Free Cisco 500-430 Practice Exam with Questions & Answers | Set: 2

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.

The Machine Agent REST API allows you to create custom events that can be used for various purposes in AppDynamics. Some of the reasons you would create custom events using this API are12:

• To create an event to track application deployment. You can use the API to send a custom event that marks the start and end of an application deployment process. This can help you monitor the impact of the deployment on the application performance and availability, as well as correlate any issues or anomalies with the deployment event.
• To create an event to be displayed along with Time Series data in a custom dashboard. You can use the API to send a custom event that contains any relevant information or context that you want to display in a custom dashboard. For example, you can send a custom event that contains the details of a configuration change, a maintenance window, a business transaction, or a user action. You can then use the custom dashboard to visualize the custom event data along with the Time Series data for the metrics you are interested in.
• To create an event to be used to trigger a health rule violation. You can use the API to send a custom event that contains a metric value that you want to use as a condition for a health rule. For example, you can send a custom event that contains the CPU utilization of a machine, and then create a health rule that evaluates the CPU utilization metric and triggers a violation if it exceeds a certain threshold. You can then use the health rule violation to generate alerts, notifications, or remediation actions. References: Machine Agent HTTP Listener, Create Custom Events

As an AppDynamics Controller grows beyond supporting 500 agents, network throughput becomes more important. This is because the Controller needs to handle a large volume of data from the agents, as well as serve requests from the UI and API clients. Network throughput is the measure of how much data can be transferred over a network in a given time. A low network throughput can cause delays, errors, or timeouts in the communication between the Controller and the agents or clients. Therefore, it is recommended to monitor the network throughput of the Controller and ensure that it meets the minimum requirements for the expected load123. References: Controller System Requirements, Performance and Controller Sizing Guidelines, How to Run AppDynamics in Microsoft Azure

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 AppDynamics standalone Machine Agent is a Java program that runs on a host machine and collects hardware and infrastructure metrics, such as CPU, memory, disk, and network usage. The Machine Agent can also perform additional functions, such as:

• Acting as a forwarder for analytics events: The Machine Agent can be configured to forward business transaction, log, browser, mobile, and synthetic events from the application agents to the AppDynamics Events Service, which is a distributed, scalable data store for analytics data. The Machine Agent can also forward custom events from the SDK or API to the Events Service. This allows you to use the AppDynamics Analytics features, such as dashboards, queries, funnels, and metrics, to analyze the performance and behavior of your applications and users12.
• Starting an HTTP listener for custom metrics: The Machine Agent can be configured to start an HTTP listener that can receive custom metrics from external sources, such as scripts, tools, or other applications. The Machine Agent can then report these custom metrics to the AppDynamics Controller, where youcan view them in the Metric Browser or use them in health rules, policies, or dashboards. This allows you to monitor any aspect of your system that is not covered by the default Machine Agent metrics34.

The other statements are false because:

• B. The Machine Agent cannot send SNMP alerts. The Machine Agent can only receive SNMP traps from external sources and report them as events to the AppDynamics Controller. The AppDynamics Controller can send SNMP alerts to external systems based on health rule violations or events, but this is not a function of the Machine Agent5 .
• C. The Machine Agent cannot communicate with multiple AppDynamics Controllers. The Machine Agent can only communicate with one Controller at a time, which is specified in the controller-info.xml file in the agent configuration directory. If you want to monitor the same host machine with multiple Controllers, you need to install multiple Machine Agents on the same machine, each with a different Controller configuration and port number .
• D. The Machine Agent cannot restart itself if it goes down. The Machine Agent does not have a built-in mechanism to automatically restart itself in case of a failure or a crash. You need to use an external tool or script to monitor the Machine Agent process and restart it if necessary. Alternatively, you can use the AppDynamics Agent Installer to deploy the Machine Agent as a service, which can be configured to restart automatically on failure .

References: Analytics Agent, Analytics Data, HTTP Listener, Custom Metrics, SNMP Trap Alerting Integration, [SNMP Integration], [Machine Agent Configuration Properties], [Install the Machine Agent], [Agent Installer], [Start and Stop the Machine Agent]