AppDynamics Reviews

We use this solution for application monitoring and the alerting mechanism.

We have a complex platform infrastructure, deployed in multiple JBoss Fuse, ActiveMQ, and Data Grid servers.

It improves our organization by providing the right alerts, and there are so many parameters to choose from that it allows us to set the right level of alerting mechanism for approximately one hundred and twenty services.

The most valuable feature is the detailed statistics, like the consumer count, for the ActiveMQ server. It is amazing.

It helps to monitor our complex infrastructure very effectively.

Rolling out version upgrades is a difficult job at times.

• Business Transaction Tracking
• HTTP Header values
• Introspecting slow and error transaction at different tier levels
• Analytics helps to group business calls based on vendor by using HTTP values

• Finds the bugs in dev and test environments before they escape into staging/prod
• Helps to pinpoint where the issue is by application tier
• Identify performance bottlenecks
• Group business calls (API) by vendor
• The above key points mentioned have helped the DevOps team work more effectively and reduce the turnaround time between releases
• Reduced the debug time

The primary feature we are looking for is tracking async calls because most of our API are async calls. We cannot view HTTP data.

We require a seamless way to upgrade the controller and .NET agents.

The plugins available are tedious to use and not robust, e.g. URL monitoring.

The application(controller) is very heavy on hardware. This increases our cloud cost.

It should be more intuitive and provide better metrics when drilling down in the UI.

1. Instrumenting Async method calls:
   For example, let's say we have Async Rest API call written in C#.net with this method - public async long Multiply (int x, inty). Now this call may take 5-15 seconds for REST Response. In AppDynamcis we have an option to instruement a specific method by providing the method definition and its parameters passed and returned values. We can define as variable data collectors to do this, and this is available with the drill down of the call stack. The data collector or variables should show the value which doesn't, and we also tried the diagnostic mode where we can introduce a delay. Though AppDynamics say there are settings to enable tracking of Async calls, but I think it's more inclined and friendly for POJO(Java) calls than POCO(dotnet) calls.
   
2. HTTP Data Collector for Async calls:
   In the above example, if we like to see the HTTP data collectors then there is an option to view the HTTP header variables and custom variables. However, there is no way to see the JSON request and Response data in AppDynamics. I can view this in IE or Chrome using developer tools on the client but not within AppDynamics. I'm not sure if this feature is available in EUM which we haven't procured yet. Also, I don't rule out possibility I might have over looked something and missed it, but I really tried to get this working. Also, the AppDynamics team failed to assist to get this working.
   
3. Plug-in's tried:(SQL monitoring and URL monitoring)
   There was a requirement where we wanted to query our database directly and display certain values (integer) in the AppDynamics UI for monitoring, say, a number of active sessions or database locks etc. Though AppDynamics doesn't provide an out of the box solution, the plug-in's available on Git-Hub which are claimed to be stable aren't working either. Ultimately, we succeed in writing custom VBS files which leverages database machine agent service provided by the tool. With this tool we dump the data to metrics file and manage to integrate. This was very good experience to get our hands around and customize few things which not found in the community of AppDynamics.

This also goes with URL monitoring script provided by community in Git-Hub and also Plug-In repositories on the AppDynamics site. This plug-in is a little tedious to configure because of the YAML file, and only supports HTTP 200 is alive i.e ping request to PORT 80. There's no script for login automation. Again we managed to write custom scripts here for logging using VBS.

There seems to be a certain disconnect between the AppDynamics development and support teams. Maybe because this is a developer intensive engineering tool and support guys need to understand the framework of .NET or a Java ecosystem and applications that cut across various design architectures. This could be a gap which AppDynamics needs to bridge.

I have used this solution for one year.

The controller slows down with Windows platforms.

Sometimes the MySQL process of the AppDynamics controller takes lot of memory and the controller hangs, despite configuring it as per requirement.

Since the application is agent driven (client side), if we need to upgrade the .NET agents on 100 servers, then we need to visit 100 servers to upgrade or deploy them.

The technical capabilities of people sitting in technical support is questionable. The reason being this is an engineering tool for application instrumentation both for .NET and Java. We have asked queries and also raised some issues. For most of the issues, especially regarding tracking async for .NET API, we never received a solution. Also, some configuration issues where primitive in nature but not resolved immediately.

The technical documentation contradicts technical support.

We started using version 3.8 of the tool, and since then, I don't see many changes on the support side.

No, we didn’t use anything in the past for application monitoring. This was the best out there in the market as per evaluation by market research. The tool was a good fit when we did a POC.

Initial setup was complex.

Setting up configuration to track the metrics is little tedious.

Understanding the metrics numbers is little confusing as they contradict, e.g. The number of API calls displayed on the main screen is different than on the analytics screen.

A normal user would find it difficult to understand and read the metrics, because too much drill down is necessary, and the numbers are difficult to interpret and relate to the problem.

Implementation was done in house. The tool is configuration intensive. A good development and operations team need to know the application dynamics to configure this application.

Since it’s high on budget, it’s recommended to buy a developer license and play around with this tool in a dev environment and then procure for production.

I don't think premium vendor support is required for setup and configuration.

We haven’t reached the stage where we calculate ROI, as we are in the early stages of onboarding customers. We can probably gauge this once we have a sizable number of customers on board, which will take time. Measuring ROI will be calculated by using the API call tracking by customer and also the turnaround time (time saving) in the early stages of development cycle.

The pricing is way too high, especially with the analytics feature and end-user monitoring.

They have separate licensing offerings for development and production.

The best option is to get into an engagement for a few months before procuring this tool.

This is purely an application instrumentation and monitoring tool with good features for business analytics.

It is probably more integrated and works well with Java application, as some features for .NET don't work.

Host the AppDynamics controller on a Linux machine with a medium or high profile. A Windows server machine would show symptoms of disliking it within 2 to 3 weeks of setup.

It is not comparable with infrastructure tools. The plug-in available to track infrastructure-related activities are not stable and not robust.

We use it to monitor the load testing environment.

It has improved our organization with its ability to catch issues quickly and fix them.

• Code profiling
• Monitoring

The cost is prohibitive.

We are a solution provider and I am a presales engineer. AppDynamics is one of the products that we implement for our clients and have experience with.

At this time, I'm using it for training purposes, for the team.

The features that I like best are the dashboard and Business Journey.

AppDynamics is dealing with a lot of products and technologies, so we need to have clear documentation.

The community support needs to be a little bit better.

In the future, I would like to see the inclusion of better programming language options. This would allow for wider use, and make it more versatile.

I have been working with AppDynamics for about nine months.

AppDynamics is stable and we haven't faced any bugs.

As we are not an AppDynamics end-user, our experience with technical support is different. At the same time, from a support perspective, I have dealt with the AppDynamics community. I would say that support from the community is good enough, although it is not amazing. I think that community support needs to be a little better.

We did not work with another similar solution prior to AppDynamics. We are a Cisco partner, so we keep moving forward with the same technology.

The first time I deployed AppDynamics wasn't very easy because I didn't have much experience with Linux. However, aside from the Linux-related issues, I found it totally easy.

The deployment is really quick, taking just two or three days. However, we need more time for configuration. If the deployment is good then the configuration will take about one more week.

We do the implementation in-house. We have three people who are working with it.

AppDynamics is a good product and I totally recommend it. Once you feel that you have the full journey for your end-users and you are tracking them, it's awesome. Overall, I am very happy with this product.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

In a few clicks, we are able to identify the root cause of performance issues, without any prior knowledge of the application structure nor its components. And this was true for both Java and .NET.

• Flowmap
• Snapshots
• End-user monitoring (web and mobile)

• Analytics
• SQL statement monitoring

I have not encountered any stability issues so far.

I have not encountered any scalability issues so far.

Technical support is excellent.

We used to use CA APM. We found AppDynamics much more user friendly, easy to spot performance issues, and great unified end-to-end monitoring capabilities.

Initial setup was easy and straightforward.

The product’s licencing policy is competitive. However, properly identify and size your needs to get the best rate.

We also evaluated CA APM, Dynatrace and New Relic.

Properly identify your needs, and allocate the required resources. Otherwise, you might face some scalability issues.

Deep dive monitoring: It automatically instruments slow performing code components. It facilitates deep-dive component monitoring through deep on-demand diagnostics.

Creation of dashboards and reports: It provides creation of reports by adding standard graph and widgets. It stores all metrics into a database that can be used to drive analytics.

Business transaction tracing: It is very good in usability and tool navigation. The navigation is oriented towards business transactions which makes it extreme user friendly. The end user can navigate from business transactions and quickly navigate to the performance issues in those transactions.

Simple architecture: Agents and a centralised console.

It helps client in finding the detailed errors and exactly which user is facing the same.

It does not support network monitoring, which should be included.

I have used it for six months.

It requires a huge amount of disk memory because of which I was unable to install it earlier on the machine.

Technical support is 5/10.

I have used CA Wily and Dynatrace. Both are good, but this is better in providing solutions.

I have implemented it through a vendor team.

It takes far less time to implement than any other APM tools. The ease of using the tool further reduces the overall implementation time.

The way APM works with the different applications, as well as the various analytics and metrics that it provides.

Right now we are not using it with any other products but we will soon be integrating AppDynamics with ServiceNow.

We just started using it so it is a little too early to tell but we have already seen how APM finds the issues with the different applications, which is very important for us. That has really improved a lot of business areas and business transactions for us.

It has been pretty stable for us so far.

We haven't gotten to the point yet where we have tested the scalability since we just started using it.

We were using Nagios but we wanted more application analysis, which Nagios does not provide.

The setup was not really straightforward. We were able to do it because we got help from AppDynamics. But it was definitely not straightforward.

I would recommend to my colleagues that they start using it as soon as possible for their applications.