AppDynamics Database Monitoring Reviews

We're a partner and reseller for AppDynamics. We had a bank that we had to monitor from start to finish. We did the bank, and I then moved on to another product, but one of my mates is still busy working with AppDynamics.

Most of it was on-prem. We did some product testing on the cloud, but the client at that stage didn't have much on the cloud. Connecting to a cloud was quite simple as well.

Knowing which tables on the database were working the most was valuable. It helped the client understand where they need to focus. They streamlined a lot of their queries and brought the resource usage down. It helped them to find long-running queries. They rewrote them completely so that they don't take as long and the application performs better.

The synthetic scripting for end-user monitoring could be a little bit broader. Instead of using just Python, they can include a few other languages so that not everyone has to jump on the bandwagon for Python and do Selenium scripting. They can open up that a bit to make it simpler for people to do the scripting.

On the dashboarding side, it's very difficult to do dashboards on the database portion because they don't let you include a lot of the elements in dashboards. They should give a bit more functionality and add more views from the database side. Other than that, all the clients I've worked with are very happy with it. It had everything they needed. No one had any complaints. Only on the application portion, do people get very confused if they're not tech-savvy, but on the database side, you usually work with tech-savvy people. So, the database and the elements are great.

I have been using this solution since 2018 or so. It has been four years.

It is very stable.

If you got the on-prem resource, it's very easy to scale out. If you have the full server resources that you need, scalability is very easy.

In terms of its usage, within the bank, its adoption was very difficult. People didn't adopt it very well, but in one of the telecoms, the adoption rate was very good. They had a team of two to three people managing close to 150 users. It was very straightforward to manage.

I have worked with an IBM solution previously. The main pro of AppDynamics Database Monitoring is user-friendliness. It was very easy to click around and say to the clients that this is what they need. It was all clearly visible and easy to navigate.

On the database side, it was very straightforward. I don't have a lot of database experience, but installing it on them was straightforward. It just takes the information from the sites, manipulates it, runs it as a query, creates the user, and gives it permissions. It is very easy. The only one I struggled with was the IBM Db2 because the bank had very strict permissions to get around, and that wasn't as easy.

It could be a bit lower, but looking at the scalability, functionality, and other things, you can understand why AppDynamics is so expensive as compared to some of the cheaper products that don't have that full single pane of glass they've got. Dynatrace has got three different elements that you need to log into just to get a full view, which is not so good, and because of that, it is a bit cheaper.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We use this solution for database monitoring, application processing, and performance monitoring. Within our business unit, there are hundreds of people using this solution.

AppDynamics was implemented to help us with some performance issues. I'm not a big fan in terms of other features compared to some of the other tools that we use, but when it comes to end-user monitoring (where you want to capture or trend back business transactions, or where you want to really view the performance of the tools), It's not just good in terms of managing your production system, but some of the developers use it to tackle performance issues and get ahead. 

The application performance monitoring when it comes to code (especially Java code), is really amazing.

The key feature of AppDynamics where it really helps us is instrumentation and database monitoring. 

The user interface is also good.

The challenges that we face are all performance based, relating to business transactions, not database monitoring.

I have been using this solution for a couple of years.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is very stable.

The scalability could be improved. There is a limitation in terms of the technology that can be supported. For Example, if you want to implement through Java, that is pretty seamless.

The amount of configuration you get there is actually quite low, so you can pretty much go ahead. However, if you're implementing C++ applications, I think it's going to be very difficult.

We have an enterprise tooling team of our own. We actually don't support the product internally; however, there are some consultants from AppDynamics who join us from time to time to help us whenever we experience issues that we need help dealing with.

The installation was quite straightforward. Simply deploy the agent to start coding the data to the controller, and it will do the rest.

Deployment took less than an hour or two. It's best to have the help of expert staff, but if you don't, just follow the instructions.

We deployed this solution on our own with a maintenance team of eight to ten people.

I would recommend this solution to other companies. On a scale from one to ten, I would give AppDynamics Database Monitoring a rating of eight. To be honest, it's a fantastic product.

We are currently using AppDynamics Database Monitoring on-premise but we are migrating to the cloud.

We are using AppDynamics Database Monitoring to understand where the long queries are, and how your applications are performing against the database. You can actually see whether it's a database issue or if it's an application issue. Additionally, you can run explain plans against it, to see which queries need to be optimized.

I have found some of the valuable features of AppDynamics Database Monitoring to be once the installation is complete, you are able to quickly start receiving metrics, which is great. The user interface is also very user-friendly.

I have found it sometimes a bit difficult to trace the transaction all the way through to the application. I'm not sure if that problem is on the database side or on the application side, but that would be something that I would like to be improved. The traceability from the application to the database, sometimes, is a bit of a challenge. If you're using AppDynamics, with the Java agent, for instance, you need to be able to trace it through.

I have been using AppDynamics Database Monitoring for approximately six years.

The solution is highly stable.

We have more than 100 people using the solution in my organization. We have plans to increase the usage of the solution in the future.

The installation is easy. It would take about an hour and a half maximum to do the installation because you need connectivity to the database itself. It was more a connectivity problem than it was an actual APM installation issue.

I am able to do the installation myself.

There is an annual cost for the use of this solution.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring an eight out of ten.

The most valuable feature is the view it gives me about the wait states in the database. It shows me the snapshots for the database queries; some of the details behind what might be contending on the database if there's an issue. I think that's really insightful for the applications that we use. That's pretty helpful and beneficial for troubleshooting.

The biggest benefit we have found is that we are quickly able to identify the root cause, especially if it's in the database layer. We also use AppDynamics on the app layer as well. It quickly helps us get to the root cause. That's been the number one benefit of using it.

I definitely want to see some drill down capabilities, especially at the database layer, because the snapshot gives me up to a certain point where I can see the wait states. I can't really see at that particular point in time, a certain SQL was causing the issue in a real time basis, and I can alert someone on that basis. I definitely want to see some drill down capabilities at that layer.

I've seen some demos of the upcoming capabilities such as doing monitoring at the network layer. And then the EUM, the end user monitoring; I definitely will be looking forward to using those in the future.

I haven’t given it a perfect rating due to the future capabilities, which are definitely coming.

So far, we have not found any instability caused by AppDynamics APM. We have had instances where, just to eliminate possible causes of issues, we have turned off AppDynamics, but it has never caused us issues with the database being either slow or going down.

We haven't really had the need to scale it. We're in the early part of the journey in our AppDynamics deployment, but we will soon be going there. We still have to get to that point.

We have used technical support a couple of times. When we had the new release, the deployments were not as smooth as we thought. I think we had to engage the AppDynamics engineer, and a couple of times for the configuration that we just did not know. It was probably a training issue more than anything else. Other than that, it's been self-sufficient as far as we can tell.

Tech support were really helpful. We have a good partnership with AppDynamics. That's what we appreciate because they understand how my company works, the culture, the scope and the ecosystem. We really like it, having that partnership.

We run a lot of third-party packages, and we fly blind to what happens inside. We have tons and tons of logs. To go through those whenever we have an issue takes days or weeks. It's a similar story, I think, across the board. For us, though, the applications being so critical, we need to get to a root cause and fix it. Until that point, before we had AppDynamics, it was a constant back and forth with the software vendors. With this tool, since we’ve had it and have been able to pinpoint where the issue is, we can get on to the root cause really quickly.

The initial setup was kind of different and new. I wouldn't describe it as complex. Once we had the person from AppDynamics sitting next to us, we could quickly get to it.

There weren’t really any other companies we looked at before we chose AppDynamics. In our company, we have another tool that they use. I think AppDynamics is quickly picking it up. But we as a group never looked at any other tool.

In general, when I look at working with a vendor, the capabilities in the product is definitely the most important criteria. That's number one. The second thing is, as I’ve mentioned, if you have a good partnership and a good representative from the vendor side who can represent your issues to the product teams and get those features in. I think that's kind of critical for us.

If colleagues looking to implement database monitoring asked me for advice, I would definitely advise them to look at this APM tool, first of all. Then, basically just work with the engineers initially and get self-sufficient with the tool. And spend some time with the tool. If it's a training issue, get some training on the tool itself.

As long as they know their space, they know their infrastructure, they know their database ecosystem, it should be pretty easy.

We use the AppDynamics database monitoring plus the APM on the app side right now.

We are using many business applications, and the backend databases are very critical for them. So, everybody's using AppDynamics Database Monitoring.

The good thing with AppDynamics Databases is that it will give you a pretty good overview of the data, all the database-like tables, long-running queries, jobs running on the databases, and the queries that are taking more time. So, it's at a deeper level with all the database functionalities, and you will get that information. So, it's a pretty good tool in that sense.

It could be more user-friendly for beginners.

I have been using AppDynamics Database Monitoring for six months.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is relatively stable.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is a scalable solution. We are monitoring over 200 applications.

Technical support is okay. 

On a scale from one to five, I would give technical support a four.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. The thing is, it has some prerequisites. That means you need to get some prerequisite access. Once the database team is done, it's pretty easy to configure. You can deploy this solution within an hour or two.

We have a license-based solution. That means you need a license for each server you monitor.

I would tell potential users that AppDynamics Database Monitoring is not just for database monitoring. If you need to monitor your entire application stack, for example, you need to monitor how that website is performing at the backend or how applications are performing. Infrastructure monitoring means everything has to be monitored and is offered in the bundles. 

That's what AppDynamics does. It's like an application performance monitoring solution. If you need to monitor all this and use all these capabilities, then AppDynamics is a very good solution.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give AppDynamics Database Monitoring an eight.

The best feature is the live view in database monitoring because you can see exactly what's going on. As soon as you know there is something wrong with your database, you can go and see which query it is. We were trying to do that for some time. We would contact the DBA, but by the time you do that, the query is gone. That's the best thing about it.

It's still in UAT, but we saw that most of the third-party products are running some queries that we don't have any visibility into. Now, we have access to the database view, live view. We can see which queries are taking a long time. We can go back to the vendor and we can tell them, “You need to do something about this. Why is it taking such a long time?” Then, they will recommend something, to do some maintenance on the DB, or they might give us a patch or something. So, this product helps.

At a recent conference, I saw the log analytics, and I was very impressed with it. We are not going to use it, but I would like to see how that works out and whether it can be of any use with our applications. That is one thing I'm looking forward to if it comes to us, and if we get to implement that.

The way it was explained in the presentation is that we can actually correlate a particular event and we can see all of the aspects: on the database side, what happened at the time; in an application; and from the end user perspective – that holdup that you get in the one place by just a simple query. That's very interesting.
One thing for which we didn't get a clear answer is how taxing or how much overhead it can create on a database. We were told that the remote monitoring is the best way to do it. However, sometimes we have databases located across data centers that might be thousands of miles apart. That is something which I might want to see in the documentation: What are the specific recommendations about over WAN, within country? How they want to implement it?

I would rate the product higher if they improved the documentation.

Stability-wise, it looks good. We have not seen any abrupt crashes or anything like that. It's pretty stable.

We used technical support once. We applied a new license, and it was not getting connected. We contacted them, and they gave us a very standard document. We just used that ourselves. It wasn’t even on the phone. We just used that, and it was very easy to do it.

I joined the company after they started using the solution. They asked me to evaluate it, it is. We were evaluating it in our team. We kind of liked it. And then we went forward.

I come from a customer service background. I worked at BMC Software before. In general, when I’m looking to work with a vendor, the first thing is that you need to be very prompt with the responses, because the customer expectations are very high. The answers need to be very clear. Sometimes, with some other vendors, we ask them something and they just keep asking for logs.

I was working on a case. I won't name them, but they asked for the same log three times. It took a week just to get them the logs. We were like, "You could have asked for all of the three steps in first email." When we are opening a case or have to deal with customer support, they need to first talk to us, understand what the problem is. Most of the customer support representatives, they try to deal with everything by email. They need to understand that if it's a severity 2 or severity 1 issue, you should get on the phone and discuss the whole thing. Then, accordingly, you can start troubleshooting or asking questions. That's what my expectation is because I worked on the other side. I know what I’m looking for.

Just implement it. I've never seen anything like this, so I would tell everyone, “You should try this.”

One thing that everyone needs to understand: If APM is for their application or not. That's the most important part. If you think that you have a lot of deadlocks, or something is happening with your application, and you're spending months figuring it out, then APM is the only way you can sort this thing out.

I've seen some presentations. They were very impressive. There was one case from healthcare. They were saying that they were investigating an issue for 18 months. They rolled out AppDynamics. In 36 hours, they got their root cause. That's impressive.

I was just doing a UAT for something. We were running some jobs and suddenly everything froze. We went to AppDynamics, and we saw that one query was taking everything on the database. It's very transparent in that way. It's one of the best database monitoring solution I've ever seen.

My company uses other AppDynamics products, but I belong to a different line of business. We are looking into it. We are going to use the machine agent and the app agent, especially the .NET and Java agents.

We primarily use the solution for database monitoring. We also have defense solutions available to monitor the database performance. We use AppDynamics in our pipeline.

The feature that is most valuable to us is the snapshot feature. It allows us to get a snapshot of different SQL scripts that are being executed simultaneously and we can identify everything we need on them.

The solution offers good monitoring.

I'm only working as an administrator on the solution, so I'm not in a position to really discuss too many technical aspects of it. 

The application monitoring needs improvement. It needs to be easier for someone who isn't a proficient developer. 

For example, if we use Java for monitoring events to gather history-based data in regards to the application, it should provide a better core-controller. When we monitor any Java application, the approach for us is to identify a set of classes as part of Java programming. These particular classes needs to be executed so any end-user using AppDynamics would be able to see the culprit class. There shouldn't be a need for a final report. Yet, we don't have a feature like that at this time. A person who is monitoring everything needs to have very good knowledge about the solution and not everyone is a proficient programmer.

I've been using the solution for two years.

I haven't personally faced any issues with scaling. However, we have a limited number of licenses available. We've been allocated four licenses to monitor four different items. Therefore, I don't have the availability to scale currently.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The initial implementation is quite simple. It takes about one day to fully set everything up. However, sometimes we have compatibility issues. For example, AppDynamics is compatible with the C language.

Our sales team initiates the AppDynamics license and then an internal team handles the events around implementation. We have a good team available from Citrix as well.

The solution we are using is SaaS-based. The controller is deployed on the cloud, and we have integrated different Linux environments with it. There are a couple of Java agents as well as machine engines and a DB agent that we utilize.

I don't have too much interaction with the teams that handle the solution, so I don't know if I have any advice to give other companies in relation to implementation. I don't have too much exposure when it comes to database monitoring and am not overly familiar with the application itself.

I'd rate it at least a six out of ten based on my experience with the solution so far. I only use limited features for Oracle database monitoring. 

I use AppDynamics Database Monitoring to monitor application performance.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring's dashboarding is its best feature.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring would be improved with more support for microservices architecture.

I've been working with AppDynamics Database Monitoring for one year.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is less stable than Dynatrace.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is scalable.

The initial setup was easy, and deployment took around two days.

We used an in-house team.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is widely used, so it's given us some ROI.

I recommend choosing Dynatrace over AppDynamics Database Monitoring as it's easier to use. I would rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring seven out of ten.