April 2020 Summaries

The OneAgent version 1.191 release, rolled out starting April 29, 2020, introduces new features and enhancements, including improved web performance metrics like the "Visually Complete" metric to better evaluate user experience. This release supports additional Java frameworks such as Akka Remoting and the Azul Platform Core, and extends support to operating systems like Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Notably, the update includes a series of resolved issues across various components like Java, Node.js, .NET, PHP, and others, addressing bugs and vulnerabilities to enhance stability and performance. In terms of future changes, the release notes state that support for certain technologies and operating systems will be phased out, including older versions of Kubernetes and OpenShift. The update also highlights Dynatrace's shift to providing nearly same-day support for container platforms, eliminating the previous three-month upgrade grace period, and announces early adopter features for enhanced ARM platform monitoring.

Dynatrace Real User Monitoring provides comprehensive insights into user interactions with mobile apps while prioritizing data privacy and compliance with regulations such as GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act. The platform captures various user actions but implements features to protect sensitive data, such as URL exclusions and IP address masking. To address scenarios where sensitive information like PIN codes could be inadvertently captured, Dynatrace offers solutions to sanitize data either at the collection or processing stage. This includes modifying user action names with asterisks or using naming rules to mask data during processing, ensuring compliance without storing sensitive details. The platform is continually updated to enhance visibility and data privacy, and users are encouraged to engage with the Dynatrace Community for additional support and information on maintaining compliance.

Dynatrace has become one of 13 launch partners for Amazon AppFlow, a new Amazon Web Services (AWS) service that facilitates secure data transfer between SaaS applications and AWS services like S3 and Redshift. Amazon AppFlow allows users to create bi-directional data flows that can be scheduled, event-triggered, or initiated on demand, featuring built-in data transformation capabilities such as masking, validation, and filtering. This integration enables Dynatrace customers to automate data flows and leverage AI-powered insights without the need for custom coding, thereby enhancing workflow automation and efficiency. The collaboration aims to broaden the use of Dynatrace's AI analytics by allowing seamless data integration into AWS services, ultimately enhancing cloud migration control, incident management, resource optimization, and problem resolution processes. Users can set up the integration through the AWS console by selecting Dynatrace as the data source, authenticating with a Dynatrace API token, and defining data destinations, with future updates expected to expand these capabilities further.

Dynatrace Managed version 1.192, released on April 17, 2020, introduces several enhancements and fixes to improve user experience and system performance. Key updates include enhanced mobile app crash analysis, improved dashboard management via an advanced JSON editor, and integration with Adobe Analytics for real-time collaboration. The update also brings optimized metric and configuration storage with Cassandra 3.0.20, filtering of problems in the mobile app based on user permissions, and a comprehensive ActiveGates overview page. Additionally, numerous resolved issues address areas such as cluster management, code-level analytics, real user monitoring (RUM), and user interface enhancements, ensuring more efficient handling of data discrepancies, improved logging, and better application performance monitoring. The update also includes cumulative patches addressing specific issues like auto-tagging rules, CPU usage metrics, and service metrics calculation, providing a more robust and reliable platform for users.

Dynatrace's Engineering Productivity and Infrastructure & Services Teams successfully addressed performance issues with their Continuous Integration system, primarily relying on Jenkins, while adapting to remote work. A key incident on March 31st revealed unusual high page load times and intermittent outages, which Dynatrace's monitoring tool, Davis®, traced to excessive garbage collection suspension times. By using Dynatrace's Memory Profiling feature, the team identified a "memory hungry" Jenkins plugin responsible for the high memory allocation and subsequent garbage collection issues. Removing this plugin resulted in a threefold improvement in Jenkins performance and reduced CPU pressure. However, upgrading to Java 11 to leverage new profiling capabilities introduced a separate thread leak issue, which was identified as a JDK bug and was subsequently addressed. These optimizations led to a more efficient Jenkins operation, with reduced resource requirements and improved performance, as confirmed by Synthetic tests. The blog encourages readers to apply similar memory profiling techniques to improve Java application efficiency, offering a free Dynatrace trial to facilitate this process.

Dynatrace's OneAgent version 1.189, released in April 2020, introduces several new features and enhancements aimed at improving data privacy compliance and ease of configuration for monitoring mobile applications and managing host metadata. The update includes expanded support for various technologies such as Spring AMQP, Oracle HotSpot VM 14, and OpenJDK 14 for Java, and the official Golang toolchain. This release also marks the last support for PHP 7.0 and anticipates future deprecations for several operating systems, such as Amazon Linux 2 and Windows Server 2012 R2, by 2026. Notably, OneAgent 1.189 resolves numerous issues across different components, including vulnerabilities in the OneAgent Windows installer, improved proxy settings handling during updates, and enhancements in JavaScript, PHP, and Go functionality, alongside addressing performance and stability problems in .NET applications and mainframe operations. The update also improves monitoring capabilities by expanding log parsing and ensuring more reliable instrumentation and error handling across supported platforms.

Dynatrace has announced the end of support for its Network Application Monitoring (NAM) tool, formerly known as DC RUM, which has served as a user experience monitoring solution for two decades. The decision to phase out NAM is driven by advancements in network and application monitoring technologies, particularly in response to the limitations posed by network packet visibility due to security developments like Perfect Forward Secrecy. Dynatrace has shifted focus to its software intelligence platform, leveraging AI-driven, end-to-end application performance management and embracing open observability standards, as demonstrated by its involvement in the OpenTelemetry project. This transition highlights Dynatrace's commitment to adapting to technological waves and maintaining its leadership role in the application performance management (APM) industry, encouraging customers to migrate from NAM to the more comprehensive and future-proof Dynatrace platform.

The Dynatrace Managed version 1.190 release notes detail a series of new features, enhancements, and resolved issues aimed at improving the overall functionality and security of the platform. Key updates include the introduction of new service baseline settings for more tailored alerting, updates to the JRE for enhanced security, and improvements to cluster backup usability. The release also features multiple resolved issues across various components such as Autonomous Cloud, Kubernetes, Cluster Management Console, and Log Monitoring, among others, with fixes aimed at improving process group resolutions, sign-in processes, and metric displays. Furthermore, the update enhances several user interface elements and addresses issues related to session replay, code-level analytics, and infrastructure management, ensuring a more reliable and efficient user experience.