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AppDynamics

Harness CV integrates with AppDynamics to:

  • Verify that the deployed service is running safely and perform automatic rollbacks.
  • Apply machine learning to every deployment to identify and flag anomalies in future deployments.

This topic covers how to add and configure AppDynamics as a Health Source for the Verify step.

important

Harness supports AppDynamics metrics for applications. However, Harness doesn't support user experience metrics for browsers or mobile apps.

Before You Begin​

Add AppDynamics as a verification provider

Review: CV Setup Options​

To use the Verify step, you will need a Harness Monitored Service. In the simplest terms, a Monitored Service is basically a mapping of a Harness Service to a service monitored by your APM or logging tool.

You can set up a Monitored Service in the Verify step in a CD stage.

There are other ways to set up a Monitored Service. To learn more see: Monitored Service

In this topic we'll set up the Monitored Service as part of the Verify step.

Step 1: Add Verify Step​

There are two ways to add the Verify step:

  • When selecting the stage deployment strategy:
    The Verify step can be enabled in a CD stage the first time you open the Execution settings and select the deployment strategy. When you select the deployment strategy you want to use, there is also an Enable Verification option. Select the Enable Verification option.
    Harness will automatically add the Verify step. For example, here is a stage where Canary strategy and the Enable Verification option were selected.
  • Add the Verify step to an existing Execution setup: You can also add the Verify step to the Execution section of a CD stage in a Pipeline you previously created. Simply click Add Step after the deployment step, and then select Verify.

Step 2: Enter Name and Timeout​

In Name, enter a name for the step.

In Timeout, enter a timeout value for the step.

You can use:

  • w for weeks
  • d for days
  • h for hours
  • m for minutes
  • s for seconds
  • ms for milliseconds

The maximum is 53w. Timeouts can be set at the Pipeline level also.

Configure node filtering​

note

Currently, this feature is behind the feature flag CV_UI_DISPLAY_NODE_REGEX_FILTER. Contact Harness Support to enable the feature.

The node filtering feature allows you to select specific nodes within your Kubernetes environment using the PodName label. This allows for focused analysis, enabling you to choose specific nodes as service instances for in-depth analysis.

Harness CV autonomously identifies new nodes as they are added to the cluster. However, the node filtering feature allows you to focus the analysis explicitly on the nodes that you want to analyze. Imagine you have a Kubernetes cluster with multiple nodes, and you want to analyze the performance of pods running on specific nodes. You want to analyze the nodes that match a certain naming pattern.

Procedure:

  1. On the Verify settings page, expand Optional to navigate to the node filtering settings section.

  2. (Optional) Select Use node details from CD if you want Harness CV to collect and analyze the metrics and log details for the recently deployed nodes.

  3. Specify the Control Nodes and Test Nodes:

    • Control Nodes: These are the nodes against which the test nodes are compared. You can specify the control nodes to provide a baseline for analysis.

    • Test Nodes: These are the nodes that Harness CV evaluates and compares against the control nodes.

    To specify the Control Nodes and Test Nodes, in one of the following ways:

    • Type node names: Enter the names of specific nodes you want to include in the analysis.

    • Use simple patterns (Regex): Define a regular expression pattern to match the nodes you want to filter. For example, if your nodes follow a naming convention such as "node-app-1", "node-app-2", and so on, you could use a pattern such as "node-app-*" to include all nodes with names starting with "node-app-".

    Example: Let's say you want Harness CV to analyze the only nodes that have "backend" in their PodName label:

    1. In the Control Nodes field, enter "backend-control-node" as the control node.

    2. In the Test Nodes field, enter the pattern "backend-*" to include all nodes with names starting with "backend-".

Step 3: Select a Continuous Verification Type​

In Continuous Verification Type, select a type that matches your deployment strategy.

Step 4: Create a Monitored Service​

In Monitored Service, click Click to autocreate a monitored service.

Harness automatically creates a monitored service using a concatenation of the service and environment names. For example, a service named todolist and an environment named dev results in a monitored service with the name todolist_dev.

note

The option to auto-create a monitored service is not available if you have configured either a service, an environment, or both as runtime values. When you run the pipeline, Harness concatenates the service and environment values you enter in the runtime inputs screen and generates a monitored service name. If a monitored service with the same name exists, Harness assigns it to the pipeline. If no monitored service that matches the generated monitored service name exists, Harness skips the verification step.

For example, suppose you enter the service as todolist and the environment as dev. In that case, Harness generates the monitored service name todolist_dev, checks whether a monitored service with the name todolist_dev is available, and assigns it to the pipeline. If no monitored service is available with the name todolist_dev, Harness skips the verification step.

Step 5: Add Health Sources​

This option is available only if you have configured the service and environment as fixed values.

A Health Source is basically a mapping of a Harness Service to the service in a deployment environment monitored by an APM or logging tool.

In Health Sources, click Add. The Add New Health Source settings appear.

  1. In Select health source type, select AppDynamics.

  2. In Health Source Name, enter a name for the Health Source.

  3. Under Connect Health Source, click Select Connector.

  4. In Connector settings, you can either choose an existing connector or click New Connector.

  5. Click Apply Selected. The Connector is added to the Health Source.

  6. In Select Feature, select the APM or logging tool component to use.

  7. Click Next and Customize Health Source settings appear.

    The subsequent settings in Customize Health Source depend on the Health Source Type you selected. You can customize the metrics to map the Harness Service to the monitored environment. In Applications & Tiers, enter the following details:

  8. In Find an AppDynamics application enter the name of the application and select an option from the list.

  9. In Find an AppDynamics tier enter a tier name from which you want usage metrics, code exceptions, error conditions, or exit calls.

  10. In Metric Packs select the metrics you want Harness to monitor. Errors and Performance are selected by default.

  11. In Custom Metrics (optional), click Add Metric to add any other metric to be monitored.

  12. In Query Specifications and Mapping, you can customize the query to get the desired output and map it to a Harness Service.

  13. In Map Metric(s) to Harness Services, in Metric Name enter a name for the metric.

  14. In Group Name, enter a group name of the metric.

  15. In AppDynamics Path, you can either provide the complete metric path in Specify a complete metric path, or provide the base path of the AppDynamics metric in Select the path from the AppD metric.

  16. In Assign, you can select the services for which you want to apply the metric. Available options are:

  • Continuous Verification
  • Health Score
  • SLI
  1. In Risk Category, select a risk type from the list.
  2. In Deviation Compared to Baseline, select one of the options based on the selected risk type.
  3. Click Submit. The Health Source is displayed in the Verify step.

You can add one or more Health Sources for each APM or logging provider.### Step 6: Select Sensitivity

In Sensitivity, select High, Medium, or Low based on the risk level used as failure criteria during the deployment.

Step 7: Select Duration​

Select how long you want Harness to analyze and monitor the logs/APM data points. Harness waits for 2-3 minutes to allow enough time for the data to be sent to the APM/logging tool before it analyzes the data. This wait time is a standard with monitoring tools.

The recommended Duration is 10 min for logging providers and 15 min for APM and infrastructure providers.### Step 8: Specify Artifact Tag

In Artifact Tag, use a Harness expression

The expression <+serviceConfig.artifacts.primary.tag> refers to the primary artifact.

Option: Advanced Settings​

In Advanced, you can select the following options:

Step 9: Deploy and Review Results​

When you are done setting up the Verify step, click Apply Changes.

Now you can run the Pipeline. Click Run.

In Run Pipeline, select the tag for the artifact if a tag was not added in the Artifact Details settings.

Click Run Pipeline.

When the Pipeline is running, click the Verify step.

You can see that the verification takes a few minutes.

Once verification is complete, the Verify step shows the following:

The risk level might initially display a number of violations, but the red and orange colored host often change to green over the duration.

Summary​

The Summary section shows how many metrics and logs are in violation.

Console View​

Click Console View or simply click View Details in Summary to take a deeper look at verification.

If you have more than one Health Source, you can use the View dropdown to select each one.

Set a pinned baseline​

note

Currently, this feature is behind the feature flag SRM_ENABLE_BASELINE_BASED_VERIFICATION. Contact Harness Support to enable the feature.

You can set specific verification in a successful pipeline execution as a baseline. This is available with Load Testing as the verification type.

Set successful verification as a baseline​

To set a verification as baseline for future verifications:

  1. In Harness, go to Deployments, select Pipelines, and find the pipeline you want to use as the baseline.

  2. Select the successful pipeline execution with the verification that you want to use as the baseline.

    The pipeline execution is displayed.

  3. On the pipeline execution, navigate to the Verify section, and then select Pin baseline.

    The selected verification is now set as the baseline for future verifications.

Replace an existing pinned baseline​

To use a new baseline from a pipeline and replace the existing pinned baseline, follow these steps:

  1. In Harness, go to Deployments, select Pipelines, and find the pipeline from which you want to remove the baseline.

  2. Select the successful pipeline execution with the verification that you have previously pinned as the baseline.

  3. On the pipeline execution, navigate to the Verify section, and then select Pin baseline.

    A confirmation alert message appears, asking if you want to replace the existing pinned baseline with the current verification. After you confirm, the existing pinned baseline gets replaced with the current verification.