AppDynamics Database Monitoring Reviews

What we do in general is analysis on the application side. When we have slow SQL requests we jump on the database monitoring to see, for example, the total time the request has been pending in the database. We can solve SQL requests by their pending time. 

The explain plan is the solution's most valuable feature.

The database monitoring is quite simple.

An improvement could be if the monitoring was able to be summarized into something more clear and simple for people who don't have the technical skills on the database side.

The solution needs to have some prepared dashboards on the database. When we use AppDynamics we have a lot of screens and we have to jump from one screen to another. It would useful is if, on the database, monitoring required merely a click on a button and then you have the monitoring dashboard that you can display for easy access.

I've been using the solution for three years now.

The solution is very, very stable. We haven't faced any bugs or glitches on the system.

The solution does not offer good scalability. It's quite technical, but basically, when we have to monitor one database we have to check if our Java program allows for the amount of monitoring we need. If it doesn't, we'll need to restart and get more database agents and perhaps spend more money to scale.

We don't have a lot of users on the solution on the database monitoring portion. It might be as many as 20 people. They are software engineers and database admins.

We only use the solution occasionally when we suspect there are problems on the database side. It isn't used daily.

We create a lot of support tickets with AppDynamics. We've been using the solution for a few years now. The support is quite weak. There's a lot of back and forth, however, eventually, they give us decent solutions.

We didn't previously use a different solution.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not complex at all.

It only takes about 10 minutes to create the user on the database.

The initial setup is actually done in two parts. The first part is to create the user on the database that we want to monitor. This part is done by the database teams etc. The second part is handling the AppDynamics controller. This part is handled by me or someone on my team.

A company only needs one person to handle the maintenance once it is up and running.

We handled the implementation ourselves.

I'm not in charge of licensing. I don't know what the costs associated with it would be.

For me, the first recommendation I would have to other organizations considering implementation would be to have a person or people who have good skills on database monitoring. How AppDynamics works is basically just monitoring the metrics that already exist in the databases. These metrics are really technical metrics, so a company has to have some people that are really specialized in reading them. They need to have a good database administrator or database analyst in place.

I would rate the solution seven out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for monitoring the transactions of our user's in-app purchases. 

The most valuable aspect of the solution is the ability to discover and track transactions.

We also use Oracle Fusion and the actual tracing of your transactions on Oracle Fusion is difficult because they use an asynchronous type of tracking between the nodes. It makes it difficult for AppDynamics to track.

The user access management could be a bit better.

I've been using the solution for two years.

The stability has been good so far.

In terms of scalability, you may need a bit more resources in terms of hardware to scale the solution properly. The solution collects a lot of data, so you need a lot of capacity to handle it. However, if you are on the cloud, I believe there would be fewer restrictions. 

We have 50 people on the solution and we use it every day.

We've been very satisfied with technical support. Whenever we've had an issue they've been able to assist.

We previously used DynaTrace, but we switched to AppDynamics because the pricing was much more reasonable. DynaTrace was also not easy to implement. We needed someone who knew about how to code it.

The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment took about half a day.

We typically have a local supplier assist us with the implementation.

The pricing is very good. You get good value, especially if you compare it to DynaTrace.

We currently use the on-premises deployment model but we are in the process of moving over to the cloud.

The solution is a good tool. I'd advise others to use the cloud deployment model so that you don't need to worry so much about having enough infrastructure if you you want to scale.

I'd rate it eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution to check how the database is performing and to log and check queries.

The ability to identify the top running queries has been extremely valuable for us.

The monitoring of different schemas within the database could be improved. They should split the dashboard into different schemas, instead of having one.

Stability-wise, we experienced some performance issues when upgrading from 4.4 to 4.5. 

The solution is pretty easy to scale.

I'm not too happy with technical support.

We weren't previously using a different solution.

The initial setup was straightforward. It didn't take long; maybe about an hour.

We used an Enterprise Console List for the deployment.

We used an on-premises version of the solution.

I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. Technical support hasn't been too impressive so we ended up having to resolve our own issues. There are also a few challenges that we've had from a performance perspective when we upgraded from one version to the next.

That said, I would still recommend the solution.

AppDynamics allows users a complete application monitoring solution for making better products/applications.

It has definitely helped the trainees with using the tool in the best possible way for creating products and applications without any glitches or manageable glitches.

• Dashboard
• Reports
• Monitoring slow queries
• User experience management
• Business transaction breakdowns, and many more of its features.

• Synthetic monitoring of applications and products in a better way would help to improve the product better.
• More OOB reports also would help.

The primary use case of the solution is for end-to-end visibility for all applications we choose to monitor.

The solution is great for database monitoring. You don't have to install an agent on the database. You just install the server to a database agent. It's a good product for some database administration if you don't want to install an agent on the database for security. AppDynamics does not install directly on the database but can monitor core transactions.

If we have different applications with different language and databases from different vendors, or different versions, we are still able to monitor the performance and delay for all the applications and discover the root cause for delays.

The solution should add some monitoring similar to Oracle monitoring tools for databases. Oracle has a lot of features to monitor SQL queries, and make some recommendations to resolve them. AppDynamics is just monitoring for delays and doesn't provide any recommendations. It's a deficiency.

The stability of the solution is very good.

The solution is scalable.

Technical support from AppDynamics is excellent.

The initial setup was very easy. You do not have to install any agent for the database. You just take and install the server for database agents and it will take care of all the connections and transactions as well as the database. It makes for a very simple installation. We had four or five people that assisted in the implementation and currently, we have one engineer who performs ongoing maintenance.

We had a consultant that assisted with the implementation.

Licensing for the solution is very complex. A different type of agent means a different type of license and subscription. Different languages, database types, and agents make a Dynamics license complex. 

They do offer great discounts when bundling other AppDynamics licenses. For example, if a customer needs some license for a database agent, they can also take a license for end-user monitoring. I think AppDynamics has good options for budgets. 

We use the private cloud deployment model.

I would advise new users to not install AppDynamics for their database only. Just the database portion isn't dynamic enough without other portions of the AppDynamics suite.

I would rate all database applications nine out of ten, but I would rate just the database monitoring four out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for monitoring. We are monitoring the customer experience of our banking solutions for external customers.

The most valuable features are customer management and user experience management.

The solution could improve the server size for AppDynamics to include middleware products, which it doesn't yet cover. If they add middleware for sophisticated sites, AppDynamics would be the global choice.

It's scalable, but it comes with a cost if you add more applications. Technically, it is scalable, but from a cost perspective, it costs much more if you add more. 

They can monitor billions of transactions because they're not monitoring all transactions. They're monitoring samples. So, they can offer good monitoring for the huge sites.

Technical support is very good.

The initial setup for AppDynamics wasn't easy, but it wasn't hard either. It has a medium level of difficulty. Deployment takes about three months.

Pricing isn't bad, in comparison to Dynatrace, which is much more expensive.

I recommend the solution strongly for those with medium-sized businesses. It's not for enterprise solutions or enterprise businesses. It's a great solution for the non-enterprise client. 

I would rate this solution eight out of ten.