Dynatrace Study Guide
Timeseries metrics (400+ days)
1-day interval granularity available for dashboarding and API access
Timeseries metrics (28-400 days)
1-hour interval granularity available for dashboarding and API access
Timeseries metrics (0-14 days)
1-minutes interval granularity available for dashboarding and API access
With global service-monitoring settings you can:
1. Define entry points for custom services that don't use standard protocols (Custom Service Detection) 2. Create merged services in order to logically group separately detected services into the same service (merged service monitoring) 3. Customize and enhance the default names of detected services (Service naming rules) 4. Create advanced filters based on request attributes
What do service-specific monitoring settings enable you to do?
1. Edit the default display names of services and add descriptions to improve tracking 2. Fine tune HTTP error detection rules. 3. Switch off unwanted alerts about response time degradations, failure rate increases, or changes in load behavior.
The two global privacy settings
1. Mask the IP addresses of your end users 2. Mask User Actions
Reasons a DT JS tag may not be downloadable for automatic injection on Java application servers
1. Root application doesn't exist. The JS tag is usually loaded from the web server root path (.../ruxitagentjs_...) 2. Your Java application server serves static content in a way that doesn't use the servlet stack. In such cases, the JS tag can't be downloaded.
Reasons a DT JS tag may not be downloadable for automatic injection on web servers
1. Rules on firewalls, load balancers, or proxies aren't configured to allow DT JS download.
Reasons a DT JS tag may not be downloadable for agentless monitoring
1. The tag isn't correct 2. Content Security Policy rules prevent loading of the tag 3. The RUM JS host (https://js-cdn.dynatrace.com) isn't reachable for client browsers due to firewall rules or proxy server configuration. Connections to and from https://js-cdn.dynatrace.com must be allowed.
RUM: Non-aggregated user action data (waterfall analysis, JavaScript errors, and crashes)
10 days for SaaS Configurable for Managed Storage is Shared with distributed trace and code service insights
Services - distributed trace and code insights (data retention rates)*includes PurePath data
10 days for SaaS Configurable for Managed Storage is proprietary - shared with non-aggregated RUM data
Services: Requests and request attributes
10 second granularity of charts, non-key and key requests are included in this data rentention rate group.
RUM: Aggregated user action data (data retention rates)
35 days for SaaS Configurable for Managed
Services - requests and request attributes (data retention rates)
35 days for SaaS Configurable for Managed Storage is Proprietary
RUM: Session Replay (data retention rates)
35 days, depends on disk size, quota configurable per environment for BOTH SaaS and managed
Timeseries metrics (14-28 days)
5-minute interval granularity available for dashboarding and API access
CPU Saturation (predefined static threshold)
Alert if CPU usage is higher than 95% in 3 of 5 one-minute intervals
Low disk space (predefined static threshold)
Alert if free disk space is lower than 3% in 3 out of 5 one-minute intervals
Memory event usage (predefined static threshold)
Alert if memory usage is higher than 90% on Windows or 80% on Linux
Network utilization (predefined static threshold)
Alert if sent/received traffic utilization is higher than 90% in 3 out of 5 one-minute intervals
Retransmission rate (predefined static threshold)
Alert is retransmission rate is higher than 10% AND number of retransmitted packets is higher than 10 packets/min in 3 out of 5 one-minute intervals
Data Encryption
All electronic communication sent to and from Dynatrace over HTTPS relies on TLS encryption on port 443. OneAgent and ActiveGate, which are installed on-premise, encrypt all data before they are sent to Dynatrace Server. Metric and transaction data is encrypted even while at rest, and each customer's data is programmatically partitioned from the data of other customers.
Monitoring & audit logging
All systems operated by Dynatrace are subject to health and security monitoring, audit logging, and automated analysis of system logs. When Dynatrace support is requested for remote installations, access to customer systems is recorded by audit logs.
Automated baselining learns the typical refrence values for what?
Application and service response times, error rates, and load.
Types of thresholds
Automated baselines Built-in static thresholds User-defined static thresholds
Log Analytics
Configurable from 5-90 days. Specific files can be included/excluded (for BOTH SaaS and Managed) Storage is file-based NFS storage;Storage requirements and costs vary by configuration
Why don't I see my applications or monitoring data?
Confirm that your application's web front-end process is monitored, go to Settings > Monitoring overview > processes and search for the process. All monitored processes are listed on this page. If you don't see any of your applications or Real User Monitoring data in Dynatrace, the first thing you need to do is confirm that there is traffic in your web front-end processes (web server, Java, Node.js, etc). To do this, interact with one of your applications' pages to generate some traffic. Once you're certain that your web front-end processes have traffic on them, check the following to determine the cause of the problem: 1. Confirm that the RUM JavaScript tag has been correctly injected into your application's HTML. 2. Confirm that the RUM JavaScript tag has downloaded correctly. 3. Confirm that RUM monitoring data is being sent to Dynatrace.
js-cdn.dynatrace.com
DT JS tag for agentless monitoring (no OneAgent, no automatic injection)
ruxitagentjs
DT JS tag for standard OneAgent installations (automatic tag injection)
Data Retention
Dynatrace stores and retains different types of monitored data from your environments.
Built-in static thresholds
Dynatrace uses (term) for all infrastructure events (for example, detecting high CPU, low disk space, or low memory)
service quality reports (what can I learn from them?)
Each (term) summarizes the monitoring insights that dynatrace has compiled over the past week. Each (term) offers an overview of your applications, services, infrastructure utilization, performance problems, and the impact of performance problems on your customers. While Dynatrace itself is an ideal tool for day-to-day monitoring purposes, (term) gives you insights into hot spots in your environment and make it easy to share insights with others.
Global Privacy Settings
Environment-wide settings that Dynatrace offers that serve to ensure your compliance with the data-privacy regulations of your region.
How long does Dynatrace store the full details of every user action (for RUM: non-aggregated user action data)?
For 10 days. This enables you to analyze individual user actions and get all details including waterfall analysis, JS errors, and mobile crashes for 10 days.
At least 20% of the week.
How long do applications and services have to run before slowdown and error rate alerts are raised?
At least a full week.
How long do applications have to run before traffic spike drops and drops alerts are raised?
A full week
How long does baselining require to learn daily and weekly patterns for traffic spikes and drops?
When does Dynatrace begin to alert on static thresholds?
Immediately begins to alert without a learning period.
When to contact support?
In rare circumstances, the Dynatrace RUM JavaScript tag that's injected into each application page can have an adverse impact on application functionality. For this reason, following installation of OneAgent, confirm that your application's pages still render properly. If some of your application's pages appear to be corrupted, disable monitoring and contact Support.
RUM: User Sessions
Includes Session Replay data. All user session data is stored for 35 days.
RUM: Session Replay
Minimum size of required session Replay storage volume is entirely load dependent. A maximum size isn't required. In SaaS deployments, a dedicated disk is used for Session Replay Data. In Managed deployments, the Session Replay data storage directory is a dedicated file store that's used exclusively for Session Replay data.
Settings > Server-side service monitoring
Navigate here to find the available settings for detecting and naming web requests, database calls, and custom services. These (global) settings define rules that apply to all services detected in your system.
Where do you define individual service settings?
Navigation Menu > Transactions & Services > Select the Service you want to configure > on the service overview page, click the browse button (...) > select edit
What does Service Quality Reports include?
Overall Dynatrace Score Application Score Services Score Infrastructure Score
What can I do if I know RUM user action data is missing? (CORS-related troubleshooting)
Perform the following checks in Chrome with DevTools open: 1. Make sure the user action triggers network traffic 2. Make sure the action uses setTimeout(async) 3. Make sure the correct modules are activated
35 days for both SaaS and Managed (data retention rates)
RUM: User sessions (data retention rates)
How do I share service quality reports?
Select Reports from the navigation menu > click a service quality report to open the report > click browse button (...) > click share to display the sharable link for the report > click copy to copy the URL to your clipboard > paste the URL into an e-mail to the recipient. When you share a report with a non-Dynatrace user, the user receives a message with a private link that allows them to view the report without logging into Dynatrace.
Where to view Service Quality Reports
Select Reports from the navigation menu and then click service quality from the left-hand menu. (term) are chronologically arranged, with the most recent report appearing first. Select any report you're interested in to view further details.
Where to subscribe to Service Quality Reports?
Select reports from the navigation menu > click a Service quality report to open the report > click the browse button (...) > Click Subscribe
Where to setup user defined static thresholds
Settings > Anomaly detection
35 days for SaaS Configurable for Managed
Synthetic
How to confirm the DT JS tag downloaded successfully.
The DT JS tag for your application is downloaded along with all other web page resources. Confirm the tag is downloading using dev tools in your browser. Look for responses that contain JS code. Responses must have status 200 or 304. The script file may come from cache. The existence of the JS object dT_ To do this, go to your browser dev consolt andtype dT_ [enter] and an object should be returned.
What does service baselining calculate a reference for?
The Service Method dimension (a service's individual service methods - which represents the different SQL statements that are queried)
How to confirm the JS tag is injected correctly.
The first thing to do in verifying that Real User Monitoring has been set up correctly is to search for the Dynatrace RUM JavaScript tag in your application's HTML. Load one of your pages, inspect its source in the web browser and check that the <HEAD> element contains a reference to the Dynatrace JavaScript. If you are not able to locate the Dynatrace JavaScript, make sure that your HTML is a valid formed HTML with both opening and closing tags for <HTML> and <HEAD>.
With regard to response times, Dynatrace collects references for?
The median (above which are the slowest 50% of all callers) and the 90th percentile (the slowest 10% of all callers)
RUM: Aggregated user action data?
This data is used in tables like Top User Actions, Top Javascript Errors, and Top mobile crashes. Available for 35 days, though after 10 days user actions data is optimized for aggregated views and some individual user actions become unavailable for individual analysis. The sample set is large enough for statistical correct aggregations, however.
Mask User Actions
This setting only affects RUM for web applications. With this setting enabled, no input data is captured. Instead, generic values are used as the basis for user action names.
Settings > Preferences > Data Privacy
To mask the IP addresses of your end users, navigate here and enable 'Mask end-user IP addresses & GPS coordinates. (This is considered a global privacy setting)
Timeseries metrics (Key user actions and requests) (data retention rates)
Unlimited for both SaaS and Managed
What 4 dimensions does application baselining calculate references for?
User Action Geolocation Browser OS
For the median and 90th percentile.
What are slowdown events detected for?
1,000/per minute
What is the minimum amount of PurePaths that Dynatrace OneAgent captures every minute - on a standard OneAgent setup?
When is a slowdown event raised?
When the typical response times for either the median or the 90th percentiles degrade.
When are events raised for static thresholds?
When threshold breaches occur in the median and 90th percentiles.
User-defined static thresholds
With customizable anomaly detection settings, you can overwrite the default static thresholds for infrastructure events.
Can you switch from automated baselining for application and service anomaly detection to static thresholds?
Yes. With static thresholds, the detected baseline thresholds are overwritten by your custom static thresholds for individual dimensions.
DT JS tag for Managed
Your own CDN or domain in Dynatrace Managed; CDN is recommended and ends with the string _bs.js
What is a PurePath?
a full end-to-end distributed trace. In contrast to other tracing technologies, these are automaticall caputred by OneAgent. In addition to serice-level traces and response times, they also provide deep code-level insights, which enable method-hotspot analysis, request attributes, request and database analysis, and detailed error analysis. Also one of the core ingredients that enables the Dynatrace AI to perform automatic baselining and root cause anaylsis. Provides the highest level of data granularity and fidelity on the market.
Overall Dynatrace Score
an average of the application, services, and infrastructure scores for your environment.
Automated baselines (multi-dimensional baselining)
automatically detects individual reference values that adapt over time. (Term) reference values are used to cope with dynamic changes within your application or service response times, error rates, and load.
Application Score
based on application Apdex ratings. In brief, the Application score is the average of your application Apdex value and the percentage of user actions that are not affected by problems.
Where are log files stored for Managed customers?
centrally on your Dynatrace Managed cluster, you must provide a common Network File System (NFS) mount point (path) that is identical and available from all cluster nodes. With this approach, it's your responsibility to ensure appropriate levels of performance, availability, and free space on the mounted NFS volume.
How often are Service Quality Reports generated?
each week on Sundays at midnight, so that when you start your work week each Monday morning, you'll find a new report ready for your review.
Log Analytics
enables you to store all logs centrally within external storage. This makes log data available independent of log files themselves.
For SaaS customers, where are log files stored?
in Amazon Elastic File System in the zone where your Dynatrace environment resides. You don't have to worry about storage performance, availability, or free space. Disk storage costs are included in your Log Analytics subscription.
What do Service Quality Reports address?
quality across the entire environment. Therefore, you need to have access to the entire environment to view. Analyzing and persisting the required aggregated data per Management zone isn't possible.
Services Score
represents the percentage of service calls that were successful and unaffected by problems.
Infrastructure Score
the percentage of host time during which no problems were encountered.
When is the baseline cube detected/calculated?
two hours after your application is initially detected by Dynatrace OneAgent, so that it can analyze two hours of actual traffic to calculate preliminary reference values and identify where your traffic comes from.
Within what time intervals are baselines evaluated?
within 5 minute and 15 minute sliding time intervals