AppDynamics Monitoring Extension for use with AWS RDS

Use Case

Captures RDS statistics from Amazon CloudWatch and displays them in the AppDynamics Metric Browser.

Note : By default, the Machine agent can only send a fixed number of metrics to the controller. This extension potentially reports thousands of metrics, so to change this limit, please follow the instructions mentioned here.

Prerequisite

1. Before the extension is installed, the prerequisites mentioned here need to be met. Please do not proceed with the extension installation if the specified prerequisites are not met.
2. If you don't want to provide awsAccessKey and awsSecretKey, please run the extension on EC2 instance and configure Instance Profile by granting below permissions

"cloudwatch:GetMetricData",
"cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
"cloudwatch:ListMetrics"

3. In order to use this extension, you do need a Standalone JAVA Machine Agent or SIM Agent. For more details on downloading these products, please visit here.
4. The extension needs to be able to connect to AWS in order to collect and send metrics. To do this, you will have to either establish a remote connection in between the extension and the product, or have an agent on the same machine running the product in order for the extension to collect and send the metrics.

Agent Compatibility:

Note : This extension is compatible with Machine Agent version 4.5.13 or later.

1. If you are seeing warning messages while starting the Machine Agent, update the http-client and http-core JARs in {MACHINE_AGENT_HOME}/monitorsLibs to httpclient-4.5.9 and httpcore-4.4.12 to make this warning go away.
2. To make this extension work on Machine Agent < 4.5.13:
   The http-client and http-core JARs in {MACHINE_AGENT_HOME}/monitorsLibs has to be manually be updated to httpclient-4.5.9 and httpcore-4.4.12.

Installation

1. Download the attached AWSRDSMonitor.zip
2. Edit the file config.yml located at <MachineAgent_Dir>/monitors/AWSRDSMonitor The metricPrefix of the extension has to be configured as specified here. Please make sure that the right metricPrefix is chosen based on your machine agent deployment, otherwise this could lead to metrics not being visible in the controller.
3. Restart the Machine Agent.

Please place the extension in the "monitors" directory of your Machine Agent installation directory. Do not place the extension in the "extensions" directory of your Machine Agent installation directory.

Configuration

1. Edit the file config.yml located at <MachineAgent_Dir>/monitors/AWSRDSMonitor The metricPrefix of the extension has to be configured as specified here. Please make sure that the right metricPrefix is chosen based on your machine agent deployment, otherwise this could lead to metrics not being visible in the controller.

2. Configure "awsAccessKey", "awsSecretKey" and "regions"". If you are running this extension inside an EC2 instance which has IAM profile configured then you don't have to configure these values, extension will use IAM profile to authenticate.

   For example

   #Add you list of AWS accounts here
   accounts:
     - awsAccessKey: "XXXXXXX1"
       awsSecretKey: "XXXXXXX1"
       displayAccountName: "Test1"
       regions: ["us-east-1","us-west-1","us-west-2"]
   
     - awsAccessKey: "XXXXXXX2"
       awsSecretKey: "XXXXXXX2"
       displayAccountName: "Test2"
       regions: ["eu-central-1","eu-west-1"]
   

3. If you want to encrypt the "awsAccessKey" and "awsSecretKey" then follow the "Credentials Encryption" section and provide the encrypted values in "awsAccessKey" and "awsSecretKey". Configure "enableDecryption" of "credentialsDecryptionConfig" to true and provide the encryption key in "encryptionKey"

   For example,

   #Encryption key for Encrypted password.
   credentialsDecryptionConfig:
       enableDecryption: "true"
       encryptionKey: "XXXXXXXX"
   

4. List all DB names(regex is supported) whose metric you wish to fetch from AWS cloud watch. If no name is specified, then no data would be fetched.

   includeDBIdentifiers: ["blog.*", "demodb"]
   

5. Configure the numberOfThreads

   concurrencyConfig:
      noOfAccountThreads: 3
      noOfRegionThreadsPerAccount: 3
      noOfMetricThreadsPerRegion: 3
   

6. Configure the monitoring level as shown below. Allowed values are Basic and Detailed. Refer this for more information Basic will fire CloudWatch API calls every 5 minutes. Detailed will fire CloudWatch API calls every 1 minute

   cloudWatchMonitoring: "Basic"
   

7. Configure the metrics section.

   For configuring the metrics, the following properties can be used:

   Property	Default value	Possible values	Description
   alias	metric name	Any string	The substitute name to be used in the metric browser instead of metric name.
   statType	"ave"	"AVERAGE", "SUM", "MIN", "MAX"	AWS configured values as returned by API
   aggregationType	"AVERAGE"	"AVERAGE", "SUM", "OBSERVATION"	Aggregation qualifier
   timeRollUpType	"AVERAGE"	"AVERAGE", "SUM", "CURRENT"	Time roll-up qualifier
   clusterRollUpType	"INDIVIDUAL"	"INDIVIDUAL", "COLLECTIVE"	Cluster roll-up qualifier
   multiplier	1	Any number	Value with which the metric needs to be multiplied.
   convert	null	Any key value map	Set of key value pairs that indicates the value to which the metrics need to be transformed. eg: UP:0, DOWN:1
   delta	false	true, false	If enabled, gives the delta values of metrics instead of actual values.

   For example,

   - name: "CPUUtilization"
            alias: "CPUUtilization"
            statType: "ave"
            aggregationType: "OBSERVATION"
            timeRollUpType: "CURRENT"
            clusterRollUpType: "COLLECTIVE"
            delta: false
            multiplier: 1
   

   All these metric properties are optional, and the default value shown in the table is applied to the metric(if a property has not been specified) by default.

Metrics

Metrics provided by this extension are defined in the link given below:

RDS Metrics

Credentials Encryption

Please visit this page to get detailed instructions on password encryption. The steps in this document will guide you through the whole process.

Extensions Workbench

Workbench is an inbuilt feature provided with each extension in order to assist you to fine tune the extension setup before you actually deploy it on the controller. Please review the following document on How to use the Extensions WorkBench

Troubleshooting

1. Please look at the troubleshooting document and make sure that everything is followed correctly.
2. Please make sure correct accessKey and secretKey are provided in config.yml.
3. Please verify the correct regions have been configured.
4. Ensure that the required permissions have been given to the account being used with the extension.
5. Please follow the steps listed in this troubleshooting-document in order to troubleshoot your issue. These are a set of common issues that customers might have faced during the installation of the extension. If these don't solve your issue, please follow the last step on the troubleshooting-document to contact the support team.

Support Tickets

If after going through the Troubleshooting Document you have not been able to get your extension working, please file a ticket and add the following information.

Please provide the following in order for us to assist you better.

1. Stop the running machine agent.
2. Delete all existing logs under <MachineAgent>/logs.
3. Please enable debug logging by editing the file <MachineAgent>/conf/logging/log4j.xml. Change the level value of the following <logger> elements to debug.
    <logger name="com.singularity">
    <logger name="com.appdynamics">
4. Start the machine agent and please let it run for 10 mins. Then zip and upload all the logs in the directory <MachineAgent>/logs/*.
5. Attach the zipped <MachineAgent>/conf/* directory here.
6. Attach the zipped <MachineAgent>/monitors/ExtensionFolderYouAreHavingIssuesWith directory here.

For any support related questions, you can also contact help@appdynamics.com.

Contributing

Always feel free to fork and contribute any changes directly here on GitHub.

Version

Name	Version
Extension Version	2.0.6
Controller Compatibility	4.5 or Later
Machine Agent	4.5.13+
Last Update	20/01/2021




Release Notes

v2.0.6 - Updated to work with MachineAgent 21.x