To access Server Process Metrics, select AppDynamics Home > Servers > double-click server > Processes.

You can configure which processes AppDynamics monitors, how they are grouped, the number of processes to monitor, and how long they must be alive before monitoring them. See Machine Agent Settings for Server Visibility.

From the Server Processes tab, you can:

  • View all the processes active during the selected time period. The processes are grouped by class as specified in the ServerMonitoring.yml file.
  • View the full command line that began this process by hovering over the process entry in the Command Line column.
  • Expand a process class to see the processes associated with that class. 
  • Select View Options to configure which columns to display in the chart.
  • Change the time period of the metrics displayed.
  • Sort the chart using the columns as a sorting key. You cannot sort by CPU Trend or Memory Trend on sparkline charts.
  • Review CPU and Memory usage trends. 

Service Process Metrics

Metrics for Server Processes

This information displays for each monitored class and process.

Default Columns

  • Class: The process class.
  • Count: The number of processes in this class.
  • Command Line: The command that began the process.
  • State: An icon represents the process state: sleeping, running, terminated, zombie or multiple. Hover over the icon to discover its state. The State column displays a question mark (question) when there is more than one process associated with the class. Expand the class to review the state of the related processes.
  • Effective User: The name of the user account that started the process.
  • Start Time: The time, as set on the Controller machine, when the process started. 
  • End Time: The time, as set on the Controller machine, when the process ended. 
  • CPU (%): The percentage of CPU resources by all processes in this class.
  • CPU Trend: A chart that shows CPU usage over the selected time period.
  • Memory (%): The percentage of memory resources by all processes in this class.
  • Memory Trend: A chart that shows memory usage over the selected time period.
  • PID: Process ID.
  • PPID: ID of the parent process.

OS-Specific Columns

The column information is specific to processes monitored on a Linux server. 

  • pgid: Process group ID.
  • Real Group: The process real group ID.
  • Real User: The process real user ID.
  • Effective Group: The user ID the kernel uses to determine the process permissions when using shared resources such as: message queues, shared memory, and semaphores.
  • Nice Level: The priority used to indicate the amount of CPU to afford the process or the process priority, where -20 is the highest priority, and 19 or 20, is the lowest priority.

Windows Process Collection Configuration

When too many processes slow down the performance of the Machine Agent on Windows, you must adjust the system environment variables to accommodate. Specifically, in relation to Windows-based operating systems supported by the AppDynamics platform. See System Requirements.

Microsoft Windows process collection is enabled by default in the Controller and is missing the Effective User value due to performance issues. To retrieve the Effective User value, set the APPDYNAMICS_ENABLE_PROCESS_OWNER_INFORMATION environment variable. Although you can retrieve this information, this will most likely slow your process collection and may lead to additional issues, such as high CPU usage and the failure to report metrics. To disable process collection, set the APPDYNAMICS_MACHINE_AGENT_STOP_PROCESS_COLLECTION to speed up your performance at the expense of losing process metrics and metadata. 

Windows System Environment Variables

This information is specific to processes monitored on a Windows server.

  1. Default: Retrieve all Windows processes and metadata. Starting with Machine Agent 4.5.4, Effective User information is excluded by default to improve performance.
  2. APPDYNAMICS_ENABLE_PROCESS_OWNER_INFORMATION: Retrieve all Windows processes and metadata, including the Effective User, but the Machine Agent may experience performance issues. This is available starting with Machine Agent 4.5.4.
  3. APPDYNAMICS_MACHINE_AGENT_STOP_PROCESS_COLLECTION: Stops all Windows process metrics and metadata collection, but improves Machine Agent performance. If you set this variable, then the APPDYNAMICS_ENABLE_PROCESS_OWNER_INFORMATION variable is ignored. This is available starting with Machine Agent 4.4.0.

These environment variables only need to be set; you do not need to assign a value to the variable.

You must restart the Machine Agent for these changes to take effect.