Cisco: AppDynamics PowerPack Release Notes, version 105

Version 105 of the "Cisco: AppDynamics" PowerPack adds a new credential to support SSL verification and a new threshold to enable or disable the consideration of the organization name in the run book action.

• Minimum Required SL1 Version: 12.1.2

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 12.1.2 or later of SL1 before installing the "Cisco: AppDynamics" PowerPack.

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.

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
• Sample SOAP/XML Credentials 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 this release:

• Added the "AppDynamics Example - SSL" credential that includes CURL options enabled for SSL verification.
• Added the "Search Applications on all Organizations" threshold to the "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Discovery" Dynamic Application.
• Updated the "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Discovery" run book action to ignore the organization name when creating, renaming, and deleting applications. You can enable or disable it using the "Search Applications on all Organizations" threshold in the "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Discovery" Dynamic Application. The threshold is enabled by default.

ScienceLogic recommends you keep the threshold enabled only if you want to monitor AppDynamics applications across multiple organizations. Otherwise, disable the threshold if you want to monitor AppDynamics applications in the default organization that has the controller.

• Added the following Dynamic Applications:
  • Cisco: AppDynamics Business Transaction Configuration
  • Cisco: AppDynamics Business Transaction Discovery
  • Cisco: AppDynamics Backend Configuration

ScienceLogic recommends manually aligning the Dynamic Application to the AppDynamics Application device after upgrading the PowerPack to version 105. 

• Updated the "Cisco: AppDynamics Application Template" Dynamic Application to include the "Cisco: AppDynamics Backend Configuration" Dynamic Application.

Known Issues

The following known issues affect version 105 of the "Cisco: AppDynamics" PowerPack:

• After upgrading the PowerPack from version 102 or prior to version 105, 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 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.
• 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.
• Applications with names that include special characters are not discovered.