On this page:

The topics in this section describe considerations for deploying AppDynamics, from available architectural models for the platform to an overview of AppDynamics agent installation and administration. 

About AppDynamics Deployment

When starting out with AppDynamics, you may want to try deploying it in a small-scale demonstration environment. Deploying AppDynamics to a full production environment introduces complexity, such as increased scale, with possibly hundreds of applications to monitor, non-traditional running environments such as Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or virtualized systems, and complex network topologies.

AppDynamics was designed to handle this complexity, with support virtualized and PaaS systems and tools for deploying and maintaining large-scale AppDynamics agent deployments.

Deployment Models

You can deploy the AppDynamics Platform in the following forms:

  • In a SaaS deployment, AppDynamics manages the server-side components of the AppDynamics Platform, including their installation and upgrades. You only need to install and manage agent-side components.  
  • In an on-premises deployment, you install and manage all platform components. 

The deployment type that is best for you depends on your requirements. For example, if you require all data to remain within your own IT infrastructure, an on-premises deployment is appropriate. If your data can be located in the cloud, you might consider using a SaaS deployment instead.

For information on on-premises installations, see AppDynamics Application Performance Monitoring Platform. 

Network Port Requirements

To deploy AppDynamics, you may need to modify the configuration of network components to permit access to ports used in the AppDynamics deployment. The following pages describe the specific ports used in the system: 

Deployment Planning Roadmap

See Getting Started to get started with a trial or investigatory installation of AppDynamics. For a minimal installation, you can easily get AppDynamics up and running in an hour or two. Deploying to a production environment, however, usually adds considerations to the initial installation process. You might have security, network, and change management requirements governed by your organizational policies.

This section outlines the typical production roadmap and gives you links to where you can get more information about the individual steps. It is divided into the following broad categories. Depending on your goals, the size of the deployment, and other factors, you may wish to combine steps or break specific steps out further, as best makes sense for your environment.   

Plan the Controller and Platform Installation (on-premises)

  1. Determine your deployment profile, small, medium, or large.
  2. Follow the hardware sizing guidelines for your profile.
  3. Discover network layout, bandwidth, and connectivity. View the port connections required for the AppDynamics components you are installing, and address network requirements to permit the connections. 

Plan for Security

  1. Determine the access control strategy for UI users, including locally authenticated users and externally authenticated users (LDAP, SAML, and so on).
  2. Determine SSL requirements and key management.

Define Controller operating procedures (on-premises)

  1. HA setup (via Enterprise Console)
  2. Failover methodology (scripted, automated)
  3. Data backup strategy (hot, cold or LVM, frequency, the storage required, metadata backup)

Devise Agent rollout strategy

  1. Manual, automated or scripted, or Universal Agent
  2. Integrating rollout with your application deployment process

Plan AppDynamics Model

  1. Understand how your application maps to the AppDynamics concept of application, tier, and node. Determine naming strategy for the model.
  2. Devise Business Transaction strategy. Determine which end-to-end business processes in your environment you want to monitor as Business Transactions.
  3. Devise End User Monitoring and Analytics data collection strategy.
  4. Consider database and hardware monitoring strategy. 

Users who will access AppDynamics

  1. Identify monitoring team or others who will administer AppDynamics. Ensure that they can maintain it, both from a resource and skill-set standpoint. 
  2. Identify stakeholder from each group that will use AppDynamics. 

Define monitoring strategy

  1. Assess the alert and health rule strategy that makes sense for your requirements.
  2. Define reporting strategy. 
  3. Determine integration points with other systems (using extensions or REST API).