Splunk AppDynamics Reviews

Auto-integration with applications and how easy it is to identify errors/issues are the most valuable features for this product.

Along with APM, we use End User Monitoring; I personally use it. We have a unique business model where at the end of the month there is a peak in usage. This product helps us to monitor that usage and makes sure that we target issues even before they occur.

We were using the New Relic solution before AppDynamics and had a lot of issues for configuring it and making it suitable for our use. However, AppDynamics was very easy to configure. We were able to deploy it within a month and get real benefits from this product just within a 6 week to 2 month span of time. So that was the main reason we went for AppDynamics.

For example if I remember correctly, the end of every month is like a war zone for us. Since we have implemented this solution, it is going smooth and we are getting positive feedback from customers, consultants and everybody else. It has changed our life.

Further integrations with other monitoring systems would be very helpful. I want to see it interacting more with the infrastructure, to get more statistics and details from our infrastructure environment and not only applications.

It's fairly stable. I don't think I have seen any issues occur since we have implemented this product.

However, my team needs more training and familiarization with how to setup custom features.

Now we are using the Auto Scaling functionality with AWS. It was very easy to install again. We are not using it for all our applications and AWS but we are in the process of applying it.

We haven't used any technical support yet; we use a partner who helps us to deploy and stabilize the system. We haven't used this tool for a long time to need actual technical support.

We are all part of the community where we post questions, get answers and have access to a lot of resources there so support would be great.

I wasn't part of the selection of this tool but as soon as I came to know that this is the solution our organization had picked, I supported this decision a hundred percent.

I was managing the team that deploys it. I wasn't involved in the selection of the solution but as soon as I came to know that this is the tool we are selecting, I supported it.

We implemented it and had no issues since we have a vendor that supports us in the initial deployment efforts.

AppDynamics is a unique system. It depends on the environment that you are in. It is probably applicable to any kind of company but if you don't know how to configure it correctly or how to use it and get all the details that you want from it, it may not be your best solution. You might go with a much smaller scale solution but for any enterprise organization, this is the best solution you can implement.

We still haven’t implemented this APM tool completely in all our applications.

We like the ability to drill down into the method level to identify where the real issue is, as other tools just show the slowness at the transaction level only. We also like its database monitoring which gives almost everything to us for identifying any performance issues with the database. It is certainly not a legacy monitoring tool to monitor the database, it should be looked at as a database performance monitoring tool.

We are still in the POC phase and are trying to implement it by adopting some of the best practices. I am sure if and when it is fully implemented, developers will love this tool as their life will be easier.

AppDynamics should add more features to identify in case if there is some thread waiting for something. We are keenly looking for this feature. We would like to see the traffic on F5 load balancers in the flow map which make the entry points in an application, Currently only custom exit points can be created for non-instrumented nodes. Also if AppDynamics are trying to be only a monitoring tool, then they really need to add lot of stuff to the infrastructure monitoring and heavy correlation features are required to identify the real issues within and outside of business app. We can't blame the code for slowness of the overall application every time, as the network and servers are all equally important. Other tools like HP BSM provide great features to map everything in a service map.

This tool is very easy to implement and setup when compared to other tools. Agent installations and instrumentation are also extremely easy.

It's very easy to scale when compared to other tools.

We have compared this product to Bluestripe APM. We like its mapping of the business application mapping which shows how each tier of the application talk to another ones and also to the backend-like database, MQ, external interfaces, etc. It’s a very easy to understand tool which could be easily understood by a newbie also.

One piece of advice I would like to give others is that you need to first identify how you want to map your business application in the AppDynamics flow map. If there are multiple pieces in an application talking to each other, then best practice is to put everything together in one business application to see how those pieces talk to each other. Secondly, you need to identify the most important business transactions that you would like to monitor. Just include those and exclude everything else, as this way you can reduce the traffic and the amount of noise. Troubleshooting is easy when only key transactions are being monitored and not everything.

My clients use AppDynamics for monitoring the performance and behavior of applications, as well as detecting any signs of potential overload. It also allows them to identify when certain applications are not functioning as expected. Essentially, its primary purpose is to monitor and evaluate the behavior and performance of applications.

AppDynamics is aiding us with achieving full stack availability, which entails obtaining a comprehensive or holistic overview of the application's performance, sales, and behavior. In essence, the purpose of full stack availability is to provide a complete picture of what is happening with the application.

The most valuable feature of AppDynamics is Proactive Monitoring and Alerting.

The price of the solution could improve.

I have been using AppDynamics for approximately six years.

The solution is stable.

I rate the stability of AppDynamics a nine out of ten.

The scalability of AppDynamics is good.

I rate the scalability of AppDynamics an eight out of ten.

The support from the vendor is good.

I rate the support of AppDynamics a nine out of ten.

Positive

AppDynamics is what I would consider an enterprise-level solution. This means that it's a solution that is intended for use by larger organizations, while small or medium-sized businesses may find it difficult to afford. The number of agents required will also impact the pricing, and smaller companies may only be able to afford a limited number of agents. Essentially, the cost of the solution is not within the reach of every organization, and only some may be able to afford it.

My advice to others is this solution is fantastic if your business can afford it. It will help boost your business and IT.

I rate AppDynamics an eight out of ten.

From the perspective of the customer experience, the solution has been quite helpful for our company. Positive comments have been given, and no clients have opted out of our services for any reason. This has given us the option to think about including more agents in the remedy. Also, the capability that alerts users in advance of potential problems has improved the effectiveness of our IT employees. Despite hiring more employees, we haven't had any client abandonment, which proves that the solution is of the highest caliber and performing remarkably well. Also, it has helped us monitor apps more efficiently and fix any problems before they have an impact on end users.

We use the solution for performance monitoring such as latency testing to see how long it takes a customer to log in and complete their transaction. If we see any latency we look into the code to see what the issue is and correct it.

The solution has reduced the manual work involved in monitoring.

The solution helps us provide a better user experience to our customers.

The documentation and training material have room for improvement. Some of our people struggle with the onboarding process because there is a lack of documentation or videos.

I would like AppDynamics to become one unified monitoring solution that does not focus primarily on performance monitoring.

I am currently using the solution.

The solution is stable and we have not had any problems.

The solution is scalable. Once we have deployed the core installation it is easy to enhance the agent.

We have around 30 people using the solution.

We have a dedicated team in the bank that helps with the core installation. The deployment team has a lot of documentation to help with the implementation.

We have seen a return on investment with the solution.

The solution is costly. There is no standard license instead, the license is adapted to the organization's requirements.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

The maintenance is not difficult. We follow an auto-release process and most of the maintenance is completed by our central team.

I recommend the solution as long as it meets the organization's requirements.

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.

It is primarily on-premises. We've been evaluating cloud, and I've got one application that's using a cloud-based solution, but the bulk of it is on-premises.

The business transaction that stands between multiple applications is proving to be most valuable.

Its resiliency can be improved. We're told that the best we can do with an on-prem solution is to have a hot standby that requires a manual switchover. So, it is a do-it-yourself Ikea model of maintaining data consistency between two servers, without having low balance or failover considerations for an on-prem solution.

There are a lot of capabilities and features that I need on a day-to-day basis that just are not included in the product. I have seen these capabilities and features in multiple other solutions. For number one, it has to be FedRAMP certified. We've been working around that with security and everything else. So, we need a solution that is fully supported in a secure federal environment.

I have been using it heavily for about two and a half years.

It was complex. There is nothing simple about this type of instrumentation.

We had professional services from AppDynamics or Cisco for mostly on-prem expertise.

I would advise others to take a higher systems-level approach to understand exactly what is needed in the way of instrumentation and monitoring within your enterprise. You can have a point solution like AppDynamics, and this is the big picture of the entire data flow throughout the system.

I would rate AppDynamics a six out of 10.

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.

When you have a lot of AWS products running (and integrations connected to them) the only way you can monitor them is to have a system or automatic reporting. Cisco AppDynamics gives lots of "extensions" that collect metrics and feed them back to an AD controller so you can get a picture of health, usage, rules, and reporting.

It also works across environments from cloud to traditional, which means you don’t need something for AWS and then something for in-house products.

AWS was a new environment for a client and they used a series of extensions to show how the installation was performing and how changes impacted their setup, down the line. With sprawling cloud processes, it can be hard to see how your changes impact integrations, but AD really helps out with this.

Specifically, with the use of Cisco AD extensions, we were able to prove that a move from MySQL to Amazon Aurora sped up data retrieval. This meant a trial of Aurora was proven to be a success and led to a gradual phasing out of MySQL DBs.

The most valuable feature is the ability to take a report, and in particular, a visual, and link it to actual application performance and then the consequences. This means you can show how an incident or action has an effect on the business. This is invaluable for executive meetings, where it can sometimes be hard to link an event to an outcome, a month down the line. The bottom line is that it helps protect your bottom line.

The extensions can be edited in a simple config file so you can sculpt what you are getting.

It could do with more than one data centre/multiple AWS accounts in a pane of glass. Also, improved scalability to large environments would be helpful.

For me, it’s always support and training that need improvement, as both of these are crucial to using a product effectively. When there are so many features it would seem to be a benefit, but in reality that can be daunting.

We chose to procure this solution via the AWS Marketplace because you don’t need to buy physical hardware to use it.

I would rate the solution at nine out of ten because you can edit the config files easily and make the reports your own. Also, it supports loads of AWS products: S3, Elastic MapReduce, EC2, DynamoDB, ELB, RDS, Route 53, etc.