How the Controller UI Handles Time Zone Differences

In a distributed system, the metrics collected at the Controller may be generated in different parts of the world and different time zones. Before sending metrics to the Controller, App Agents normalize the times associated with the metrics by applying a UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) offset appropriate for their region. 

In the Controller UI, all times are displayed in the user's local time. To render local times, the UI applies the offset needed to render UTC time into the user's time zone as configured on the computer on which the browser is running.

While the time zone used in the UI is taken from the local environment and cannot be modified apart from changing the computer's system time, each UI user can modify the format of the time display, as described in Set User Preferences.

The Time Range Dropdown

The Time Range dropdown menu is available at the top right of all dashboards and the Metric Browser. Use it to set the time range for the data displayed in dashboards.

When you change a time range with the Time Range dropdown menu in one dashboard, the change is reflected in other dashboards in the AppDynamics UI. An exception is the Scalability Analysis screen where, by design, a change in the time range does not affect the time range in Scalability Analysis.

For predefined or custom time ranges that are greater than three weeks, graphs in the UI such as the Slow Transaction graph show the 14th of each month as the time points on the x-axis. For a time range that is less than two full months, this means that the graph may only have a single point, the middle of the month encompassed by the time range. To view the specific day and hour associated with each data point shown in the graph, use your mouse to hover over the graph data.         

Custom Time Ranges

If the time range you need does not appear in the Time Range menu, specify the range as a custom time range. A custom time range can include ranges that terminate at a point in the past. This give you flexibility for analyzing trends.

You can save custom time ranges as a named range for viewing later or for sharing with teammates.   

To see performance data from a particular time range

1. From the Time Range menu, click Custom. The date and time options appear.
    
2. Select the dates and times of the range. The UI updates with the data from that range.

To create a new custom time range

1. Follow the steps in the previous section, then click the floppy disk icon.
2. Enter a name and description for the time range.
3. Click OK.

Alternatively, 

1. From the Time Range menu, click Manage Custom Time Range.
2. Click New.
3. In the Manage Custom Time Ranges window click the Add icon.
4. In the Create Time Range window name and describe the details of the time range.
5. Optionally, select "Share with everyone" so that other users will see it in their Time Ranges menu.
6. Click Create.

The custom time range appears as a new option in your time range menu.

How Time Ranges Affect Data Rollup and Display

Over time, AppDynamics rolls up metric data in the following manner:

• For up to 4 hours, data is rolled up every 1 minute.
• After 4 hours, data is rolled up every 10 minutes.
• After 48 hours, data is rolled every 60 minutes.

For more information, see Metric Data Display in Graphs.

Learn More

• Metric Data Display in Graphs