500-430 Exam Questions & Answers

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 your account 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.

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

A custom action is a type of Alert and Respond action that allows you to integrate AppDynamics notifications with your own alerting or ticketing system. You can create a custom action by writing an executable script and an XML file that describe how to pass information from AppDynamics to your system. A custom action can be triggered by a policy based on a health rule violation or an event. A custom action is available only on an on-premises Controller, because it requires access to the Controller file system and the ability to execute scripts on the Controller host machine.For a SaaS Controller, you can use HTTP request templates instead of custom actions to integrate with external systems.Reference:Build a Custom Action,Alert and Respond,Actions,Custom Actions

According to the Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer (CAPI) documents, the two symptoms that occur if an AppDynamics Controller is not scaled correctly are:

The Controller's metric reporting is 7 to 10 minutes behind the current time. (D) This is a valid symptom because the AppDynamics Controller collects, processes, and stores metrics from the agents that monitor the applications, tiers, nodes, and other entities. If the Controller is not scaled correctly, it may not have enough resources, such as CPU, memory, disk space, or network bandwidth, to handle the incoming metrics data. This may result in a backlog of metrics data that causes the Controller to lag behind the current time.The Controller's metric reporting delay can affect the accuracy and timeliness of the performance analysis and troubleshooting12.

The Controller UI performs slowly. (E) This is a valid symptom because the AppDynamics Controller UI is a web-based application that allows users to access, visualize, and interact with the performance data and configuration settings of the AppDynamics platform. If the Controller is not scaled correctly, it may not have enough resources, such as CPU, memory, disk space, or network bandwidth, to serve the UI requests.This may result in a slow or unresponsive UI that affects the user experience and productivity12.

The incorrect options are:

Snapshots are not available after 2 weeks. (A) This is not a valid symptom because the AppDynamics Controller does not store snapshots for more than 2 weeks by default. Snapshots are detailed records of the execution context and call graphs of the business transactions that are monitored by the AppDynamics platform. Snapshots are useful for diagnosing performance issues and errors, but they also consume a lot of disk space. The AppDynamics Controller automatically purges the snapshots that are older than 2 weeks, unless the retention policy is changed by the user.The availability of snapshots is not affected by the Controller scaling, unless the disk space is exhausted34.

Health rule violations occur more frequently. (B) This is not a valid symptom because the AppDynamics Controller does not cause health rule violations to occur more frequently. Health rule violations are triggered when the performance or availability metrics of the monitored entities exceed the thresholds that are defined by the user. Health rule violations indicate the presence of performance issues or errors in the monitored applications, tiers, nodes, or other entities, not in the Controller itself.The frequency of health rule violations is not affected by the Controller scaling, unless the Controller fails to collect or process the metrics data5.

The average response times of tiers are higher than normal. This is not a valid symptom because the AppDynamics Controller does not affect the average response times of tiers. The average response time of a tier is the average time that the tier takes to process the incoming requests from the business transactions that are monitored by the AppDynamics platform. The average response time of a tier is influenced by the performance and behavior of the application code, the infrastructure, the dependencies, and the workload of the tier, not by the Controller itself. The average response time of a tier is not affected by the Controller scaling, unless the Controller fails to collect or process the metrics data .

1: Controller System Requirements - AppDynamics

2: Controller Sizing Guidelines - AppDynamics

3: Transaction Snapshots - AppDynamics

4: Configure Data Retention - AppDynamics

5: Health Rules - AppDynamics

To set up AppDynamics Controllers as a high availability pair, you need to meet the following requirements1:

Passwordless SSH must be configured between the two Controller servers. This allows the Enterprise Console to automate the configuration and administration tasks associated with a highly available deployment on Linux systems.

Both servers must have the Controller software installed prior to setting up high availability. The Controllers in an HA pair must be equivalent versions, and be in the same data center.

Both servers must have identical directory structures for the Controller installation. The individual machines in the Controller HA pair need to have an equivalent amount of disk space.Reference:Prerequisites for High Availability

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.Reference:Retrieve Metric Data,Retrieve Metric Hierarchy