July 2021 Summaries

Dynatrace Managed version 1.224 introduces several enhancements and resolves numerous issues to improve user experience, security, and functionality. Key updates include the ability to filter the Release inventory table by build version and technology type, enhancements to the Davis event ingestion metric, and improved security for custom chart tiles on shared dashboards. The release also features a streamlined dashboard tile editing process, expanded Kubernetes navigation capabilities, and redesigned service-level objective (SLO) management in the web UI. The release resolves a total of 37 issues, addressing vulnerabilities and performance improvements across various components, including cluster management and browser monitoring. Additionally, several updates mitigate vulnerabilities related to the Log4j library, reflecting proactive measures in response to identified security threats. These changes aim to enhance the overall stability and reliability of Dynatrace Managed environments while ensuring compliance with the latest security standards.

Puppet has been deprecated, and its official support discontinued, meaning users rely on their initiative to maintain the repository if they choose to continue using it. Despite this, the Dynatrace Puppet module remains available for automating the deployment, updating, and uninstallation of OneAgent instances, streamlining large-scale rollouts. This module, accessible from the Dynatrace web UI, simplifies deploying multiple OneAgent instances simultaneously, which is crucial for scenarios like setting up full-stack monitoring swiftly or migrating to cloud infrastructure without downtime. Puppet, known for its declarative language, automates server management and configuration, positioning itself alongside tools like Ansible, SaltStack, and Chef. While the Preview of the Dynatrace Puppet module comes with sample scripts and a README file, it allows users to customize deployments, update, and uninstall instances, with error logging for troubleshooting. The Preview is available to all Dynatrace customers with no registration required, with plans for a future General Availability release of the Puppet module.

The OneAgent version 1.221 release, rolled out on July 26, 2021, introduces several updates and deprecations, such as removing a deprecated OneAgent startup parameter and adding new binaries to the Linux installer package. This version enhances Java support by adding OpenTracing 0.31 and marks the initial release of z/OS Connect Enterprise Edition tracing support, while also introducing support for NGINX versions 1.20.1 and 1.21.0, limited to 64-bit platforms. The release includes various resolved issues across multiple components, including Java, .NET, and Infrastructure Monitoring, along with improvements such as enhanced error recovery for z/OS and better communication for mobile OneAgent for iOS. Additionally, the release outlines changes to technology and operating system support, with several platforms and OpenTelemetry versions being phased out by future versions. The updates also address stability and performance issues, such as fixing application crashes, memory usage problems, and encoding issues in JavaScript, while ensuring compatibility with various technologies and platforms.

Dynatrace has enhanced its Cloud Automation solution with the introduction of SLO-based quality gates, a feature that accelerates release validation and automates performance analysis for DevOps and SRE teams, leveraging the open-source Keptn project. This capability allows users to automate the analysis of performance and load tests, significantly reducing manual effort, and is integrated with version control systems for seamless configuration management. The use of Dynatrace dashboards to define quality gates ensures the process remains GitOps-compliant, facilitating integration with CI/CD tools like Jenkins, GitLab, and Azure DevOps for automated release decisions. As a part of its ongoing innovation, Dynatrace plans to expand the use cases of Cloud Automation to include performance as a self-service, progressive delivery, and auto-remediation, aiming to enhance cloud-native delivery and operations models further.

Organizations are increasingly adopting agile software development, DevOps, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices to deliver software more quickly and safely, despite the risks introduced by frequent release cycles. To mitigate these risks, automated tests and quality gates are essential, yet only 10% of organizations have implemented automatic quality gates in their release pipelines. Quality gates serve as benchmarks that ensure software meets specific, measurable criteria before advancing in the release process, thereby improving quality and speeding up delivery. Dynatrace has enhanced its Software Intelligence Platform with features like release analysis, version awareness, and service-level objectives (SLOs) to facilitate automated release validation. The introduction of Cloud Automation quality gates allows for the automated analysis of software quality by comparing service-level indicators (SLIs) against SLOs early in the lifecycle. This enables early detection of quality issues, prompting automatic remediation actions to prevent poor-quality releases from impacting production environments. Dynatrace aims to integrate its Cloud Automation into existing DevOps toolchains, offering observability-driven automation throughout the software development lifecycle, with SaaS deployment currently available and more options planned for the future.

Dynatrace Managed release version 1.222 introduces several new features, enhancements, and fixes specific to the platform. Key updates include the adaptation of the Cluster Management Console navigation menu to align with the new Dynatrace menu style, support for CentOS 8 Stream, and improved installation in environments with SELinux enabled. The release addresses a total of 39 resolved issues, covering various components such as the cloud automation solution, cluster management, and synthetic monitoring, among others. Notable fixes include improvements in user session filters, dashboard tile dimension orders, and REST API validation. A cumulative update also addresses five additional issues, including a vulnerability resolution and enhancements in access control for token creation. The update ensures better handling of memory conditions and resolves data loss issues related to certain schemaless metrics sent via the MINT API.