Extension management made simple with the new Dynatrace Extensions

Thousands of new technologies are created and integrated with Dynatrace products every day. Dynatrace already offers the Extensions 2.0 ecosystem, focusing on backend services. Now, we’re also introducing the Extensions app, a Dynatrace platform-native app that provides a unified experience while working with Extensions.

Introducing Dynatrace Extensions

In short, the Extensions app is the central place for configuring, monitoring, and discovering extensions. Whenever you need to observe another data point, you can easily cover it with a new configuration.

It’s easy to adapt to changes that are common in cloud environments with just a few clicks:

• Has the OneAgent found an unsupervised database? No problem, here’s that specific instance.
• The IP address of network devices has changed? Simply edit the existing configurations.

It might have everything you need to enhance your experience with extensions!

All roads lead to the Extensions app

The Extensions app is a transit point for many other Dynatrace^® Apps, such as Notebooks or apps built by our partners, such as Ruby on Rails, Jira, and Nagios Integration. Calling it a console of transportation hubs seems reasonable, as the extension itself is only one way to get the data. You can call upon it to fill any monitoring gaps.

You usually know precisely what you need regarding monitoring and which technologies and services you want to monitor. Like in every other marketplace, you pick exactly what products you want, put them in the basket, set them up, and start using them. Dynatrace Hub mimics such an experience. It has an extension catalog that takes you to the Extensions app to complete the setup.

However, the opposite situation can happen as well. Large and dynamic environments are not easy to track, leaving the possibility that we’re unaware of whether some data points remain unmonitored. The Discovery app provides a solution to that. It can detect monitoring gaps, report them, and recommend various actions to cover them, including activating extensions. What is more, it automatically adds sufficient endpoints to newly created configurations.

The condition of the databases is one of the most significant factors indicating the health of the whole application. The Databases app allows you to monitor various vendors in a single place. Naturally, new connections must be set up occasionally, or the instance password for existing connections has changed. You can adjust extensions to your needs without leaving the Databases App; you just need to “expand monitoring.”

Finally, extensions are configured, monitoring is in real time, and everything is set up. Now it’s time to look it over. Environment changes and new technologies might be requested to be monitored, and daily routines might be enriched by checking framework conditions. Once again, Extensions comes in handy. There is no easier way to enter it than by the front door.

Refreshed look and feel

The Dynatrace Community has long wished for a modern design, and thanks to the Dynatrace platform, it’s finally here. The Extensions app offers everything you love, from the classic view to many improvements for your convenience.

Each technology might be monitored differently. Local ones are accessible from OneAgent and can be easily targeted by selecting a precise host, host group, or environment. Selecting an ActiveGate group will allow monitoring endpoints on remote machines. In both cases, it’s important to have a clear and simple selection of activation scope, which the app provides.

Further narrowing down involves atomic steps to reduce information overload.

Knowing what and where you want to monitor is an excellent first step. The next step is domain-specific. Depending on the technology, you‘ll notice a different form that needs to be filled out.

Extensions bring you a load of metrics. Knowing what each metric means is crucial to selecting the most suitable ones. Having set all that up, the most significant property needs to be filled. Of course, it’s a description that helps to distinguish a created configuration from the others.

It feels great to have monitoring configurations working hard to gather crucial data for your organization. Sometimes, however, you‘ll need to turn off monitoring. Now, it’s easier than ever.

Diagnose your configuration in one place

Keeping an eye on your extension‘s health is key to maintaining the highest monitoring level of your environment. Monitoring configuration outages leading to metric gaps might let crucial errors slip away. As soon as it happens, quick issue identification is crucial. Which extension, what endpoint, and which machine? To help you with that, Extensions provides a status overview on each granularity level—extensions, configs, and sometimes single devices. Starting from the top, malfunctioning extensions can be found. You can easily narrow down the investigation to a single configuration.

Recognizing affected configurations paves the way to finding the root cause. The health page, included in every extension, will help you do that by providing useful information regarding its condition. Analyzing status changes over time can exclude temporary infrastructure issues or find patterns. If the error is not a false positive, stored logs can be investigated on the same page.

Get to the next level with Dynatrace Extensions

Now, it’s your turn to see what Dynatrace has prepared for you. Please share your feedback in the Dynatrace Community so we can constantly improve your experience.

For more information, have a look at Extensions in Dynatrace Hub