Troubleshooting Containers Using Dynamic Monitoring Mode

Using Dynamic Monitoring Mode (DMM), you can selectively control the number of Container metrics reported for individual containers. Rather than have all Agents report all metrics for all containers all the time, you can configure individual Agents to collect:

  • Key Performance Indicator metrics only (KPI mode)
  • KPI and Diagnostic metrics (Diagnostic mode)
  • All available metrics (Advanced Diagnostic mode)

This provides the flexibility to report KPI metrics only on most containers, and then increase the metric level on specific containers when you need deeper visibility to diagnose problems. You can increase scalability on the Controller Tenant and conserve metric bandwidth on the network with no sacrifice in visibility. Every Docker Visibility metric has a default DMM class (KPI, Diagnostic, and Advanced Diagnostic). For details, consult the Container Metrics table: the Default Monitoring Mode column indicates the default category of each metric when Dynamic Monitoring Mode is enabled.

When you notice a container that requires additional analysis or troubleshooting, change the DMM on that container to collect more metrics:

  1. Open the Container Detail panel for the container of interest: Open the Containers table (Containers, left menu) and double-click the container.
  2. Click the Edit (pen) button in the top-right corner, change the mode to Diagnostic or Advanced Diagnostic, and click the checkmark to apply the changes.
  3. Collect additional metrics for your analysis or troubleshooting.
  4. When you no longer need to collect additional metrics for that container, click to set the DMM on that container back to KPI.
Note:
  • Depending on the type of metrics collected by the Agent, the Controller Tenant has three different DMM defaults. These defaults are all set to KPI (the lowest setting):
  • The default for both settings is KPI (the lowest setting).
  • We recommend that you leave these global settings at their defaults. If you need to collect advanced metrics for a specific server or container, increase the DMM on an "as-needed" basis.
  • When a container monitored by a Java App Agent shuts down and restarts, any overridden DMM specified for the shut-down container is lost. The DMM for the restarted container automatically resets to the global default specified by sim.machines.dmm.container.defaultMode .
  • If you switch the monitoring mode in the Controller Tenant from a more-inclusive to a less-inclusive mode, the Metric Browser will show values for the newly-excluded metrics for one hour after the switch. For example, if you switch from Diagnostic to KPI mode. For any Diagnostic metric, the Metric Browser will report a steady line (at 0, or the last-reported value) for one hour after the switch; then the line will disappear. This is standard behavior in the Metric Browser for an Agent when it stops reporting a specific metric.