Cisco 500-425 Exam

When troubleshooting an application using AppDynamics, the fastest way to narrow down a code problem with a specific business transaction is to follow this order:

Review Application Dashboard: This is the first step to get an overview of the health and performance of your application and its components. You can see the key metrics, such as response time, throughput, error rate, and load, for each tier, node, and business transaction. You can also see the health rule violations, events, and alerts that indicate any issues or anomalies in your application.

Check transaction scorecard: This is the second step to drill down to the details of a specific business transaction that you want to troubleshoot. You can see the transaction scorecard by clicking on the business transaction name on the application dashboard. The transaction scorecard shows the metrics, such as average response time, calls per minute, errors per minute, and slow calls, for the selected business transaction. You can also see the breakdown of the response time by tier, node, and remote service, and the distribution of the response time by percentile.

Check transaction snapshots for problems: This is the third step to identify the root cause of the code problem for the selected business transaction. You can see the transaction snapshots by clicking on the View Snapshots button on the transaction scorecard. Transaction snapshots are the detailed records of the execution of a business transaction, including the call graph, the exit calls, the errors, the exceptions, the logs, the HTTP parameters, the cookies, the session attributes, and the custom data. You can use the transaction snapshots to analyze the code execution, the database queries, the web service calls, the message queues, the errors, and the exceptions that affect the performance of the business transaction.

Therefore,A(Review Application Dashboard > Check transaction scorecard > Check Transactions snapshots for problems) is the correct answer.Reference:

Cisco AppDynamics Associate Administrator Certification

Troubleshoot Business Transactions - AppDynamics

Business Transaction - AppDynamics

Transaction Snapshots - AppDynamics

The default length of time events can be viewed with full detail before being purged is 7 days, unless archived. Events are records of significant occurrences in the monitored environment, such as errors, exceptions, policy violations, health rule violations, and more. You can view the events in the Controller UI under Events > All Events.You can also archive the events to retain them for longer periods or export them to external systems1Reference:1:Events

According to the Tiers and Nodes document1, establishing standards for naming applications, tiers, and nodes can help you identify and organize the components of your monitored environment, as well as troubleshoot performance issues and health rule violations. Some of the statements about establishing naming conventions are true:

Application Tier and Node values can be configured in the application agent startup script: This is true for Java agents, as you can pass values to the agent that will be used as the application, tier, and node name for the system.For example, you can use the -Dappdynamics.agent.applicationName, -Dappdynamics.agent.tierName, and -Dappdynamics.agent.nodeName properties to specify the names in the JVM startup script2.

Node names must be unique across the entire business application: This is true, as node names are used to identify the individual instances of the application components that are monitored by AppDynamics. Having duplicate node names can cause confusion and errors in the data collection and reporting.Therefore, you should use a naming convention that ensures uniqueness and clarity for each node1.

Application Tier and Node values can be configured in the controller-info.xml file: This is true for Java agents, as you can also configure the names in the controller-info.xml file, which is located in the /conf directory. The controller-info.xml file contains the properties that define the agent identity and connection to the Controller.You can use the , <tier-name>, and <node-name> elements to specify the names in the file2.

Some of the statements about establishing naming conventions are false:

Nodes that reside on different Tiers and different machines (hosts) can have duplicate Node names: This is false, as node names must be unique across the entire business application, regardless of the tier or the host they belong to. Having duplicate node names can cause confusion and errors in the data collection and reporting.Therefore, you should use a naming convention that ensures uniqueness and clarity for each node1.

Nodes that reside on the same Tier but on different machines (hosts) can have duplicate Node names: This is also false, as node names must be unique across the entire business application, regardless of the tier or the host they belong to. Having duplicate node names can cause confusion and errors in the data collection and reporting.Therefore, you should use a naming convention that ensures uniqueness and clarity for each node1.

Tiers and Nodes

Name Business Applications, Tiers, and Nodes

The default length of time events can be viewed with full detail before being purged is 7 days, unless archived. Events are records of significant occurrences in the monitored environment, such as errors, exceptions, policy violations, health rule violations, and more. You can view the events in the Controller UI under Events > All Events.You can also archive the events to retain them for longer periods or export them to external systems1Reference:1:Events

Health rules are the criteria that AppDynamics uses to evaluate the performance and availability of your applications and their components. Health rules can trigger alerts and actions when the conditions are violated or cleared. Events are the occurrences that AppDynamics records when something significant happens in your monitored environment, such as a health rule violation, a policy execution, a deployment, or a custom event.

According to theHealth Rules - AppDynamics, the following two ways can help you see the current status of health rules and events of the business process:

Set up a policy to send an email or text when a health rule status changes: This way, you can get notified in real time when a health rule condition is met or cleared, and take appropriate actions to resolve or prevent issues. You can configure policies to send emails, texts, or other notifications to specific recipients or groups, and include relevant information such as the health rule name, the affected entity, the severity level, and the time range.

Create a dashboard with health and events widgets displayed: This way, you can visualize the health and performance of your applications and their components in a single view, and drill down to the details of each health rule or event. You can create custom dashboards with various widgets that show the health status, the event list, the event summary, the event correlation, and the event timeline of your applications and their components.

Therefore,A(Set up a policy to send an email or text when a health rule status changes) andD(Create a dashboard with health and events widgets displayed) are two ways that can help you see the current status of health rules and events of the business process.Reference:

Cisco AppDynamics Associate Administrator Certification

Health Rules - AppDynamics

[Policies and Actions - AppDynamics]

[Events - AppDynamics]

[Custom Dashboards - AppDynamics]