500-430 Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer Question and Answers

AppDynamics can collect sensitive data such as credit card numbers from various sources, such as SQL queries, error messages, HTTP headers, cookies, and so on. To protect this data from unauthorized access or exposure, an administrator should configure the user permissions for the following features:

• SQL Bind Variables: This feature enables the agents to capture the values of the parameters that are passed to SQL queries. These values can contain sensitive data such as credit card numbers, passwords, or personal information. To prevent this data from being stored or displayed in the Controller UI, the administrator should disable the Capture SQL Bind Values permission for the users who do not need to see this data. Alternatively, the administrator can enable the Mask SQL Bind Values permission, which replaces the values with asterisks (*) in the UI. The administrator can also configure the agent properties to exclude or mask certain bind variables based on patterns or keywords1.
• Diagnostic Data Collectors: This feature enables the agents to collect additional data from the application code, such as method arguments, return values, HTTP headers, cookies, and so on. These data can also contain sensitive information that should not be exposed to unauthorized users. To control the access to this data, the administrator should disable the View Diagnostic Data Collectors permission for the users who do not need to see this data. The administrator can also configure the agent properties to exclude or mask certain data collectors based on patterns or keywords2.

Other features that can collect sensitive data and require user permissions are Error Detection, Memory Monitoring, and Policies. However, these features are less likely to capture credit card numbers than SQL Bind Variables and Diagnostic Data Collectors. Therefore, the best answer is option C and E. References: Sensitive Data Collection and Security, SQL Bind Variables, and Diagnostic Data Collectors in the AppDynamics documentation.

The Health Rule REST API allows you to create, configure, update, and delete health rules for multiple applications simultaneously. To use this API, you need to specify the application in the URL string. You can use either the application ID or the application name for this purpose. The application ID is a unique numeric identifier for each application in the Controller. The application name is the display name of the application in the AppDynamics UI. You cannot use the application alias, GUID, or REGEX for the Health Rule REST API. References: Health Rule API and Retrieve All Business Applications in the AppDynamics documentation.

According to the Cisco AppDynamics Professional Implementer (CAPI) documents, the two reasons for the missing correlated server-side snapshots are:

• Server has set the HttpOnly flag on all cookies. (A) This is a valid reason because the HttpOnly flag is a security feature that prevents client-side scripts from accessing the cookies. However, the AppDynamics JavaScript Agent relies on the cookies to correlate the browser snapshots with the server-side snapshots. The JavaScript Agent injects a cookie named _appdyn_browser into the browser requests, which contains the correlation information. If the server sets the HttpOnly flag on all cookies, including the _appdyn_browser cookie, the JavaScript Agent cannot read or modify the cookie, and the correlation fails. To enable the correlation, the server should not set the HttpOnly flag on the _appdyn_browser cookie12.
• Server-side application is not instrumented with server agent. (E) This is a valid reason because the server-side snapshots are collected by the AppDynamics app agents that instrument the application servers. The app agents monitor the business transactions that are executed by the server-side application, and capture the execution context, call graphs, errors, and metrics. If the server-side application is not instrumented with the app agent, the server-side snapshots are not available, and the correlation fails. To enable the correlation, the server-side application should be instrumented with the app agent that is compatible with the application server and the Controller34.

The incorrect options are:

• Correlated server-side snapshots work only for .NET Applications. (B) This is not a valid reason because the correlated server-side snapshots work for any application server that is instrumented with the AppDynamics app agent, not only for .NET applications. The AppDynamics platform supports various application servers, such as Java, .NET, PHP, Node.js, Python, and C/C++. The app agents collect the server-side snapshots for the business transactions that are executed by the application server, regardless of the programming language or framework34.
• Correlated snapshots are visible only if the injection mechanism is Automatic. © This is not a valid reason because the correlated snapshots are visible regardless of the injection mechanism. The injection mechanism refers to the way the AppDynamics JavaScript Agent is inserted into the web pages. There are two injection mechanisms: Automatic and Manual. The Automatic injection mechanism uses the app agent to inject the JavaScript Agent into the web pages that are served by the application server. The Manual injection mechanism requires the user to manually insert the JavaScript Agent into the web pages. Both injection mechanisms support the correlation of the browser snapshots and the server-side snapshots, as long as the JavaScript Agent and the app agent are configured correctly .
• Correlated snapshots are visible only if browser is Chrome. (D) This is not a valid reason because the correlated snapshots are visible regardless of the browser. The AppDynamics JavaScript Agent supports various browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Internet Explorer. The JavaScript Agent collects the browser snapshots for the web pages that are loaded by the browser, and correlates them with the server-side snapshots, regardless of the browser type or version .
• Correlated server-side snapshots are visible only if Java version is 1.7+. (F) This is not a valid reason because the correlated server-side snapshots are visible regardless of the Java version. The AppDynamics Java Agent supports various Java versions, such as 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, and 11. The Java Agent collects the server-side snapshots for the business transactions that are executed by the Java application server, and correlates them with the browser snapshots, regardless of the Java version or vendor .

References:

• 1: Browser Snapshots - AppDynamics
• 2: Troubleshoot Browser RUM - AppDynamics
• 3: Transaction Snapshots - AppDynamics
• 4: Supported Environments and Versions - AppDynamics
• [5]: Browser Real User Monitoring - AppDynamics
• [6]: Set Up and Configure Web EUM - AppDynamics
• [7]: Browser Support - AppDynamics
• [8]: Java Agent - AppDynamics
• [9]: Java Supported Environments - AppDynamics

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

An Events Service cluster is a group of two or more Events Service nodes that work together to store and process unstructured data generated by AppDynamics components such as Application Analytics, Database Visibility, and End User Monitoring1. Using an Events Service cluster has two main advantages over a single-node instance12:

• Clusters allow data replication across multiple nodes. This means that the data is duplicated and distributed among the nodes in the cluster, providing data redundancy and protection against data loss in case of a node failure. Data replication also improves data availability and query performance, as the cluster can handle concurrent requests from multiple clients.
• Clusters are horizontally scalable by adding nodes. This means that the cluster can grow in size and capacity by adding more nodes to the cluster, without affecting the existing nodes or data. Horizontal scaling allows the cluster to handle increasing data volumes and performance demands, as well as balance the workload among the nodes. References: Events Service Deployment, What are the Benefits of Server Clustering?

The AppDynamics Controller properties that govern how long metric data is retained in the database are1:

• metrics.ten.min.retention.period: This property specifies the number of days to retain metric data at 10-minute granularity. The default value is 32 days.
• metrics.retention.period: This property specifies the number of days to retain metric data at 1-hour granularity. The default value is 365 days.
• metrics.min.retention.period: This property specifies the number of hours to retain metric data at 1-minute granularity. The default value is 4 hours.

The other options are incorrect because1:

• metrics.ten.sec.retention.period: This property does not exist in the AppDynamics Controller. The finest granularity for metric data is 1 minute.
• metrics.day.retention.period: This property does not exist in the AppDynamics Controller. The coarsest granularity for metric data is 1 hour.
• metrics.week.retention.period: This property does not exist in the AppDynamics Controller. The metric data retention is based on days, not weeks. References: Database Size and Data Retention

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 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 prepare a Linux environment for the installation of an AppDynamics Controller with a Large performance profile, which is suitable for monitoring up to 1000 agents, you need to perform the following steps:

• Install libaio on the host machine if it does not already have it installed. This library facilitates asynchronous I/O operations on the system, which are required by the Controller. You can use the package manager of your Linux distribution to install libaio, such as yum or apt-get. For example, on CentOS, you can run yum install libaio1.
• Verify the open file descriptor limit on the system. The file descriptor limit determines how many files a process can open at a time. The Controller requires a high file descriptor limit to handle the large number of connections and transactions. AppDynamics recommends setting the file descriptor limit to at least 65535 for the user account that runs the Controller. You can check the current file descriptor limit by running ulimit -n and modify it by editing the /etc/security/limits.conf file2.
• Verify the process limit on the system. The process limit determines how many processes a user can run at a time. The Controller requires a high process limit to handle the large number of threads and subprocesses. AppDynamics recommends setting the process limit to at least 65535 for the user account that runs the Controller. You can check the current process limit by running ulimit -u and modify it by editing the /etc/security/limits.conf file2.

Other steps that are not required but recommended for the Controller installation are verifying the user account permissions, configuring the virus scanners, installing the netstat network utility, and setting the NUMA configuration2. You do not need to install MySQL or Java separately, as they are included in the Controller installation package3. References: Prepare Linux for the Controller, Install the Controller on Linux, and Controller System Requirements in the AppDynamics documentation.

AppDynamics recommends that you terminate SSL connections from agents at a reverse proxy or a load balancer in front of the Controller, rather than at the Controller itself. This improves the performance and scalability of the Controller by offloading the SSL processing to the proxy or load balancer. It also simplifies the configuration and management of SSL certificates and truststores. To enable this option, you need to configure the proxy or load balancer to accept SSL connections from agents and forward them to the Controller using HTTP. You also need to configure the agents to use SSL and point to the proxy or load balancer host and port. See Enable SSL for the Java Agent for an example. References: Agent-to-Controller Connections and Enable SSL and SSH for Database Agent Communications in the AppDynamics documentation.

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. References: Prerequisites for High Availability

In a hybrid deployment of AppDynamics, where the AppDynamics Controller and Events Service are installed on-premises and the EUM Server is hosted in AppDynamics’ SaaS cloud, the data that is unavailable is the analytics metrics for End-User Monitoring data sets. This is because the analytics metrics require the Events Service to store and process the unstructured data generated by the EUM agents. However, in a hybrid deployment, the EUM Server and the Events Service are not connected, and the EUM Server does not send the EUM data to the Events Service. Therefore, the analytics metrics for EUM data sets, such as browser records, mobile snapshots, network requests, and custom events, are not available in the Controller UI or the Analytics UI1. The other data, such as resource loading times, session information, and browser snapshots, are available in the EUM Server UI, as they are stored and displayed by the EUM Server itself2. References: Hybrid Deployment and EUM Data Sets in the AppDynamics documentation.