Deployment Support

The Analytics Agent is not required to capture Transaction Analytics data. This page describes the requirements to use the "agentless" configuration of Analytics.

In this context, "agentless" refers to the configuration of Transaction Analytics without an Analytics Agent. An app server agent, such as Java or .NET, is still required to use this feature.

Agentless Analytics

To capture Transaction Analytics for Java or .NET Windows applications, you can configure Transaction Analytics without a dedicated Analytics Agent.

In this deployment model, Analytics retrieves data directly from your app agent. The data is reported to the Events Service and then the Controller. No separate Analytics Agent is required.

If you upgrade the Java Agent to >= 4.5.15, and use Transaction Analytics, Agentless Analytics is automatically enabled. If you upgrade the .NET Agent to >= 20.10, and use Transaction Analytics, Agentless Analytics is automatically disabled; you can enable this feature in the Controller or with a node property. See Enable Agentless Analytics.

You may notice unusual behavior (such as gaps in Analytics data) related to two known issues:

  • High CPU usage (in the Java Agent version 4.5.19 and below)
  • Blocked firewall requests

See Troubleshoot Analytics Issues.

Requirements

Make sure you meet the following minimum requirements:

To use Agentless Analytics, see this compatibility matrix for your agent deployment requirements.

Minimum Controller VersionMinimum Java Agent VersionAgentless Analytics Support
4.5.164.5.15Generally available.
4.5.164.5.17Supports proxy configuration and authentication with encrypted credentials.
4.5.174.5.18Supports license rules configured in the Java Agent.
Minimum Controller VersionMinimum .NET Agent VersionAgentless Analytics Support
4.5.1620.10.0Generally available and supports proxy configuration.
4.5.1720.10.0Supports license rules configured in the . NET Agent.

Connect App Agents to the Events Service

For most deployments, communication between the Java Agent and the Events Service automatically occurs as long as you have the correct agent version.
Communication between the .NET Agent and the Events Service is disabled by default; to re-enable, see Enable Agentless Analytics.

See the following sections to ensure that your deployment can connect to the Events Service: 

Identify Internal Events Service Endpoints 

The Controller uses the connection URL configured in Admin.jsp to the Events Service. Agentless Analytics also uses this URL. See Connect to the Events Service.

In a SaaS environment, the internal URLs to connect to the Controller/app agents to the Events Service have already been deployed.

In an on-premises environment, the agent requires access to the internal Events Service URL normally used by the Controller. The internal Events Service URL must be exposed to the agents and then set as the analytics.agentless.event.service.url:

  1. Log in to the Administration Console: 
    http:<controller-hostname>:8080/controller/admin.jsp or https:<controller-hostname>:45/controller/admin.jsp.
  2. In Controller Settings, set analytics.agentless.event.service.url to the Events Service endpoint that is accessible from agents.
  3. Click Save.

Connection Ports

The connection between the Java Agent, the .NET Agent, and the Events Service occurs over ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS). If your firewall rules are not configured properly, gaps will appear in your Analytics data.
The port on which the Events Service receives data from the Java Agent and the .NET Agent is configured during installation.

If you have network policies that may prevent this connection, such as firewalls, you need to configure the policies to connect with the Events Service. See Troubleshoot Analytics Issues. 

Enable SSL

If you use a custom trust store, see Enable SSL for the Java Agent or Enable SSL for the .NET Agent.

Proxy Configuration

To encrypt credentials for proxy authentication, you need Java Agent >= 4.5.17 and Controller >= 4.5.17. See Java Agent Configuration Properties.

The .NET Agent does not support proxy authentication. Use these environment variables for proxy configuration.

To configure the .NET Agent to communicate with the Events Service with the proxy:

  1. Add/update the following environment variables.
  2. Restart your Windows application. 
Agent → Events Service Sending Data For Proxy

appdynamics.http.proxyHost

appdynamics.http.proxyPort

Enable Agentless Analytics

You can enable Agentless Transaction Analytics at the Controller, node/tier, and agent level. 

By default, Agentless Analytics is automatically enabled for the Java Agent.

By default, Agentless Analytics is disabled for the .NET Agent. Enabling Agentless Analytics changes your deployment to Agentless Analytics mode.

To enable Agentless Analytics at the tier or node level, add the agentless-analytics-disabled property and set to false. When set to false, this node property changes the tier/node to Agentless Analytics mode. To add a node property, see App Agent Node Properties. 

Disable Agentless Analytics

You can disable Agentless Transaction Analytics at the Controller, node/tier, and agent level. 

Disabling Agentless Analytics changes your deployment to Analytics Agent mode.

To disable Agentless Analytics at the tier or node level, add the agentless-analytics-disabled property and set to true. When set to true, this node property reverts the tier/node to Analytics Agent mode. To add a node property, see App Agent Node Properties. 

By default, Agentless Analytics is disabled for the .NET Agent. Enabling Agentless Analytics changes your deployment to Agentless Analytics mode.

To disable Agentless Analytics, set the value of agentless-analytics-disabled to true.

Existing Analytics Agents

Once you upgrade to the minimum Controller and agent versions, existing Analytics Agents stops reporting data. Agentless Analytics does not duplicate data from the Analytics Agent. AppDynamics recommends when you see Transaction Analytics in the Controller, you can uninstall the Analytics Agent unless you are using Log Analytics.