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

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:

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.

To determine if a given Java class is visible in AppDynamics, the "Preview Business transactions" feature in a Business Transaction Discovery Session can be used. This feature allows users to validate and preview the detection of business transactions, which includes ensuring that specific Java classes and methods are being correctly identified and monitored by AppDynamics.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Business Transaction Detection: Explains how to conduct a Business Transaction Discovery Session and use the preview feature to validate the visibility and detection of business transactions, including specific Java classes.

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.

If the Average Response Time is increasing after the release of a new marketing offer, seeing an increase in Calls per Minute could quickly help the Performance Analyst determine that users may not be critically impacted. This increase may indicate that despite the higher average response time, more users are engaging with the application, possibly due to interest generated by the marketing offer. It suggests that the system is handling more load, which could be a factor in the increased response time.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Performance Metrics: Discusses the implications of various key performance indicators, including how an increase in Calls per Minute can be interpreted in the context of application performance.

AppDynamics imposes a limit on the number of Service Endpoints that can be registered per node to ensure manageable performance and overhead. The limit per node is set to 100 Service Endpoints, which is a balance between providing detailed monitoring and maintaining application performance.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Service Endpoints: https://docs.appdynamics.com/latest/en/application-monitoring/monitor-service-endpoints

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.

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

To share snapshot details from the snapshot window in AppDynamics, the options to "Download PDF" and "Export" are typically used. "Download PDF" allows users to generate a PDF report of the snapshot details, providing a convenient and portable format for sharing and review. The "Export" option enables the extraction of snapshot data in various formats (e.g., CSV, XML), facilitating further analysis or sharing with other tools and stakeholders.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Snapshots: This section covers how snapshots capture detailed performance data for transactions, including how to share and export this information for collaborative analysis.

If a Business Transaction stops being displayed on the Business Transaction Dashboard after continuous load, it could be due to the deletion of the Business Transaction Custom Match Rule. Custom Match Rules in AppDynamics are used to define custom business transactions based on specific criteria. If such a rule is deleted, transactions that were previously identified and displayed based on that rule may no longer be recognized as distinct business transactions, leading to their disappearance from the dashboard.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Business Transactions: Provides insights on configuring and managing business transactions, including the use of custom match rules.

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.

Controller-level custom dashboards in AppDynamics have the flexibility to provide views that aggregate and compare data from different applications on the same Controller, as well as offer a customized view of applications, servers, and database performance data. This capability enables a holistic view of the IT environment, facilitating cross-application insights and the ability to correlate performance across different layers of the technology stack. Such dashboards are invaluable for understanding overarching trends, pinpointing systemic issues, and driving informed decision-making across multiple applications and infrastructure components.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Custom Dashboards: Provides detailed instructions on creating and customizing dashboards at the Controller level, including the aggregation and comparison of data from various sources.
• AppDynamics documentation on Controller UI: Explains the functionalities available within the Controller UI, including the creation of comprehensive dashboards that encompass application, server, and database metrics.

The Metric Explorer in AppDynamics allows Performance Analysts to define and visualize Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from a selection of metrics. By accessing the Transaction Analytics data set, analysts can create custom dashboards that focus on the metrics they've determined to be critical KPIs for their application's performance.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Metric Explorer:

In AppDynamics, you can create health rules to monitor various metrics and set up actions based on the thresholds defined for these metrics. For monitoring Java container thread counts, you can set a health rule based on Node Health - specifically on thread pools - to trigger when the thread count exceeds a specific value. The Notification Action can then be configured to send an email to the development team whenever this threshold is breached.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Health Rules: https://docs.appdynamics.com/21.6/en/infrastructure-visibility/health-rules

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:

The default value pair for the setting "Collect up to ____ snapshots per minute for _____ minutes" in the configuration for Slow Transactions is 10, 10. This means that by default, the system is set to collect up to 10 snapshots per minute for a duration of 10 minutes during a diagnostic session.

References:

• AppDynamics documentation on Transaction Snapshots: Outlines the default settings for diagnostic session duration and collection rates, including the collection of snapshots.