Instant Demo Guide
Cisco dCloud
Cisco ACI with AppDynamics v1
Last Updated: 14-August-2019
About This Demonstration
This guide for the preconfigured demonstration includes:
About This Demonstration
Requirements
About This Solution
Topology
Get Started
Scenario 1.
Troubleshooting Network Issues
Scenario 2.
Troubleshooting with ACI
What’s Next?
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Limitations
This demo is a single-instance, read-only demo which is aimed at showcasing the products mentioned and the
artificially injected issues.
Although a user has access to navigate through the products, the capabilities to perform changes have been
disabled for the most part to ensure the demo remains consistent across multiple users
The demo-launch facility requires the use of popups to inject temporary cookies and open browser tabs, hence
the “allow popups” should be temporarily or permanently enabled at the user browser for this demo.
Requirements
The table below outlines the requirements for this preconfigured demonstration.
Required
Optional
Laptop
Cisco AnyConnect®
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About This Solution
The infrastructure of this demo consists of two parts, a datacenter-based part and a cloud-based part. The
datacenter-based part consists of:
•
an ACI infrastructure
•
a native ACI application
•
a VMware infrastructure
•
an in-house developed demo application.
The demo application is deployed on top of the VMware infrastructure, which in turn is deployed on top the ACI
infrastructure. The cloud-based part hosts a managed AppDynamics SaaS controller.
The demo application consists of docker container components, distributed in Virtual Machines which run the
docker stack. Each Virtual Machine apart from the application containers also hosts the AppDynamics agents
which are responsible for gathering status information, as well as infrastructure and application metrics. The
VMware infrastructure provides the compute and storage resources to the Virtual Machines and the ACI
infrastructure provides the network/security resources.
The AppDynamics controller is deployed in a multi-tenant layout on a cloud-based, managed infrastructure and
communicates with the agents over secure Internet channels to gather the necessary information. For the needs
of this demo, an AppDynamics tenant has been created, which is working as an administrative boundary
between this demo and other functions.
To facilitate operational visibility for infrastructure administration teams, the AppIQ ACI application is used,
which runs on top of the ACI infrastructure. The application works as a bridge between the ACI and the
AppDynamics infrastructures, gathering and correlating information to present an aggregated infrastructure and
application visual overview of the current overall health per application.
Demo
Application
CON
OS
VM
CON
OS
VM
CON
OS
VM
CON
OS
VM
...
CON
OS
VM
Cisco ACI Network/Segregation
CON
OS
VM
Software Agent
Metrics
Cisco AppDynamics
VMware vSphere
Cisco ACI
AppIQ
Status,
Troubleshooting
Datacentre
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Cloud/SaaS
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Topology
This content includes preconfigured users and components to illustrate the scripted scenarios and features of
the solution. Most components are fully configurable with predefined administrative user accounts. You can see
the IP address and user account credentials to use to access a component by clicking the component icon in
the Topology menu of your active session and in the scenario steps that require their use.
Demo Application
The demo application consists of 23 container components which are segregated in 10 application tiers and
support functions (database services and load generation components)
The application containers have been distributed to an equal number of VMs, with each VM hosting an
application component container and the relevant AppDynamics Agent containers. Each VM is connected to an
ACI EPG which is named similarly to the AppDynamics tier in order to facilitate correlating workloads between
AppDynamics and ACI.
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VM Name
App container(s)
accountManagement
account-lb
accountManagement-0
adf2_accountManagement-0_1
accountManagement-1
adf2_accountManagement-1_1
accountManagement-2
adf2_accountManagement-2_1
authenticationServices
balanceServices
ACI EPG
AppDynamics App Tier
AccountManagement
AccountManagement
authenticationServices
AuthenticationServices
AuthenticationServices
balanceServices
BalanceServices
BalanceServices
SharedServices
-
LoanServices
LoanServices
DatabaseServices
-
policy-load
browser-load
approval-load
browser-load
loanServices
loanServices
mongo-loans
mongo-loans
mongo-policies
mongo-policies
mongo-sessions
mongo-sessions
orderProcessing
orderProcessing
OrderProcessing
OrderProcessing
policyServices
policyServices
PolicyServices
PolicyServices
quoteServices
quoteServices
QuoteServices
QuoteServices
remote-services
remote-services
SharedServices
-
sessionTracking
sessionTracking
SessionTracking
SessionTracking
web-lb
web-lb
webFrontEnd-0
adf2_webFrontEnd-0_1
webFrontEnd-1
adf2_webFrontEnd-1_1
WebFrontEnd
WebFrontEnd
webFrontEnd-2
adf2_webFrontEnd-2_1
wireServices
wireServices
WireServices
WireServices
ACI
In order to host the demo application, a tenant named AppDynamics has been created on the ACI
Infrastructure. To facilitate the application component intercommunication the relevant EPGs and contracts have
been created within this tenant.
Two application profiles have been created under the tenant, the Financial-Lite-App to facilitate the
application components and the Support-Services to facilitate support functions, such as the load generators,
the DNS service and common EPG policies.
The model followed for provisioning the contracts is the publisher/subscriber model. In this model, a contract is
being created for each running service and attached to the relevant EPG as a provider contract, while also
being attached as a consumer contract to all the relevant EPGs using each service.
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To facilitate visibility to the hosted application from the ACI perspective, the AppIQ ACI application has been
deployed and configured to retrieve information from the ACI infrastructure and the AppDynamics Controller,
correlate it and present it in a functional, interactive graph
AppDynamics
The AppDynamics application is responsible for gathering monitoring information from the demo application
and present it in a concise, easy to visualise form. It presents the component health as well as interactions,
along with health and performance metrics. For the needs of this demo, a tenant has been created within
AppDynamics which is hosting the AD-Financial-Lite-ACI application.
In general, AppDynamics unified suite of application and business performance monitoring solutions ensure that
every part of even the most complex, multi-cloud environments—from software to infrastructure to business
outcomes—is highly visible, optimized, and primed to drive growth. AppDynamics’ solutions are built on and
powered by the industry’s most intelligent approach to application performance and customer experience
monitoring
Application
Performance
Management
End-User Monitoring
Infrastructure Visibility
Business Monitoring
Get complete visibility into
every line of code and
important transactions
across multi-cloud
environments.
Create superior
experiences by
monitoring where
customers are connecting
with your business the
most.
Monitor the servers,
networks and databases
critical to supporting
application performance.
Quickly get a clear,
visualized real-time view
/ dashboard of the health
of your business.
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For this presentation, two main tabs are used to assist in drilling down and obtaining more information about the
application, the Dashboard and the Network Dashboard tabs.
The Dashboard tab presents the logical design of the application and the service health and interactions for
each component.
On the other hand, the Network Dashboard focuses on the network aspects of the component interactions and
provides network information statistics and metrics.
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Common Terms used by the AppDynamics suite
Dashboards and Reports
Custom dashboards let you create and arrange widgets to give users a visual overview of the data of interest to
them. Similarly reports capture AppDynamics data in PDF files that you can send to recipients.
A custom dashboard enables you to display a specific set of metrics and data points on one screen. You can
display business, network, application, server, and database metrics reported by AppDynamics agents.
Flow Maps
AppDynamics automatically discovers, maps, and visualizes your critical customer journeys through each
application service and infrastructure dependency.
Business Transaction (BT)
A Business Transaction represents a User Experience. Business transactions are automatically discovered by
AppDynamics and included the end-to-end path of all services within your environment that are called upon to
fulfill and deliver a response to a user-initiated request. Business Transactions commonly represent actions like
login, search, checkout, etc. Things like conducting a search, adding something to a shopping cart, or checking
out will invoke various applications, web services, third party APIs, and databases. Business Transactions
reflect the logical way users interact with your applications.
Baseline
AppDynamics automatically calculates the baseline performance for your applications, that is, the prevailing
performance characteristics of those applications. Multiple baseline models are built to support different
scenarios, including Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Customer. Once AppDynamics establishes a baseline, it can
detect anomalous conditions for your application.
Transaction Snapshots
A business transaction represents the data processing flow for a request, most often a user request. A
transaction snapshot gives you a cross-tier view of the processing flow for a single invocation of the
transaction. Call Graph drill downs, let you dive into the details of the transaction execution on a tier.
Call Graph
A call graph in a transaction snapshot shows the business transaction processing information on a particular tier
that participated on the business transaction. A call graph lists the methods in a call stack and provides
information about each call. They provide deep diagnostic capabilities to enable you to identify root-cause
down to the individual line of code. Avoid sifting through log files and save valuable developer time
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Get Started
Follow the steps to schedule a session of the content and configure your presentation environment.
1. Click Catalog and select Instant Demo from the side bar. This lists all the dCloud Instant Demos.
2. Click the appropriate View button.
NOTE: Alternately, you can use the Search Catalog box to search for the Instant Demo name.
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3. Click the AppDynamics icon.
4. If you get a pop up blocker notification, allow pop ups for this demonstration.
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5. Copy and paste the account name in to the Account field.
6. Copy and paste the userid in to the Username field.
7. Copy and paste the password in to the Password field.
8. Click Login.
NOTE: If the Error checking SAML message displays, click Use Local Login to continue.
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Scenario 1.
Troubleshooting Network Issues
Value Proposition: This scenario focuses on the AppDynamics applications.
NOTE: Before beginning, make sure pop ups are allowed for the demonstration. Turn off all pop up blockers.
Steps
AppDynamics Dashboard
1. From the AppDynamics dashboard, click Applications.
2. One application is already running on the dashboard. Click the title of the application.
3. The front page of the application displays the different components of the application which are being
monitored.
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4. Some of the tiers have multiple components and are designated by a number larger than 1.
5. The lines between the components represent the traffic flow. They highlight the communication between
tiers at the service level.
NOTE: AppDynamics is application-based monitoring and treats applications like set of services.
6. Hovering your mouse over a component will activate the traffic flow to show the movement between
components.
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Networks Dashboard
1. From the top menu, select Network Dashboard. The dashboards are similar, however, this dashboard
focuses on the information from a network perspective.
2. On the left menu, select Business Transactions.
3. A Business Transaction represents a task that an Application performs such as a checkout procedure.
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Troubleshooting
1. From the left, click Application Dashboard.
2. From the top, click Dashboard.
3. Some of the tiers display in different colors, which could indicate potential network issues, latency issues
or misconfiguration issues.
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4. Double click on the WebFrontEnd to start the troubleshooting.
5. This displays a detailed view of the interaction between the web and the other components.
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6. Click Slow Response Times to see any potential issues.
7. This screen highlights if or when application performance is slow or stalled. In the top bar, point out that
during specific times the transactions are very slow, and other times the response is good.
8. To diagnose this, scroll down and double-click the url for the Account Home.
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9. This displays specific information on the transaction, including where the traffic passes through and
where the traffic originates from.
10. Warning icons on any of tiers will indicate potential problems.
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11. The statistics between the tiers hint at problems because of the latency times.
12. Click the Drill Down icon on the Account Management tier.
13. The details show the length of time that each component needed to finish. This helps to identify which
function is causing the slow down.
14. From the top menu, click Network.
15. The Network dashboard shows a snapshot of all the timing for the components, including Network errors
and TCP loss. Notice that the snapshot timerange takes place during a period of TCP Loss (as seen in the
screenshot).
16. Note down the node name.
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17. Return to the transaction tab to see the source and destination components involved in this transaction.
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18. Click X to close the transaction window.
19. On the AppDynamics dashboard, select Application Dashboard.
20. From the top, select Network Dashboard.
21. We can see clearly where the slow down is affecting the tiers between Account Management and Balance
Services.
22. Click on the arrow between the two tiers.
23. Click the Connections tab.
24. The pop up displays the recorded traffic between the different components.
25. Right click the AccountManagementNode0 and select Troubleshoot (Cisco APIC).
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NOTE: If you cannot see the full Source name, adjust the columns in the pop up.
NOTE: AppDynamics essentially creates a troubleshooting session on the ACI and launches it in a browser so
that we can troubleshoot the source and destination endpoints.
26. From the side menu, click Contracts. This displays the contract information, the filter and reverse-filter
information, and a hit count.
27. From the top menu, click Tenants.
28. From the list, double-click on AppDynamics.
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29. Click the History tab.
30. Click the Audit Log. This displays all the last changes, but doesn’t show any contracts blocking the traffic or
changes to the contracts. So we can assume that the network is experiencing blockage on the VM.
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Scenario 2.
Troubleshooting with ACI
NOTE: This scenario works best if run between :40 and :55 minutes of each hour. During this timeframe, the
script in the background will introduce the network configuration error.
Steps
1. On the AppDynamics dashboard, select Application Dashboard.
2. Notice that the WebFrontEnd tier is having time issues.
3. Double click on the WebFrontEnd.
4. Select the Network Dashboard tab.
5. This displays a detailed view of the interaction between the web and the other components.
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6. Click Slow Response Times to see any potential issues.
7. This screen displays statistics related to the network.
8. Click the Execution Time column twice to sort by descending order of latency.
9. Double click on the url for the Get Quote transaction.
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NOTE: You may have to scroll in the list to find the transaction.
10. Details display on the path of the business transaction.
11. The Quote Services are green, which indicate that everything is ok.
12. The Web Front End displays a warning sign. Click on it to drill down into more details.
13. Looking at the chart we can determine which transaction is causing the slow response.
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14. From the top menu, click Network.
15. The Network dashboard shows a snapshot of all the timing for the components, including Network errors
and TCP loss.
16. Note down the node name.
17. Return to the transaction tab to see the Transaction between the tiers.
18. Click X to close the transaction window.
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19. On the AppDynamics dashboard, select Application Dashboard.
20. From the top, select Network Dashboard.
21. We can see clearly where the slow down is affecting the tiers between Account Management and Balance
Services.
22. Click on the arrow between the Web Front End and Quote Services.
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23. Click the Connections tab.
24. The pop up displays the recorded traffic between the different components.
25. Right click the AccountManagementNode0 and select Troubleshoot (Cisco APIC).
NOTE: AppDynamics essentially creates a troubleshooting session on the ACI and launches it in a browser so
that we can trouble shoot the source and destination end points.
26. From the side menu, click Contracts. We can see the weakness of the traffic within the displacement
points, as well as seeing how the traffic is not allowed because of the deny record. We can only see a
permit for the broadcast unit, causing a misconfiguration because no contract is in place.
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27. From the top menu, click Tenants.
28. From the list, select AppDynamics.
29. Click the History tab.
30. Click the Audit Log. The log reveals that a filter allowing http traffic, during certain timeframes, is removed
from the quotesvcs_allsvc contract. This causes the traffic between the two endpoint groups to stop
flowing, causing a service disruption
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What’s Next?
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