AppDynamics Grafana Datasource

The AppDynamics datasource for Grafana allows you to query metrics from AppDynamics using its Metrics API and visualize them in Grafana dashboards.

The plugin is maintained as a premium plugin by the Grafana Core team.

Grafana CLI

grafana-cli plugins install dlopes7-appdynamics-datasource

With docker

With the command below, grafana will start on localhost:3000 (192.168.99.100:3000 if on windows)

docker run -d -p 3000:3000 --name grafana -e "GF_INSTALL_PLUGINS=dlopes7-appdynamics-datasource" grafana/grafana

Note on the Datasource config

Use Server (proxy) access (to avoid CORS and users looking up your password) and basic authentication. Remember that the username should be "user@account", i.e: your.name@customer1 or my_user@saas_account_name

Configure the password using the following steps:

1. Navigate to [subscriptions]https://accounts.appdynamics.com/subscriptions
2. Click the link in the Name column on the row for your subscription.
3. Navigate to the License details by clicking on the tab at top of the page.
4. The Access Key field has a Show button. Click that to show the Access Key.
5. Copy the Access Key into the Password field in the Basic Auth Details on config page in Grafana.

Set up a user and role for Grafana using the following steps:

1. In AppDynamics, navigate to Settings > Administration
2. Select the Roles tab, and hit the '+' button to create a new role, e.g. grafana_readonly
3. In the Account tab of the Create Role section, add the permission View Business Flow
4. In the Applications tab, check the View box to allow Grafana to view application data
5. In the Databases tab, check the View box to allow Grafana to view database data
6. In the Analytics tab, check the Can view data from all Applications box to allow Grafana to view application analytics data
7. In the Users tab of the Administration page, create a new user, e.g. grafana. Assign the new user (or a Group to which the user belongs) to the role you just created (e.g. grafana_readonly)

In the version 2.1.0 version of the plugin, you can also authenticate via an API key.

Follow the instructions in the config editor to create and edit an API Key.

Note: If you have configured both an API Key and basic authentication, the API Key will be used.

Templating

The supported template queries for now are:

1. Applications (All Applications)
2. AppName.BusinessTransactions (All BTs for the Application Name)
3. AppName.Tiers (All Tiers for the Application Name)
4. AppName.Nodes (All Nodes for the Application Name)
5. AppName.TierName.BusinessTransactions (All BTs for a specific Tier)
6. AppName.TierName.Nodes (All Nodes for a specific Tier)
7. AppName.Path.<Any Metric Path> (Any metric Path can be specified)

Legend Keys

The default for the legend key can be quite long but this formatting can be customized.

The legend key can be prepended with the Application name by choosing the App on legend option. For example: MyApp - Overall Application Performance|Average Response Time (ms).

If the query is for a singlestat or other panel where you cannot see the legend key, then click the Show Metadata option to see what the legend key (also called an alias) for the query is.

The Legend dropdown has three options: Full Path, Segments and Custom.

Legend Option - Full Path

The legend key is the full metric path. For example: Overall Application Performance|Average Response Time (ms).

Legend Option - Segments

The metric name is made up of segments, you can choose which segments to show.

For example, with a metric name:

Errors|mywebsite|Error|Errors per Minute

entering the following 2,4 in the Segments field returns mywebsite|Errors per minute.

The indexing starts with 1 so 1 returns Errors.

Legend Option - Custom

Create a custom legend by combining text with the following aliasing patterns to be able to mix in metric metadata.

• {{app}} returns the Application name

• {{1}} returns a segment from the metric path.

  For example, the metric: Overall Application Performance|Average Response Time (ms) has two segments. {{1}} returns the first segment, {{2}} returns the second segment.

Examples of legend key patterns and the legend keys that are generated:

• custom legend key => custom legend key
• App: {{app}} MetricPart2: {{2}} => App: myApp MetricPart2: Average Response Time (ms)