Cisco 500-425 Cisco AppDynamics Associate Administrator (CAAA) Exam Practice Test

Two types of information that can be shared without an AppDynamics login are Flow Map and Custom Dashboards. Flow Map is a graphical representation of the application topology, showing the interactions between the tiers, nodes, backends, and remote services. CustomDashboards are user-defined views of the application performance data, metrics, and events. You can share these types of information by generating a shareable link from the Controller UI, which can be accessed by anyone who has the link, without requiring a login12 References: 1: Share a Flow Map 2: Share a Custom Dashboard

According to the Install the Standalone Machine Agent document1, the machine agent is a standalone Java program that collects performance statistics about your environment. It can be deployed on any machine that hosts application servers, database servers, messaging servers, Web servers, etc. However, the machine agent does not start collecting metrics as soon as it is installed. You need to start the machine agent manually or configure it to run as a service or a daemon. Therefore, the correct answer is D. The machine agent does not require an app agent to collect metrics, nor does it run with the monitored application. These are false statements. References:

• Install the Standalone Machine Agent

The Policy Test Bench gives administrators the ability to test and debug policy execution. It allows you to simulate events and see how the policies and actions respond to them. You can also view the policy execution logs and troubleshoot any issues1 References: 1: Policy Test Bench

The option that would solve this the fastest for the customer is to include baseline data within widgets on the dashboard. Baseline data is the data that represents the normal or expected behaviorof a metric, based on the historical data collected by the AppDynamics Cognition Engine. By including baseline data within widgets on the dashboard, the customer can easily compare the current value of the metric with the past average value for the same time. For example, if the customer wants to see the number of current database connections on their application in a Timeseries graph, and compare it to the past averages for the same time, they can create a Timeseries graph widget that shows the metric “Database Connections” and enable the option “Show Baseline Data” in the widget settings. This will display the current and the baseline values of the metric in the same graph, and allow the customer to see the trends and deviations over time1.

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 systems1 References: 1: Events

By default, the Java Agent enables two Sensitive Data Filters substring: substring “key” and substring “password”. These filters prevent the agent from capturing and sending any data that contains these substrings to the Controller, such as query parameters, HTTP headers, cookies, environment variables, or system properties. This helps to protect sensitive information from being exposed in the Controller UI or reports. You can also add more filters or modify the existing ones by editing the agent configuration file1 References: 1: Filter Sensitive Data

The custom dashboard feature in AppDynamics allows you to display a specific set of metrics and data points on one screen. You can use custom dashboards to present selected metrics for a user who only needs a relatively narrow or focused view of the data. You can also share custom dashboards with other users and stakeholders.

According to the [Custom Dashboards - AppDynamics], some of the advantages of the custom dashboard feature are:

• It makes drill down across tiers seamless: You can use the grid layout type to create a flexible layout that is easy to rearrange on the canvas. The grid layout also scales in size when viewed on mobile devices. You can also use the absolute layout type to control width and height and the exact placement of widgets on the canvas.
• It monitors metrics of interest: You can add widgets from various categories, such as application, server, database, performance, events, and so on. You can also customize the widget properties panel to configure the widget settings, such as title, description, color scheme, time range, auto-refresh interval, and so on.
• It schedules dashboard as a report: You can export your custom dashboard as a PDF or HTML report that you can send by email or save as a file. You can also schedule your custom dashboard to run periodically using cron expressions.

Therefore, A (It makes drill down across tiers seamless), C (It monitors metrics of interest), and E (It schedules dashboard as a report) are three advantages of the custom dashboard feature. References:

• [Custom Dashboards - AppDynamics]
• [Create and Manage Custom Dashboards and Templates - AppDynamics]
• Custom Dashboard Permissions - docs.appdynamics.com

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. References:

• Cisco AppDynamics Associate Administrator Certification
• Troubleshoot Business Transactions - AppDynamics
• Business Transaction - AppDynamics
• Transaction Snapshots - AppDynamics

According to the Data Collectors document1, a data collector is a configuration that captures application data from a method invocation or an HTTP request. A data collector is associated with a specific method signature or an HTTP parameter name. Therefore, if a new class and method have been deployed to the application, or a new method parameter has been added to an instrumented class, the existing data collector may not match the new code and may need to be updated. However, if the business transaction has been deprecated, or a new HTTP parameter has been added to an existing business transaction, the existing data collector may still work as expected, unless the data collector is specifically configured to filter by the business transaction name or the HTTP parameter value. References:

• Data Collectors

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 the Health 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) and D (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. References:

• Cisco AppDynamics Associate Administrator Certification
• Health Rules - AppDynamics
• [Policies and Actions - AppDynamics]
• [Events - AppDynamics]
• [Custom Dashboards - AppDynamics]

To properly configure a database agent from a zip file, you need to provide the following minimum details:

• Controller Host: This is the hostname or IP address of the machine where the Controller is installed. You need to specify this so that the Database Agent can communicate with the Controller and send the collected data1
• Controller Port: This is the port number that the Controller listens on for incoming connections. You need to specify this so that the Database Agent can connect to the Controller using the correct protocol. The default ports are 8090 for HTTP and 8181 for HTTPS for on-premise Controllers, and 80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS for SaaS Controllers1
• Account Access Key: This is the key that authenticates the Database Agent with the Controller. You need to specify this so that the Database Agent can register itself with the Controller and access the license. You can find the account access key in the Controller UI under Settings > License > Account1
• Account Name: This is the name of the account that the Database Agent belongs to. You need to specify this so that the Database Agent can associate itself with the correct application and user permissions. You can find the account name in the Controller UI under Settings > License > Account1

References: 1: Install the Database Agent

When creating a Health Rule condition, you can use baselines instead of defining a specific threshold for some metrics. Baselines are the dynamic values that represent the normal or expected behavior of a metric, based on the historical data collected by the AppDynamics Cognition Engine. Using baselines can help you account for the variations and seasonality of your application performance, and avoid false positives or negatives. You can use baselines for metrics that have a non-zero average value and a meaningful deviation, such as the overall average response time of a business transaction or an expression containing multiple metrics. You cannot use baselines for metrics that have a zero average value or a negligible deviation, such as the Business Transaction errors per minute or the calls per millisecond.

On a custom dashboard, a non-administrator user can view the following types of information:

• The company logo: A custom dashboard can display the company logo in the upper left corner of the dashboard. This can help to brand the dashboard and make it more recognizable for the intended audience. The logo can be configured by the dashboard owner or administrator from the dashboard settings1.
• The version of the AppDynamics Controller: A custom dashboard can display the version of the AppDynamics Controller in the upper right corner of the dashboard. This can help to identify the Controller that is hosting the dashboard and the features that are available. The version can be configured by the dashboard owner or administrator from the dashboard settings1.
• A Timeseries graph: A custom dashboard can display a Timeseries graph widget that shows the trend of a metric over time. This can help to visualize the performance and behavior of the application, server, or database that is being monitored. A Timeseries graph can be configured by the dashboard owner or administrator from the widget settings2.

A non-administrator user cannot view the following types of information on a custom dashboard:

• The current weather in Seattle: A custom dashboard cannot display the current weather in Seattle or any other location, as this is not a metric or data point that is reported by AppDynamics agents or the analytics platform. A custom dashboard can only display the data that is collected and stored by AppDynamics2.
• The number of AppDynamics licenses consumed: A custom dashboard cannot display the number of AppDynamics licenses consumed, as this is a Controller-level information that is only accessible by the Controller administrator. A custom dashboard can only display the data that is scoped by the dashboard owner’s permissions1 . https://docs.appdynamics.com/accounts/en/cisco-appdynamics-saas-deployment-user-management/manage-custom-roles-for-cisco-appdynamics/custom-dashboard-permissions

A data collector is used to capture application data in a single business transaction. A data collector is a configuration that specifies what data to capture from a business transaction and how to store it in the AppDynamics Controller or the analytics platform. You can capture data from HTTP requests, method invocations, custom fields, or information points. You can also apply filters and transformations to the captured data. The captured data can be used for various purposes, such as adding context to business transactions, creating custom metrics, triggering health rules, enriching transaction analytics, or creating business journeys.

According to the Troubleshoot Health Rule Violations document1, one of the ways to troubleshoot health rule violations is to click on the Events tab for the application on the Default Flow Map and then analyze the health rule(s) being violated. This will show you the details of the health rule violation events, such as the affected entity, the severity, the duration, the evaluation time, and the triggered actions. You can also drill down into the health rule violation details to see the health rule configuration, the metric values, and the snapshots. This will help you identify the root cause of the issue and take appropriate remediation actions. Therefore, the correct answer is D. Using the metric browser, disabling the health rule, or rebooting the server may not be the best or the most efficient ways to troubleshoot health rule violations, as they may not reveal the source of the problem, may affect other entities, or may not resolve the issue permanently. References:

• Troubleshoot Health Rule Violations

According to the Time Range Comparisons document1, you can use the Compare Time Range feature in Dash Studio to compare two time periods on a widget. However, this feature also means that the widget may not use the global time range set for the entire dashboard by default. Instead, the widget may use its own time range (denoted as T1) and a second time range (denoted as T2) for comparison. Therefore, if the customer changes the time range using the time picker, the data on the widget may not change accordingly, unless they also update the widget’s time range settings. Tofix this problem, the customer can either disable the Compare Time Range feature or adjust the widget’s time range to match the global time range. References:

• Time Range Comparisons

Snapshots are the detailed records of the execution of a business transaction, including the call stack, the exit points, the errors, and the metrics. To locate snapshots showing slow database response, you can use the following methods:

• Go to the list of snapshots and apply a filter based on slow database response: You can access the list of snapshots from the Business Transaction Dashboard or the Tier Dashboard. You can then apply a filter to show only the snapshots that have a slow database response time, which is the time spent by the business transaction in calling the database. You can specify the minimum and maximum values for the slow database response time, or use the predefined options such as slower than 1 second, slower than 5 seconds, etc. You can also combine this filter with other filters, such as time range, business transaction name, tier name, node name, etc. to narrow down the results1.
• From the flow map, right-click the database icon and select view snapshots: You can access the flow map from the Application Dashboard, the Business Transaction Dashboard, or the Tier Dashboard. The flow map shows the graphical representation of the flow of the business transactions, including the tiers, the nodes, the backends, and the remote services. You can right-click on any database icon on the flow map and select view snapshots to see the list of snapshots that have called that database. You can then sort or filter the snapshots by the database response time column to find the slowest ones2.

The other options are not valid methods to locate snapshots showing slow database response. Going to the dashboard for the database and selecting slowest database calls will show the metrics and the flow map for the database, but not the snapshots. Going to the list of snapshots and selecting analyze for a group of snapshots will show the summary and the comparison of the selected snapshots, but not the database response time.

To create a user in the web user interface, you need to go to Settings > Groups and Roles > Create User. This option allows you to add a new user account and assign it to one or more groups. You can also specify the user’s name, email, password, and authentication method1 References: 1: Create Users