March 2022 Summaries

In March 2022, three critical vulnerabilities, including the notorious Spring4Shell, were discovered in the Java Spring Framework, a widely used open-source platform for Java-based application development. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reported extensive attempts to exploit these vulnerabilities shortly after their disclosure, with Spring4Shell posing a significant threat due to its potential for remote code execution (RCE) with a CVSS score of 9.8. This vulnerability affects applications using Spring Framework versions 5.3.0 to 5.3.17, 5.2.0 to 5.2.19, and older versions, particularly when deployed with Apache Tomcat and JDK 9 or higher. Organizations are urged to upgrade to patched versions to mitigate risks and can utilize tools like Dynatrace Application Security, Dependency Check, and Apache Maven Dependency plugin to identify and manage these vulnerabilities. Dynatrace offers a comprehensive solution for detecting and prioritizing remediation efforts by automatically identifying affected components across diverse environments.

Runtime security and system observability are essential components for eliminating security blind spots that can compromise DevSecOps strategies, as emphasized by experts at Dynatrace Perform 2022. The emergence of vulnerabilities like Log4Shell highlights the need for a robust DevSecOps approach that identifies and addresses vulnerabilities throughout the software development lifecycle. Effective application security requires rapid identification and prioritization of vulnerabilities to prevent them from becoming exploitable weaknesses, especially in dynamic cloud-native environments. Dynatrace's Application Security platform aids organizations by automating the discovery and assessment of vulnerabilities, providing real-time tracking and intelligent prioritization based on risk analysis. This approach enables teams to focus on critical issues, manage web application firewalls more effectively, and address potential threats in real-time, thereby enhancing the overall security posture across the DevSecOps pipeline. Integrating runtime security with observability allows businesses to better detect, deflect, and counteract security threats, ultimately strengthening their defenses against potential attacks.

Parker Hannifin, a leader in motion and control technology, has significantly improved its IT infrastructure by integrating Dynatrace's automated incident management capabilities, which have reduced system outages and recovery times. The Parker team, led by enterprise resource manager Venkatesh Harikrishnan and cybersecurity engineer Tom Hood, initially struggled with technical debt and unplanned outages, impacting customer experience. By implementing Dynatrace OneAgent and leveraging its AI-driven insights, the team was able to proactively monitor and address potential issues, enhancing operational efficiency and reducing mean time to resolution (MTTR). The integration allowed for automatic alert notifications and remediation, freeing up IT staff to focus on more strategic tasks and improving overall user experience. Dynatrace's capabilities have also enabled Parker to better understand user behavior and system performance, leading to more informed decision-making and system optimizations. The collaboration aims to further advance Parker's digital customer experience and establish a resilient, industry-standard benchmark system.

Dynatrace's version 1.239 release introduces significant enhancements across various aspects of its monitoring platform. A key feature is the integration of synthetic monitors with external secret vaults like HashiCorp Vault and Azure Key Vault, allowing for secure and automated credential synchronization without additional management effort. The release notes also announce the end-of-support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 for RUM data and the discontinuation of Session Replay masking v1, urging users to update to newer versions to maintain functionality. Additionally, the update includes improvements in distributed tracing terminology, enhancements to Log Monitoring documentation, and default resource limits for Kubernetes/OpenShift to optimize ActiveGate performance. New features such as burn rate visualization for service-level objectives, a transition to Settings 2.0 for Cloud Foundry, and the ability to manage anomaly detection for disks via the Settings API are introduced. The update also resolves 32 issues, including a vulnerability fix, and provides enhancements to the Data Explorer, Kubernetes monitoring, and API functionalities for AWS and Azure services.

Dynatrace emphasizes diversity and inclusion as integral to its mission of simplifying modern cloud complexity and accelerating digital transformation, evident in its 12-month partnership with Girls in Tech Australia. This collaboration involves Dynatrace's participation in events like the Girls in Tech Australia Conference and community-based volunteering to inspire and engage women in tech across Australia. The partnership follows Dynatrace's involvement in the Hacking for Humanity hackathon, which focused on solving climate issues, underscoring the company's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. By fostering an inclusive workplace and establishing new employee resource groups, such as Women of Dynatrace in APAC, the company aims to support unique interests and initiatives, reinforcing its reputation as a responsible organization that values diversity as a key to its success and the broader ecosystem.

Dynatrace enhances its log monitoring capabilities by transforming numerical log attributes into metrics for AI-driven problem detection and root cause analysis, which aids DevOps teams in minimizing alert noise and reducing mean time to recovery (MTTR) during incidents. The platform now supports log data from various sources, including Kubernetes, multicloud platforms like AWS, GCP, and Azure, and open-source log frameworks, allowing for the automation of anomaly detection and analysis through its AI engine, Davis. By turning log data into metrics, Dynatrace enables comprehensive monitoring of system performance and business metrics, breaking down data silos and providing insights into real-user behavior and infrastructure performance. The platform’s automation features, such as automated thresholding and multidimensional baselining, eliminate the need for manual monitoring and adjustments, offering a scalable solution for modern enterprises. Users can start with a free trial to explore these capabilities, utilizing the log ingestion API and custom metric creation to integrate meaningful insights into their workflows.

As healthcare increasingly digitizes, the adoption of AIOps observability has become essential for IT teams to automatically identify and resolve issues, thereby enhancing patient care. The push towards digital experiences, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has seen healthcare organizations transition from paper records to electronic health records and further embrace cloud technology for improved efficiency, quality, and security. Despite the benefits, challenges such as system complexity, security threats, and compliance with regulations like HIPAA remain. AIOps, introduced by Gartner in 2016, leverages artificial intelligence to manage IT operations, offering two main approaches: traditional AIOps, which uses machine learning for event correlation, and causal AIOps, which employs deterministic AI for precise root cause analysis. Healthcare organizations, such as Dynatrace customers, have successfully implemented AIOps to ensure continuous care and enhance digital platforms, thereby improving patient and customer experiences. As the industry navigates ongoing complexities, the adoption of modern AIOps observability approaches is critical for driving efficiency, innovation, and better outcomes in patient care.

Dynatrace Managed version 1.238 introduces several upgrades and enhancements, including an upgrade to Cassandra 3.11.12 for better performance and resilience, and the adoption of JRE 8u322 for Cassandra and Elasticsearch, alongside JRE 11.0.14 for other components. The release notes highlight changes in operating systems support, with several Linux distributions scheduled to lose support between 2022 and 2026. This version also addresses numerous resolved issues across various components, such as Application Security, Autonomous Cloud, and Infrastructure monitoring solution, each receiving updates to improve functionality, security, and performance. Notable fixes include corrections in USQL query support, cloud automation solutions, and cluster management, while cumulative updates ensure the inclusion of all previous patches. Enhanced security measures have been implemented, particularly in vulnerability management and user list privacy, and issues related to memory usage, disk analytics, and service data visibility have been resolved to optimize user experience and system stability.

International Women's Day 2022 marked a significant moment for women at Dynatrace, highlighting their ongoing struggle for equity and inclusion and celebrating their achievements in breaking biases. The company has actively participated in this global initiative by launching "Dynaspace," a space dedicated to empowering minority groups, including women. This year, Dynatrace hosted its inaugural Women in Tech panel at their Perform 2022 conference, featuring influential female leaders who shared their experiences and inspired others. The event received an enthusiastic response from employees, customers, and families, emphasizing the importance of representation and mentorship. The Dynaspace for Women has grown significantly, launching various initiatives like a career mentorship program and an EMEA chapter, while also contributing to Dynatrace's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. The overarching theme of "Break the Bias" encourages individuals to question their involvement in fostering inclusive environments and emphasizes the importance of ERGs in promoting equity and representation.

At Dynatrace Perform 2022, Dynatrace introduced several significant enhancements aimed at empowering development, operations, and security teams to deliver higher quality and more secure software rapidly. Key announcements included the introduction of "software intelligence as code," which encompasses comprehensive observability, application security, and advanced AIOps capabilities, thereby allowing teams to manage complex cloud environments effectively. The platform's observability has been extended to multicloud serverless architectures, supporting AWS Lambda, Microsoft Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions, and managed Kubernetes environments, among others, to aid DevOps and SRE teams in optimizing serverless applications. Additionally, Dynatrace advanced its Application Security Module with real-time automatic attack detection and blocking to counter critical vulnerabilities such as Log4Shell, enhancing DevSecOps automation. Furthermore, the launch of the DevSecOps Automation Partner Program combines leading partner solutions with Dynatrace's capabilities to form a closed-loop automation system, streamlining integrations and enhancing security measures.

Dynatrace has decided to suspend all business operations in Russia and Belarus in response to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which has led to a humanitarian crisis and resulted in sanctions from the U.S., E.U., and other global governments. The company feels a strong moral obligation to join the international community in pressuring Russia to cease its aggression against Ukraine. Acknowledging the widespread impact on Russian citizens, many of whom oppose the conflict, Dynatrace stands in solidarity with those affected and has made donations to the International Committee of the Red Cross and UNICEF to help alleviate the resulting hardships.

The commissioned study by Forrester Consulting on the Total Economic Impact (TEI) of the Dynatrace platform highlights significant business benefits and a substantial return on investment for organizations deploying the tool. The research, which included customer interviews and financial analysis, reveals that a composite organization could achieve benefits worth $20.16 million and a 274% ROI over three years, with a payback period of under six months. Interviewed customers lauded Dynatrace for its ability to accelerate software innovation, improve DevOps efficiency by 40%, and enhance operational efficiency through advanced AIOps, which reduced false-positive alerts by 95%. The platform's capabilities in observing complex cloud environments, offering intelligent root-cause analysis, and facilitating automation in service operations were emphasized as key advantages. Additionally, the platform contributed to better customer experiences, reducing churn rates by 4% and boosting retention and net promoter scores. Dynatrace's Chief Marketing Officer, Mike Maciag, underscored the platform's role in enabling digital transformation, providing precise insights, and supporting a wide array of industries in overcoming innovation barriers.

The OneAgent release version 1.235 introduces several new features, enhancements, and resolved issues aimed at improving performance and compatibility across various platforms. Key updates include support for TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks, .NET Core on Linux ARM64, and Node.js 17, as well as enhanced tracing capabilities for IBM App Connect Enterprise and z/OS environments. The release also addresses stability issues by introducing a stable process ID calculation for IMS SOAP Gateway and CICS Transaction Gateway. Furthermore, it announces future changes in operating system support, highlights resolved issues across components such as infrastructure monitoring, plugins, and web servers, and improves security by restricting access to certain configuration files. Installation processes are streamlined, with an upgrade now reusing existing Winpcap/Npcap installations to avoid unnecessary reinstallation.

The newly released Dynatrace GitHub Action allows DevOps teams to enhance their CI/CD workflows by providing real-time observability and insights into pipeline performance. This integration helps detect and remediate deployment outages more efficiently, offering a seamless way to monitor the health of software release pipelines and quickly identify and address faulty deployments. GitHub Actions, which automate and customize software development workflows, can be complex, but by incorporating the Dynatrace Action, teams can collect valuable metrics on build and deployment processes. This data aids in evaluating pipeline quality and understanding the frequency and causes of build failures, allowing for early intervention to prevent critical issues in production. The Dynatrace GitHub Action is part of the company's open-source initiative, and it integrates seamlessly with Dynatrace's monitoring environment to provide detailed insights and root-cause analysis, particularly during large-scale incidents, through its Davis AIOps. This integration enables DevOps teams to maintain high-quality standards for their pipelines and swiftly react to any decrease in code quality or deployment issues.

Dynatrace has released beta versions of its OneAgent SDK for C/C++, Java, and Node.js, and initiated an early access program for Python, allowing users to extend AI-based root cause analysis across more languages and frameworks. A new feature of the SDK is the ability to capture custom request attributes, which are key/value pairs associated with service requests, enhancing data filtering and charting capabilities. Request attributes can be defined from various data sources, including web request data and method arguments, and are supported in Java, Node.js, and C/C++ SDKs, with Python support forthcoming. Users can configure these attributes via Dynatrace's web UI, allowing for advanced functionalities like web-request naming rules, error detection, and custom analysis charts. The feature requires specific Dynatrace SaaS or Managed cluster versions and OneAgent versions. Future updates include early access for .NET SDK, continuous improvements, and a general availability release. The OneAgent SDK is open source, inviting user contributions and feedback through GitHub and AnswerHub.