500-430 Sample Questions Answers

According to the Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer (CAPI) documents, when updating the Database Agent, you need to follow these steps12:

• Stop the agent as described for your specific installation in Start and Stop the Database Agent.
• Make a copy of the existing agent directory, . Backing up allows you to revert to the previous agent installation if you need to. You can also copy over the controller-info.xml configuration file to the new installation to ensure the agent configuration is maintained.
• Install the Database Agent as described for your specific installation in Administer the Database Agent.
• Copy the \conf\controller-info.xml file to the new installation directory, \conf. To ensure the agent configuration is maintained, copy the \conf\controller-info.xml file to the new installation directory, \conf.
• Start the new agent. See Start and Stop the Database Agent.
• Verify the Database Agent Installation. See Verify the Database Agent Installation.

Therefore, the correct statements are:

• The Database Agent must be stopped and restarted during the upgrade. (A)
• Controller-info.xml is the only file that needs to be migrated from the previous agent to the new agent. (D)

The incorrect statements are:

• If the agent is moved to a new location during the upgrade, the AppDynamics Controller must be reconfigured to reference the new location of the agent. (B) This is not true because the controller-info.xml file contains the information about the Controller host, port, account name, access key, and SSL settings. As long as this file is copied to the new agent location, the Controller does not need to be reconfigured.
• All data collectors created from the previous agent must be migrated to the new agent. © This is not true because the data collectors are configured on the Controller UI, not on the agent. The agent collects the metrics from the databases and sends them to the Controller. The data collectors do not need to be migrated to the new agent.
• After the Database Agent is upgraded, the AppDynamics Controller must be restarted. (E) This is not true because the Controller does not depend on the agent version. The agent and the Controller are compatible as long as they meet the Agent and Controller Compatibility requirements.

References:

• 1: Upgrade the Database Agent - AppDynamics
• 2: Release Upgrade Checklist for Database Agents - AppDynamics

AppDynamics performance profiles are predefined sets of system requirements and configuration settings that are designed to support different levels of load and scalability for the AppDynamics platform. The performance profiles range from small to extra large, depending on the number of agents, metrics, and events that the platform needs to handle. The large and extra large performance profiles differ from other profile types in the following ways:

• They require an enterprise-grade database: The large and extra large performance profiles require an external MySQL database that is enterprise-grade, meaning that it has high availability, scalability, performance, and security features. The database should also have enough disk space, memory, and CPU resources to handle the expected load and growth. The AppDynamics platform uses the database to store configuration data, metric data, event data, and analytics data12.
• An alert is generated when disk space falls below 2 GB: The large and extra large performance profiles have a built-in alert mechanism that notifies the administrator when the disk space on the Controller host falls below 2 GB. This isbecause the Controller needs enough disk space to store temporary files, logs, backups, and snapshots. If the disk space is insufficient, the Controller may experience performance degradation, data loss, or corruption. The administrator should monitor the disk space usage and free up space or add more disk capacity as needed34.

The other statements are false because:

• A. They do not need to be installed on a bare metal server. The large and extra large performance profiles can be installed on any supported operating system, such as Linux or Windows, and on any supported platform, such as physical, virtual, or cloud. However, the host machine should have enough CPU, memory, and network resources to meet the performance profile requirements12.
• B. They do not need to be run with the High Availability Toolkit. The High Availability Toolkit is an optional tool that can be used to configure and manage a high availability deployment of the AppDynamics platform, where multiple Controllers are clustered together to provide redundancy and failover. The High Availability Toolkit can be used with any performance profile, not just the large and extra large ones. However, the High Availability Toolkit requires a license and additional hardware and software resources .
• C. They are supported on Windows. The large and extra large performance profiles can be installed on Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, or 2019, as long as the host machine meets the performance profile requirements. However, some features or configurations may not be available or supported on Windows, such as the High Availability Toolkit, the Enterprise Console, or the Events Service12.

References: Platform Requirements, Controller System Requirements, Controller Disk Space Requirements, Controller Disk Space Alert, [High Availability], [High Availability Toolkit]

The default configuration of the Mobile SDK enables crash reports and network requests12. Crash reports capture and report any unhandled exceptions or signals that cause the app to terminate abnormally1. Network requests monitor the performance and errors of HTTP and HTTPS requests made by the app2. These features are enabled by default and do not require any additional code or configuration to work12. References: Crash Reports, Network Requests

According to the Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer (CAPI) documents, the correct method to perform a NET Agent upgrade is to perform the agent upgrade on the application server host by running the MSI Installer Package12. This method will install updated agent files and maintain legacy configurations. You do not need to uninstall the old agent first when you upgrade from the NET Agent >= 3.9, except for patch releases. You need to stop IIS, instrumented Windows services, and instrumented standalone applications before running the MSI Installer Package. You also need to launch an elevated command prompt with full administrator privileges and specify youraccount access key for single-tenant Controller accounts. After the installation, you need to restart Windows services and standalone applications.

The incorrect options are:

• Perform the agent upgrade on a remote server host by using the AppDynamics Controller REST API. (B) This is not a valid method for upgrading the NET Agent, because the AppDynamics Controller REST API does not provide any endpoint for agent installation or upgrade. The REST API is mainly used for retrieving or updating configuration data, metrics, events, snapshots, and other information from the Controller3.
• Perform the agent upgrade on the application server host by running the Agent Configuration Utility. © This is not a valid method for upgrading the NET Agent, because the Agent Configuration Utility is a tool for modifying the agent configuration after installation, not for installing or upgrading the agent. The Agent Configuration Utility allows you to change the Controller connection settings, the agent logging level, the proxy settings, and other advanced options4.
• Perform the agent upgrade via the AppDynamics Controller UI. (D) This is not a valid method for upgrading the NET Agent, because the AppDynamics Controller UI does not provide any feature for agent installation or upgrade. The Controller UI is mainly used for monitoring, analyzing, and troubleshooting the performance of the applications, business transactions, tiers, nodes, and other entities that are instrumented by the agents5.

References:

• 1: Upgrade the .NET Agent for Windows - AppDynamics
• 2: Release Upgrade Checklist for .NET Agents - AppDynamics
• 3: REST API - AppDynamics
• 4: Configure the .NET Agent - AppDynamics
• 5: AppDynamics Application Performance Monitoring Platform - AppDynamics

The directory contains the EUM Server installation files, configuration files, and data files. It is recommended to back up this directory as a precaution before upgrading or migrating the EUM Server. The default location of this directory is /AppDynamics/EUM, where is the directory where you installed the Controller. You can also use the backup-eum.sh script to back up the EUM Server data12. References: Upgrade the Production EUM Server, Configure the EUM Server

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/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/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/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. References: Application Model API, Metric and Snapshot API

To upgrade the AppDynamics Java Agent, you need to copy the existing agent directory to a backup location and replace it with the new agent directory. You also need to copy any configuration file changes made in the old directory to the new agent directory. After that, you need to restart the application JVM where the Java Agent is installed, so that the new agent can take effect. Restarting the application JVM is the only required step for the upgrade to succeed. You do not need to restart the host machine, the Machine Agent, or the AppDynamics Controller12. References: Upgrade the Java Agent, Release Upgrade Checklist for Java Agents

The AppDynamics Controller Admin Console lets you configure certain global settings for the Controller, such as metric retention periods, UI notification triggers, tenancy mode, and accounts in multi-tenancy mode1. Two of the settings that an administrator can configure from the AppDynamics Controller Admin Console are:

• License allocation: This setting allows you to view and manage the license usage and availability for your Controller. You can see the total number of licenses, the number of licenses in use, the number of licenses available, and the license expiration date for each agent type. You can also allocate licenses to specific applications or accounts, and set license limits and alerts2.
• Retention periods: This setting allows you to specify how long the Controller retains the metric data and the event data for your monitored applications. You can configure the retention periods for different types of data, such as minute-level metrics, hour-level metrics, day-level metrics, transaction snapshots, and events. You can also configure the data purge schedule and the data backup schedule3.

References: Access the Administration Console, License Rules, Data Retention

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. References: Retrieve Metric Data, Health Rule API

The Database Agent collects hardware metrics from a Windows database server using PowerShell1. PowerShell is a scripting language and a command-line shell that allows the Database Agent to execute commands and access Windows Performance Counters on the target host12. The Database Agent uses PowerShell to collect metrics such as CPU, memory, disk, and network utilization from the Windows database server1. To enable hardware monitoring for a Windows database server, the Database Agent requires the following permissions1:

• The user that runs the Database Agent must have permission to execute PowerShell scripts on the local machine.
• The user that runs the Database Agent or the Collector Service user (if using Windows Authentication) must have permission to establish a WMI connection to the target host and collect Windows Performance Counters. References: Required Monitored Host Permissions, PowerShell Overview

The AppDynamics REST API for retrieving metrics allows you to get values generated for metrics by specifying the path of the metric and the time frame for the data1. The following statements are true regarding this API12:

• Metrics can be retrieved for a fixed time range. You can use the time-range-type parameter to specify a fixed time range such as BEFORE_NOW, AFTER_TIME, or BETWEEN_TIMES. You can also use the duration-in-mins parameter to specify the length of the time range in minutes.
• Wildcards can be used in the REST API metric path. You can use the asterisk () character as a wildcard to match any metric name or part of a metric name. For example, you can use the metric path Business Transaction Performance|Business Transactions||*|Average Response Time (ms) to retrieve the average response time for all business transactions in all tiers. References: Retrieve Metric Data, Retrieve Metric Hierarchy

In a split-host configuration, where the EUM Server and Controller are on separate hosts, the EUM Server requires access to the Controller primary HTTP(s) port. This is because the EUM Server needs to communicate with the Controller API server to send data and receive configuration information. The default primary HTTP port for the Controller is 8090 and the default primary HTTPS port is 81811. The dedicated EUM HTTP(s) ports are used by the EUM agents to send data to the EUM Server, not by the EUM Server to access the Controller2. The GlassFish administration port is used to access the Controller Admin Console, not by the EUM Server3. The Controller database port is used by the Controller to connect to the MySQL database, not by the EUM Server4. References: Controller Port Settings, Configure the Port for the EUM Agent, Access the Administration Console, Controller System Requirements