June 2019 Summaries

Dynatrace has introduced an updated Metrics API version that enhances the ability to collect, analyze, and report on a wide array of performance metrics from various sources, including hosts, services, applications, and cloud platforms. This new version, based on an improved metrics framework, offers a logical tree structure and globally unique metric keys, facilitating better integration across multiple environments. It introduces separate endpoints for metric descriptors and timeseries data, allowing users to efficiently query, filter, and transform results using query strings and aggregation functions. The API supports multiple data formats and resolutions, enabling seamless data import into tools like Excel and Tableau. Enhanced date and time selection features, along with flexible filters, improve the efficiency of data retrieval, while the API's automation capabilities support diverse use cases in software development and delivery pipelines. The updated API aligns with recent improvements in Dynatrace's custom charting and dashboarding, offering a consistent experience across its web UI and integration APIs. Version 1 of the Timeseries API will still be supported, but new features will only be added to version 2, with a discontinuation date for version 1 to be announced later.

In the quest to solve IT problems rapidly, many organizations have explored AIOps, an emerging technology practice aimed at managing alert noise and correlating events to facilitate faster problem resolution. While reducing alert noise is beneficial, the primary challenge lies in identifying root causes swiftly. The text suggests that combining full-stack monitoring with AIOps creates a more effective solution, akin to enhancing human reaction time by improving the sensory system and brain processing. Dynatrace is highlighted as a comprehensive software intelligence platform that integrates full-stack monitoring with AIOps, offering immediate problem-solving capabilities without the need for extensive training or configuration. The text encourages readers to assess their true objectives in implementing AIOps, emphasizing that if the goal is to accelerate problem identification and resolution rather than just reducing alert noise, Dynatrace may be an effective option, as it offers automated problem detection, root cause analysis, and business impact assessment straight out of the box.

The Dynatrace Managed release version 1.174, published on June 24, 2019, introduces several enhancements and fixes aimed at improving user experience and system functionality. Key updates include the scaling up of Real User Monitoring to better track digital touchpoints, the integration of Dynatrace Log Monitoring to empower teams, and the use of management zones for refined problem notifications. The release also features improved mobile crash reporting and updates to the Synthetic Recorder for better clickpath recording. Additionally, security has been bolstered through updates to JRE version 8u212 and by limiting information disclosure. A range of resolved issues are highlighted, including improvements in cluster upgrades, logging, UI behavior, and error message handling. The release addresses 28 resolved issues for Dynatrace Managed and similar enhancements for Dynatrace SaaS, focusing on code-level improvements, session replay, and cluster management, alongside specific fixes for user interface challenges and integration processes.

Dynatrace Managed version 1.172 introduces several new features and enhancements aimed at improving user experience and system efficiency. Key updates include the introduction of rage click detection to identify frustrating user interactions, the ability for Dynatrace HTTP monitors to handle multiple requests, and a new metrics framework to enhance dashboard functionalities. The release also debuts a Metrics REST API for easier integration and introduces notifications for low Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) unit quotas to prevent service disruptions. Configuration changes are now logged in audit files, enabling better transparency and traceability. Additionally, the update enhances cluster resilience, optimizes disk space usage, and introduces improvements in OneAgent configuration and cluster upgrades. The release addresses 22 resolved issues for Dynatrace Managed, enhancing system stability and performance, while also extending features from the Dynatrace SaaS 1.171 and 1.172 updates.

BizDevOps aims to enhance application performance and create new business opportunities through seamless collaboration and data sharing, which involves breaking down information silos and democratizing data access. A common question regarding this collaboration is whether it necessitates the use of a single tool; the text suggests integrating rather than retiring existing tools, like Adobe Analytics and Dynatrace, for improved insights. Integrating these tools provides deep technical insights into user sessions, helps identify reasons for user exits on conversion paths, and ensures consistent optimization efforts across business and IT teams by aligning naming conventions. The integration process involves configuring the capture of various Adobe Analytics data points within Dynatrace, such as Experience Cloud ID and pageName, to enhance performance and user experience. A complementary video provides a walkthrough on leveraging Dynatrace User Session Query Language (USQL) for integrating data with third-party analytics tools, emphasizing the importance of breaking silos for effective BizDevOps collaboration.

At KubeCon Barcelona, the OpenCensus and OpenTracing projects merged to form OpenTelemetry, a unified standard aimed at enhancing data analysis within microservices environments, which Dynatrace has joined to further its capabilities in performance monitoring. Dynatrace has been instrumental in application instrumentation without source code modification for over 15 years and sees OpenTelemetry as a way to build more observability into frameworks, thereby broadening its monitoring coverage. With OpenTelemetry as a primary data source, Dynatrace’s platform integrates it seamlessly, enhancing scalability, manageability, and analytics through its AI-driven engine, Davis®. Dynatrace contributes by supporting the OpenTracing and OpenCensus merger for languages like Node.js, Python, and Java, integrating Trace-Context, and developing higher-level APIs to simplify tracing. The collaboration allows Dynatrace customers to benefit from automatic monitoring and enhanced data analytics, leveraging existing custom tracing investments while the Dynatrace OneAgent facilitates automatic instrumentation, offering insights critical for debugging and performance tuning. As the OpenTelemetry project advances, Dynatrace plans to release further support, inviting current customers using OpenTracing or OpenCensus to discuss the strategic integration of OpenTelemetry.

In the event of a disaster, quickly obtaining live updates on the recovery status of critical business systems is essential, and Dynatrace facilitates this by monitoring a wide range of systems and organizing the data with comprehensive tagging capabilities. A case study from a large US-based insurance company illustrates how Dynatrace was used to create a dashboard that displays the health status of Business Critical devices according to their Disaster Recovery (DR) priority levels, following the company's VMWare DR-SRM naming scheme. This dashboard not only provides management with real-time system status updates but also eliminates the need for manual status inquiries during recovery efforts. The company utilized Dynatrace's auto-tagging rules to efficiently assign DR-SRM Priority Level tags to VMWare hosts, thus allowing for streamlined filtering and alerting processes. The approach underscores the benefits of using Dynatrace's tagging and dashboard functionalities to enhance disaster recovery management and communication across teams.

Dynatrace has launched private browser monitors for their Synthetic monitoring service, allowing users to monitor the performance and availability of internal web applications from within their own environments. These private monitors extend the capabilities of public locations to private settings, enabling the measurement of both single-URL and complex clickpath interactions for internal and external applications. Utilizing the same ActiveGate technology as private HTTP monitors, these new browser monitors offer benefits such as automatic failover support, scalability, and improved scheduling. To implement this feature, users need to install a synthetic-enabled ActiveGate on their private locations, accessible through specific operating systems like Ubuntu Server, RHEL, and CentOS. While these synthetic-enabled ActiveGates are currently exclusive to Synthetic Monitoring, future updates may allow for broader use. The feature aims to enhance internal application monitoring, exemplified by Dynatrace's own successful deployment for copyright management, which detected issues during low-traffic periods.