500-430: Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer

According to the Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer (CAPI) documents, the two recommendations for servers in an Events Service Cluster are:

Should be on the same local network : This is a valid recommendation because the Events Service Cluster is based on Apache Cassandra, which is a distributed database that relies on network communication between the nodes. Having the servers on the same local network reduces the network latency and improves the performance and reliability of the cluster.The network bandwidth should be at least 1 Gbps, and the network firewall should allow the required ports for the Events Service Cluster12.

Should have identical hardware specifications (D): This is a valid recommendation because the Events Service Cluster is horizontally scalable, which means that the nodes share the data storage and processing load equally. Having identical hardware specifications for the servers ensures that the cluster is balanced and efficient, and avoids performance bottlenecks or failures due to hardware differences.The hardware specifications should meet the minimum requirements for the Events Service Cluster, such as CPU cores, RAM, disk space, and disk type12.

The incorrect options are:

Should be installed using the same user account (A): This is not a valid recommendation because the Events Service Cluster does not require the same user account for installation. The user account that is used to install the Events Service Cluster should have sudo privileges on the target hosts, but it does not have to be the same for all the hosts.The user account that is used to run the Events Service Cluster should have read and write permissions on the installation directory, but it does not have to be the same for all the hosts either12.

Should have eight or more CPU cores (B): This is not a valid recommendation because the Events Service Cluster does not require eight or more CPU cores for the servers. The minimum requirement for the CPU cores is four, and the recommended requirement is six.Having more CPU cores may improve the performance of the cluster, but it is not a mandatory recommendation12.

Should be running the same operating system version (E): This is not a valid recommendation because the Events Service Cluster does not require the same operating system version for the servers. The Events Service Cluster supports various Linux operating systems, such as CentOS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and SUSE.The operating system version should be compatible with the Events Service version, but it does not have to be the same for all the hosts12.

1: Events Service Requirements - AppDynamics

2: Events Service Deployment - AppDynamics

The most important factor in determining sizing for AppDynamics Controller is the projected metric load per minute on the Controller. This is because the metric load represents the actual workload on the Controller, which depends on the nature of the application, the AppDynamics configuration, and the usage patterns. The number of agents, the type of agents, the number of administrators/end users, and the number of AppDynamics applications are only rough estimates that can vary greatly depending on the specific scenario. Therefore, it is recommended to test the performance of the system in a staging environment and verify the Controller sizing using the metric upload rate before deploying to production.Reference:Controller System Requirements,Performance and Controller sizing guidelines,How to Run AppDynamics in Microsoft Azure,Platform Requirements

The AppDynamics Controller is a Java web application that runs on a GlassFish application server and uses a MySQL database. During the installation of the Controller, two user accounts are created by default:

The GlassFish asadmin user is the administrative user for the GlassFish server. This user has the authority to start, stop, and configure the GlassFish server and its domains. The default username for this user isadminand the default password isappdynamics.You can change the password for this user after the installation by using theasadmincommand-line tool1.

The customer-specified Controller administrator account is the user account that you provide during the installation wizard. This is the account that you use to access the AppDynamics User Interface (UI) for the first time and perform various tasks such as creating applications, configuring agents, managing users and groups, and so on. You can choose any username and password for this account, but AppDynamics recommends using only ASCII characters.You can also create additional user accounts in the Controller UI after the installation2.

The other options are not user accounts that are created by the Controller installation. The Elastic search root user, the REST API user, and the MySQL appd admin user are user accounts that are used internally by the Controller components and are not exposed to the end user.The OS user that will run the controller is a user account that you need to create on the host machine before the installation, and it is not created by the Controller installation3.Reference:Controller Installation,Manage Users and Groups, andUpdate the Root User and Glassfish Admin Passwordsin the AppDynamics documentation.

The AppDynamics Rest API allows you to retrieve information and perform operations on the AppDynamics platform using HTTP requests. To retrieve all AppDynamics business applications from an AppDynamics Controller using the AppDynamics Rest API, you need to use the following URL format:

http(s)://<controller-host>:/controller/rest/applications

This URL returns the business application names and internal numeric identifiers for all the applications that are monitored by the Controller. You can use the application name or ID as a parameter for other API methods that require the application context. You can also specify the output format as XML (default) or JSON by adding the output query parameter. For example:

http(s)://<controller-host>:/controller/rest/applications?output=JSON

This URL returns the same information as the previous one, but in JSON format. You can also filter the applications by their status (alive or not) by adding the time-range-type query parameter. For example:

http(s)://<controller-host>:/controller/rest/applications?time-range-type=BEFORE_NOW&duration-in-mins=60

This URL returns only the applications that are alive in the last 60 minutes.An alive application is an application with at least one node that submits at least one metric to the Controller in the provided time range12.Reference:Application Model API,Metric and Snapshot API

The Events Service is the on-premises data storage facility for unstructured data generated by Application Analytics, Database Visibility, and End User Monitoring deployments. The Events Service can be deployed as a single node or a cluster of three or more nodes, depending on the data volume and availability requirements. The Controller and other Events Service clients connect to the Events Service to store and retrieve analytics data. Therefore, it is essential that the Controller is able to initiate communication with the Events Service cluster, using the Events Service API ports (default 9080/2081). The Events Service cluster does not need to initiate communication with the Controller, as it only responds to the requests from the clients. The Events Service API ports can be reconfigured from the default values, if needed, by modifying theconf/events-service-api-store.propertiesfile on each node. However, the clients must also be updated with the new port values. It is also recommended to use a load balancer or a virtual IP address in front of the Events Service cluster, to provide a single endpoint for the clients and to enable load balancing and failover among the nodes.Reference:Events Service Deployment,Install the Events Service on Linux, andInstall the Events Service on Windowsin 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 data1.Some of the valid reasons to use this API are12:

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.Reference:Retrieve Metric Data,Health Rule API