500-420 Cisco AppDynamics Associate Performance Analyst(CAAPA) Questions and Answers

AppDynamics allows for several reports to be scheduled for periodic generation and sent to email recipients. Among these, Application Health, Error Trends, and CustomDashboards are types of reports that can be automatically generated and delivered, providing regular insights into the application's performance and issues.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Reports: https://docs.appdynamics.com/latest/en/application-monitoring/reporting

When creating Information Points in AppDynamics, wildcards can be utilized to select multiple methods or classes, thereby broadening the scope of data collection. This feature is particularly useful for monitoring similar operations across different components of an application, enabling a more efficient and scalable approach to gathering custom metrics.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Information Points: Elaborates on the process of setting up Information Points, including the use of wildcards to capture metrics from multiple methods or classes.

When a Performance Analyst modifies an existing health rule that is already in a state of critical violation, the event that is typically triggered is "Health Rule Violation Continues - Critical." This event indicates that, despite the modification, the health rule is still being violated at a critical level. The system recognizes that the conditions for the health rule violation are still being met and continues to alert accordingly.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Health Rules and Events: Explains the different types of health rule events and the conditions under which they are triggered.

When drilling down into a JDBC exit call for an Oracle backend, AppDynamics provides detailed information about the call. The data points include:

• Query type, which can indicate whether it's a SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement.
• Statement type, which describes the nature of the SQL statement being executed.
• Originating node, which identifies the node from which the JDBC call originated.

These data points help in understanding the nature and source of database operations, which can be critical for performance analysis and troubleshooting.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Database Monitoring:

In Cisco AppDynamics, the transaction threshold configurations are typically found under the "Overview" tab. This is where you can view the health rule violations and performance baselines that are associated with transaction snapshots, which can include the configured transaction thresholds. These thresholds set the acceptable performance limits for transactions, and when these limits are exceeded, it may trigger health rule violations that are visible on the Overview tab.

References:

• AppDynamics Documentation on Transaction Snapshots
• AppDynamics Documentation on Health Rule Violations

A transaction snapshot in AppDynamics is a detailed report of a single execution of a business transaction. Its primary purpose is to analyze issues with a specific business transaction by providing a comprehensive view of the transaction's execution path, including timing, call graphs, and database queries. This allows performance analystsand developers to drill down into individual transactions to diagnose performance bottlenecks, errors, or anomalies.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Transaction Snapshots: Offers detailed guidance on how to capture and analyze transaction snapshots to troubleshoot and optimize application performance.

The Transaction Score tab within the Application Dashboard is designed to display performance trends across various metrics including Snapshots, Average Response Time, and Events. It gives a comprehensive view of the transaction performance, providing a score that reflects the health and reliability of transactions over time.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Application Dashboard:

To streamline the monitoring process and enhance the relevance of collected data, AppDynamics allows Performance Analysts to exclude certain Java classes and methods from instrumentation. This is done through the "Configuration > Instrumentation > Call Graph Settings" menu, where irrelevant packages and classes can be specified for exclusion. This approach prevents the AppDynamics agent from tracking unnecessary or irrelevant methods, thus reducing overhead and focusing on the most critical aspects of application performance.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Call Graph Settings: This section details how to configure call graph settings, including the exclusion of specific classes and methods from instrumentation, to optimize performance monitoring.

The Live Preview option in a Business Transaction Discovery Session in AppDynamics allows a user to verify the effectiveness of newly configured Transaction Discovery Rules. This feature provides real-time feedback on how these rules identify and categorize business transactions, enabling users to adjust and fine-tune the rules to ensure accurate and meaningful transaction monitoring.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Business Transaction Management: Includes information on Business Transaction Discovery Sessions and the use of Live Preview to validate Transaction Discovery Rules.

In environments where virtual machines are frequently created and destroyed, using the agent configuration properties-Dappdynamics.agent.reuse.nodeNameand-Dappdynamics.agent.reuse.nodeName.prefixcan be beneficial. These settings allow AppDynamics agents to reuse node names for newly created instances, facilitating consistent monitoring and tracking across dynamic environments. This approach helps maintain clarity in application topology and ensures that performance data remains coherent even as the underlying infrastructure changes.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Agent Configuration: Discusses advanced agent configuration options, including node name reuse, to accommodate dynamic environments such as those with frequently changing virtual machines.
• AppDynamics documentation on Infrastructure Monitoring: Offers insights into best practices for monitoring in dynamic and virtualized environments.

Information Points in AppDynamics are designed to collect custom metrics that are specific to the business or code aspects of an application. They can capture Business Metric Data, which pertains to the performance metrics that directly impact business processes, and Code Metric Data, which relates to the performance of specific methods or segments of code within the application. This allows for targeted monitoring and analysis of areas significant to the business's objectives and technical performance.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Information Points: Provides details on how to set up Information Points to collect custom business and code metrics for in-depth performance analysis.

Data collectors in AppDynamics supplement business transaction and transaction analytics data with application data by capturing additional information during transaction execution. This can include method arguments, return values, and invocation context, which enriches the transaction data with more detailed application-level insights. This capability is crucial for in-depth performance analysis and troubleshooting, providing a more comprehensive view of application behavior.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Data Collectors: Explains how to configure data collectors to capture and display detailed application data within business transactions.

To view all captured endpoints by service using the REST interface in AppDynamics, a Performance Analyst would navigate to the Metric Browser and proceed to the "Consumed Endpoints" section. From there, drilling down on specific endpoints within the Metric Browser allows the analyst to explore the services associated with each endpoint. This method enables detailed analysis of endpoint metrics, facilitating the monitoring and optimization of service performance.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Metric Browser: Guides on navigating the Metric Browser to access and analyze various application metrics, including those related to endpoints and services.
• AppDynamics documentation on REST API: Provides information on how to utilize the REST API for retrieving metrics, including endpoint data.

When analyzing database performance in AppDynamics, the "Queries" tab within the database collector view is where a Performance Analyst should navigate to find slow queries. This tab presents a list of database queries executed by the application, highlighting those with long execution times, which are potential bottlenecks impacting application performance.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Database Monitoring: Details the database collector feature, including how to use the Queries tab to identify and analyze slow database queries.

When integrating with a third-party event management system, the Performance Analyst can set up an HTTP Request action within AppDynamics. This allows for the creation of a custom HTTPrequest to the event management system's API, which can be configured to send alerts to Level 1 support or any other designated recipient.

During a war room scenario, which is a real-time troubleshooting session, widgets in AppDynamics dashboards update in near real-time. This allows teams to observe the immediate impact of changes and identify issues as they occur.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on War Rooms: