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This page lists the software requirements, compatibility with different Kubernetes-based software, agent distribution, licensing, and performance specifications.

Software Requirements

The Cluster Agent is designed to be run on Linux and deployed using the AppDynamics Operator.

The Cluster Agent requires the following:

  • Versions 4.5.16 or higher. For improved stability, performance and security it is recommended to use Controller versions 20.3.0+ and later.
  • A cluster that you have access to and want to monitor.

  • Sufficient Server Visibility licenses. The Cluster Agent consumes one Server Visibility license. See License Management.

  • A Docker registry from which the AppDynamics Operator will download the Cluster Agent container image. Part of the installation is building the container image, so you need to have permission to read and write to your local Docker registry.

If you deploy the Cluster Agent to monitor your Kubernetes Cluster, it does not monitor worker nodes. To monitor worker nodes, you have to install the Standalone Machine Agent which consumes additional Server Visibility licenses. One Standalone Machine Agent per node.

The Cluster Agent is compatible with:

  • Kubernetes versions, 1.11, 1.13, 1.14 or later with the Kubernetes metrics-server deployed.

  • Amazon EKS version 1.11, 1.13, 1.14 with the Kubernetes metrics-server deployed.
  • Azure AKS version 1.11, 1.13, 1.14 with the Kubernetes metrics-server deployed.
  • Google GKE version 1.14 with the Kubernetes metrics-server deployed.
  • Red Hat OpenShift versions 3.9, 3.11 and 4.x. Please note metrics-server is not shipped with OpenShift, it needs to be deployed separately. The CRI-O container runtime is supported on versions 4.2.7 and above.
  • kubectl version 1.11.3 or later.

Installing AppDynamics to test or evaluate typically involves verifying system requirements, preparing the host, and then performing the Controller installation. See Install the Controller Using the Enterprise Console and Install the Controller Using the CLI.

Cluster Agent Distribution

The Cluster Agent can be downloaded from the AppDynamics Download portal as a zip archive. The archive contains all the artifacts needed to build the Cluster Agent as a Docker container that will be deployed to Kubernetes using the publicly available AppDynamics Operator. The archive also contains distribution-specific configuration files for the deployment.

Licensing

The Cluster Agent requires a Server Visibility license. See Enable Server Visibility to get started. If you already have a Server Visibility license, for information on using and managing the Cluster Agent on a Kubernetes cluster, see Install the Cluster Agent.

Performance Specifications

 Performance specifications per Cluster Agent per cluster.

  • Maximum number of pods per Cluster Agent without any metric drops: 750 pods
  • Maximum number of containers per Cluster Agent without any metric drops: 1500 containers

Cluster Agent Limits

The number of Cluster Agents that can be registered per account can be configured. See the sim.cluster.agent.limit description under Controller Settings for the Cluster Agent.

Pod Limits

If your Cluster has more pods than can be monitored, the Cluster Agent ensures that the group of pods being monitored remains the same over time. If at any point in time, any of the reported pods are terminated, the Cluster Agent replaces the terminated pods with previously unreported pods. and starts monitoring the newly included pods.

The total pods metric displayed on the pods list page, reflects only the number of pods up to the configured limit. See the sim.cluster.pod.limit description under Controller Settings for the Cluster Agent.