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This page provides an overview of how to configure Application Analytics components to collect business transaction data. 

In most Application Analytics deployment scenarios, you must enable the Analytics Agent-side components. The agents are distributed as system-based operations or standalone bundles in the AppDynamics Downloads Portal. 

If your app server agent supports Agentless Analytics, such as the Java Agent (21.2 and later) and .NET Agent (20.10 and later), you do not need to install the standalone Analytics Agent or Machine Agent extension for Transaction Analytics data collection. See Deploy Analytics Without the Analytics Agent for more information.

Prepare to Enable the Agents

Review the deployment options, agent-side component architecture, and components you will need to install in Deploy Analytics With the Analytics Agent. 

Analytics Agent

The Analytics Agent collects and sends data from the AppDynamics App Agent and log files to the Events Service. The Analytics Agent is not enabled by default. You need to download and enable the desired bundle using a method of your choice.

In the Analytics Agent version >=21.7 the debug/grok endpoint is disabled by default. To enable the endpoint, start the Analytics Agent with the property ad.debug.grok.endpoint.enabled=true in agent.properties file.

To use Application Analytics:

  1. Obtain a separate Application Analytics license.
  2. Enable the Analytics Agent.
  3. Point to the Event Service. See Revise the Analytics Agent Properties File for agent-specific configuration and Event Service Deployment for the Event Service.
  4. Enable Analytics on the Controller.

AppDynamics App Agent

To access Analytics and collect transaction data from an application, you must deploy a supported app server agent version in all environments, such as the Node.js Agent or the PHP Agent. If you already use AppDynamics APM, agents may already be installed in your environment. 

Install the Standalone Analytics Agent on Windows

As described in Analytics Deployment Options, the Analytics Agent can run on the same host or on a different host from the app server agent, depending on your use case.

The AppDynamics Downloads Portal provides the following distribution archives:

  • Standalone Analytics Agent (no JRE)
  • Analytics Agent with JRE 1.8 for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows machines

Important

Ensure that only the administrators can modify the Analytics Agent directory. Run the following command in the <analytics-agent-home> directory to provide administrator access. 


icacls . /inheritance:r /grant Users:(OI)(CI)RX /grant Administrators:(OI)(CI)F
CODE

Revise the Analytics Agent Properties File

The Analytics Agent properties file determine how your Analytics Agent communicate with other components, what type of data it gathers from the monitored application, and how the components of the Application Analytics deployment and the Controller authenticate to each other.

Modify the default configuration and set the desired values for the agent properties in the properties file. The location of this file depends on your exact deployment scenario. 

  1. Open the <analytics-agent-home>/conf/analytics-agent.properties file with a text editor. The Analytics Agent on Windows requires double backslash for paths. 
    For example:

    conf.dir=C:\\AppD\\analytics-agent\\conf
ad.dw.log.path=C:\\AppD\\analytics-agent\\logs
    CODE
  2. To run the Analytics Agent as a Windows service, modify the following properties:
    • ad.dw.log.path=<analytics-agent-home>\\logs
    • conf.dir=<analytics-agent-home>\\conf
    • ad.jvm.options.name=analytics-agent.vmoptions
    • ad.jvm.heap.min=512m
    • ad.jvm.heap.max=1g
  3. Follow the instructions to enable the standalone Analytics Agent.

  4. To install the Analytics Agent on Windows, run the install command:

    bin\analytics-agent.exe service-install 
    CODE

Start and Stop the Analytics Agent

To start/stop the Analytics Agent on Windows, run the following commands in the Windows Services menu.

To start the agent, run: 

bin\analytics-agent.exe service-start
CODE

To stop the agent, run: 

bin\analytics-agent.exe service-stop
CODE

Uninstall the Analytics Agent

To uninstall the Analytics Agent, run the .exe file with the uninstall command:

bin\analytics-agent.exe service-uninstall
CODE

Enable Analytics Agent for a Local App Server Agent

This section assumes that you are installing the Analytics Agent on the same host as your app server agent.

In this deployment, the Analytics Agent reads and transmits log data in log files from the local machine. The app server agent transmits data from the monitored application to the Analytics Agent. 

Analytics Agent Deployment Diagram
Install the Analytics Agent with the .exe and analytics-agent.exe files found in the <analytics-agent-home>/bin directory. Because the Analytics Agent is written in Java, you will run the agent in a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The Analytics Agent runs as a Windows service.

Enable the App Server Agent for a Remote Analytics Agent

To specify the location of the remote Analytics Agent with an environment variable named appdynamics.analytics.agent.url on Windows:

  1. On your Windows machine, go to System Properties > Advanced system settings > Environment Variables.

  2. Under System Variables, click New. AppDynamics recommends a system environment variable approach as opposed to a user environment variable approach; in the environment variable approach, a user must have the same permissions as the user with all the instrumented applications running. 
  3. Set the value for the appdynamics.analytics.agent.url system variable to http://<analytics-agent-ip>:9090/v2/sinks/bt. 
    Replace <analytics-agent-ip> with the hostname of the Analytics Agent for your environment. 
    New System Variable
  4. Restart the applicable application or process where you want the new environment variables to take effect. While it is not required that you restart your machine, the parent process that invokes the monitored process must be restarted. For w3wp on Windows, restart IIS by running iisreset after the changes are made to the environment variables. 

Install the Standalone Analytics Agent on Linux

As described in Analytics Deployment Options, the Analytics Agent can run on the same host or on a different host from the app server agent, depending on your use case.

The AppDynamics Downloads Portal provides the following distribution archives:

  • Standalone Analytics Agent (no JRE)

The default settings of the app server agent typically assume that the Analytics Agent is on the same host and uses the default port. If your Analytics Agent is on a host separate from the app server agent, as shown in the diagram below, or you have changed the default port, you need to specify the new host and port values for the app server agent. 

Standalone Machine with the Analytics Agent

Revise the Analytics Agent Properties File

The Analytics Agent properties file determine how your Analytics Agent communicate with other components, what type of data it gathers from the monitored application, and how the components of the Application Analytics deployment and the Controller authenticate to each other.

Modify the default configuration and set the desired values for the agent properties in the properties file. The location of this file depends on your exact deployment scenario. 

  1. Open the <analytics-agent-home>/conf/analytics-agent.properties file with a text editor. 

  2. Follow the instructions to enable the standalone Analytics Agent.

Start and Stop the Analytics Agent

You can start and stop the Analytics Agent directly in the command line.

To start the agent, run: 

<analytics agent executable> start
CODE

To stop the agent, run:

<analytics agent executable> stop
CODE

Run the Analytics Agent From a Read-Only Filesystem

In this deployment, the Analytics Agent is installed and run from a read-only filesystem. To do so, you need to direct the Analytics Agent to write its log files to a writable partition. 

Read-only Filesystem with the Analytics Agent

By creating a directory for the Analytics Agent in a writable file system and symlinks for the content of the Analytics Agent in the read-only file system, you will have a writable top-level directory for the Analytics Agent and a writable logs directory under the top-level directory. 

To run the Analytics Agent from a separate writable directory using artifacts from a read-only directory:

  1. Provide necessary permissions to the read-only Analytics Agent directory.

    # analytics-agent-readonly refers to the read-only analytics agent.
chmod -R 555 /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/
    CODE

  2. Create a directory for the Analytics Agent in a writable file system. 

    mkdir /tmp/analytics-agent-writable
chmod 755 analytics-agent-writable/
cd /tmp/analytics-agent-writable
    CODE

  3. Create symlinks to the contents of the Analytics Agent in the read-only file system.

    ln -s /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/bin/ bin
ln -s /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/lib/ lib
ln -s /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/monitor.xml monitor.xml
    CODE

  4. Create a writable conf directory under that top-level directory.

    cd /tmp/analytics-agent-writable
mkdir conf
chmod 755 conf/
cd conf
    CODE

  5. Create symlinks to the contents of the conf directory. 

    ln -s /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/conf/analytics-agent.* .
ln -s /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/conf/job/ job
ln -s /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/conf/grok/ grok

cd /tmp/analytics-agent-writable
    CODE
  6. Create logs directory under the analytics-agent-writable directory.

  7. Run the Analytics Agent from the writable directory.

    cd /tmp/analytics-agent-writable
nohup bin/analytics-agent.sh start &
    CODE

  8. The resulting directories look similar to:

    /tmp/
dr-xr-xr-x  6 ec2-user ec2-user 4096 Jul 17 20:45 analytics-agent-readonly
drwxr-xr-x  4 ec2-user ec2-user 4096 Jul 26 20:17 analytics-agent-writable

 /tmp/analytics-agent-writable/
total 24
drwxr-xr-x . . . 4096 Jul 27 19:41 .
drwxrwxr-x  . . .  4096 Jul 27 19:37 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 . . .   50 Jul 27 19:38 bin -> /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/bin/
drwxr-xr-x . . .  4096 Jul 27 19:41 conf
lrwxrwxrwx . . .  50 Jul 27 19:38 lib -> /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/lib/
drwxrwxr-x . . . 4096 Jul 27 19:41 logs
lrwxrwxrwx . . .   57 Jul 27 19:38 monitor.xml -> /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/monitor.xml


conf/
total 20
drwxr-xr-x . . . 4096 Jul 27 19:41 .
drwxr-xr-x . . . 4096 Jul 27 19:41 ..
lrwxrwxrwx . . .   77 Jul 27 19:39 analytics-agent.properties -> /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/conf/analytics-agent.properties
lrwxrwxrwx . . .   76 Jul 27 19:39 analytics-agent.vmoptions -> /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/conf/analytics-agent.vmoptions
lrwxrwxrwx . . .  56 Jul 27 19:40 grok -> /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/conf/grok/
lrwxrwxrwx . . .  55 Jul 27 19:39 job -> /tmp/analytics-agent-readonly/conf/job/
drwxrwxr-x . . . 4096 Jul 27 21:32 watermark
    CODE

Enable the App Server Agent for a Remote Analytics Agent

For most configurations, install the Analytics Agent on the same machine as the app server agent. In certain setups, such as installing an Analytics Agent extension, you will need a separate machine.

  1. Specify the location of the remote Analytics Agent with a -D parameter. The argument is passed to the monitored application as follows:

    -Dappdynamics.analytics.agent.url=http://<analytics-agent-ip>:9090/v2/sinks/bt
    CODE

  2. Replace <analytics-agent-ip> with the hostname of the Analytics Agent for your environment.

Enable the Standalone Analytics Agent

In this deployment, the Analytics Agent and app server agent runs on the same machine. The Analytics Agent reads and transmits log data from log files on the host machine. The app server agent transmits data from the monitored application to the Analytics Agent.

Machine with Analytics Agent and App Server Agent

For environments that do not have a Machine Agent installed, install the Analytics Agent as a separate binary, analytics-agent.sh.

  1. Unzip the Analytics Agent distribution archive to the installation directory on each target host.  
    When you unzip this archive, you get three directories:
    • bin: contains the binary file for Linux, Solaris, and OSX
    • lib: contains all the jar files that need to be in the classpath
    • conf: contains all the configuration files, such as the properties and vmoptions files

  2. Open the following file to configure connectivity from the Analytics Agent to the Events Service.

    <analytics-agent-home>/conf/analytics-agent.properties
    CODE

  3. In the analytics-agent.properties file, do the following: 

    • Change the default URL and, if necessary, the port number to connect the Events Service by modifying the http.event.endpoint value. 
      For example:

      http.event.endpoint=http://<events_service_host:events_service_port>
      CODE

      For SaaS-based installations, the host and port are:

      • https://analytics.api.appdynamics.com:443 (North America) 

      • https://fra-ana-api.saas.appdynamics.com:443 (Europe)
      • https://syd-ana-api.saas.appdynamics.com:443 (APAC)

      If your firewall rules use IP addresses, review firewall considerations in Troubleshoot Analytics Agent Issues. For on-premises installations, use any host and port that you have configured. In clustered environments, this is often a load balancer. 

    • Change the default URL and the port number to point to the Controller by modifying the ad.controller.url property. 
      For example:

      ad.controller.url=http://<application_server_host_name>:<http-listener-port>
      CODE

      This is the URL and the port number you use to access the Controller UI. 

  4. The Global Account Name and Access Key values are found under View License in the Controller.

    Account License

  5. Configure the account and account key for which the agent should publish the business transaction data. Use the Global Account Name and Access Key values you have collected earlier. For example:

    # The global_account_name in the Controller for this analytics data, similar to the following:
http.event.accountName=<customer1_74678b04-8a71-40ef-acaf-xxxxxxxxxxxx>
# Replace this value with the access key of the account name configured above.
http.event.accessKey=<3d58aba2-xxx-xxx>
    CODE

    The http.event.accountName property specifies the Global Account Name of the account. The http.event.accessKey property specifies the Access Key, which provides an authentication mechanism between the Controller and the components of the Application Analytics deployment. The Controller installation process generates the Access Key value.
    For SaaS-based installations, set the http.event.name property to Name of the account. The default value is customer1. If the property is not configured correctly, the Analytics Agent will not be able to authenticate. The resulting errors are stored in the analytics-agent.log file. 

  6. If you are collecting log information on this host, you need to:

  7. Save and close the file.  

  8. Start the Analytics Agent by running the following command.

    bin\analytics-agent.sh start
    CODE

Enable the Analytics Agent as an Extension to the Machine Agent

This section describes how to configure the Analytics Agent as an extension to the Machine Agent and run as a Machine Agent monitor. 

The AppDynamics Downloads Portal provides the following distribution archives:

  • Machine Agent Bundle - 64-bit osx (zip)
  • Machine Agent Bundle - for both 32-bit and 64-bit Linux machines (rpm)
  • Machine Agent Bundle - for both 32-bit and 64-bit Linux machines (zip)
  • Machine Agent Bundle - for 64-bit solaris (zip)
  • Machine Agent Bundle - for 64-bit solaris-sparcv9 (zip)
  • Machine Agent Bundle - for 64-bit solaris-x64 (zip)
  • Machine Agent Bundle - for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows machines (zip)

If the Machine Agent and app server agent are running on the same machine, installing a standalone Analytics Agent is not necessary. In environments with the Machine Agent already running, you can enable and run the Analytics Agent as an extension. 

Standalone Machine Agent Extension
Confirm that JRE 8 or later is installed on the host running the Machine Agent. If the required version of JRE is not available on the host, then the Analytics Agent cannot be enabled.

  1. On the host running the Machine Agent, open <machine-agent-home>/monitors/analytics-agent/monitor.xml with a text editor.

  2. Set the enabled tag to true and save the file when you are finished.

    <monitor>
    <name>AppDynamics Analytics Agent</name>
    <type>managed</type>
    <!-- Enabling this requires JRE 8 or higher  -->
    <enabled>true</enabled>
...
    CODE

  3. Open the following file to configure connectivity from the Analytics Agent to the Events Service:

    <machine-agent-home>/monitors/analytics-agent/conf/analytics-agent.properties
    CODE

  4. Follow the instructions to enable the standalone Analytics Agent.

  5. If the Machine Agent is already running at this point, restart it to pick up the changes in the configuration.

To connect to the Events Service through a proxy server, see Connect the Agent to the Events Service through a Proxy.

Tune Analytics Agent

This section describes the post-installation configuration of the Analytics Agent: configuring Analytics Agent to connect to an Event Service with a proxy server, collecting log files using Consolidated Log Management (CLM), setting resource usage limit, and changing JVM options.

Connect to the Events Service through a Proxy

If the Analytics Agent needs to connect to the Events Service through a proxy server: 

  1. Open <analytics-agent-home>\conf\analytics-agent.properties with a text editor.

  2. Add this information:

    # optional proxy properties
http.event.proxyHost=<your proxy host>
http.event.proxyPort=<your proxy port>
http.event.proxyUsername=<your proxy username, if authentication is required>
http.event.proxyPassword=<your proxy password, if authentication is required>
    CODE

  3. Save and close the file.

Configure Analytics Agent for Consolidated Log Management

If you want your Analytics Agent to work with CLM you need to configure a few properties in the Analytics Agent properties file.

Provide the Controller URL, customer name, and name of your Analytics Agent in the analytics-agent.properties file. The customer name is found under View License in the Controller. 

If you are using CLM to configure your log files with source rules, you will need to provide these properties with the correct values.

The default values are the following:

# Format should be http://<host>:<port>
ad.controller.url=http://localhost:8090

# The customer name field from the AppDynamics license page.
http.event.name=customer1

# This is the friendly agent name that will show up in the controller when the agent registers and syncs configuration.
ad.agent.name=analytics-agent1
CODE

Change Java Virtual Machine Options

If you need to change any JVM startup options, modify <analytics-agent-home>/conf/analytics-agent.vmoptions with a text editor.

The vmoptions file name is read from the ad.jvm.options.name=analytics-agent.vmoptions properties file. If you change the vmoptions file name, you will need to change the ad.jvm.options.name property as well. 

If the Analytics Agent Windows service is installed and you need to change the properties file or the vmoptions file, you need to uninstall the service and reinstall it for the changes to take effect.

Configure Resource Usage Limit

To limit resource usage, you can enable the default limit on the number of job for a single Analytics Agent.

This limit can be overridden but is not recommended without a thorough understanding of the potential impact on resource usages, such as CPU usage, disk, and network I/O. 

The property is ad.max.enabled.jobs and is found in the <analytics-agent-home>/conf/analytics-agent.properties file. By default, ad.max.enabled.jobs is set to 20.  

Verify Analytics Agent Status

To verify that the Analytics Agent has started, look for the following entry in the App Agent log file: Started [Analytics] collector. 

To connect to the Events Service through a proxy server, see Connect the Agent to the Events Service through a Proxy.

Additional Configurations

For Analytics Agent version >=21.7, you can add authentication to pipeline resources. To do so:

  1. Use the following property in analytics-agent.properties to add authentication to pipeline endpoints:

    ad.pipeline.resource.authenticate=true
    CODE

  2. Once enabled, access the endpoints by passing the Global-Account_Name and Access-Key of the account as HTTP headers X-AppDynamics-Global-Account-Name and X-Analytics-Agent-Access-Key accordingly:

    --header 'X-Analytics-Agent-Access-Key: access_key' \
--header 'X-AppDynamics-Global-Account-Name: global_account_name' \
    CODE

Troubleshooting Tips

  • Ensure that the properties in analytics-agent.properties are properly set. See Enabled Job Files Limit.
  • JRE version is >= 1.7 and the JAVA_HOME variable is set in the environment.
  • All properties in analytics-agent/conf/analytics-agent.vmoptions are compatible with the JRE.