices are discovered.
• Addressed an issue in the "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Discovery" Dynamic Application in which special characters in the description of Applications were not discovered.
• Addressed an issue in which applications with the same device name were not discovered. (Case: 00310562)
• Removed the "EM7 CDB" credential from the PowerPack.This credential was previously used for the "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Discovery" Run Book Action and is no longer required.

ScienceLogic recommends that you delete the "EM7 CDB" credential as it remains present after upgrading from previous versions to version 103. You should then configure the Snippet credential for "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Discovery" Run Book Action to None from the Snippet Credential drop-down.

Known Issues

The following known issues affect version 103 of the Cisco: AppDynamics PowerPack:

• After upgrading from any previous version to version 103 of this PowerPack, the Snippet credential must be set to None from the Snippet Credential drop-down menu in "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Discovery" Run Book Action (Registry>Run Book> Actions). ScienceLogic also recommends deleting the "EM7 CDB" Database credential because it is no longer required.
• When running Cisco AppDynamics Dynamic Applications in debug mode, you may receive Warning messages. You can ignore these messages as they do not affect data collection.
• 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.