AppDynamics Serverless APM for AWS Lambda

My main use case for Splunk AppDynamics is application performance monitoring and visibility across the infrastructure.

It helps me troubleshoot incidents and improve overall reliability within our network.

Recently, I identified some incidents within our network using Splunk AppDynamics, which helps identify where there are issues and gives us alerts when this issue happens, along with recommendations on how we can rectify these alerts.

Regarding my main use case, I'm interested in how the dashboard is designed; it helps to provide important, live information and gives us an overall glance at how the organization and the infrastructure are working.

We use agents for data collection features, not OpenTelemetry.

We haven't implemented business transaction monitoring features yet, but we are looking into having this implemented soon.

Splunk AppDynamics has positively impacted our organization by changing how the team works with quick reaction times, so when we look at alerts and identify their types, it has reduced our response from hours to merely minutes, enabling us to analyze alerts quickly.

In terms of time savings and specific outcomes, we can analyze and address issues essentially from hours to minutes now.

My experience with the application performance monitoring capabilities of Splunk AppDynamics shows that it has provided significant value to support processes.

The best features Splunk AppDynamics offers in my experience are those that help the IT team respond quickly to ensure we can take corrective action as quickly as possible.

The specific features in Splunk AppDynamics that help me act quickly include real-time alerts via email, which give us immediate notifications when there are any anomalies or incidents within the network, enabling us to identify issues and take corrective action immediately.

The dashboard in Splunk AppDynamics is easily customizable, allowing me to add whatever I want to monitor within the network, and it gives me the ability to move what are known as tiles across the dashboard; it allows multiple monitoring features to be included, making it fully customized for our particular needs.

The governance and security within Splunk AppDynamics is designed for user ability, giving me the capacity to take whatever necessary action, allowing control over how AI works within the environment.

The AI feature in Splunk AppDynamics has been dependable for us, providing accurate readings when there's an alert.

The effectiveness of Splunk AppDynamics' auto-discovery and mapping in visualizing our application ecosystem is excellent, providing us updated and live information.

In diagnosing performance issues, Splunk AppDynamics' AI-powered anomaly detection and root cause analysis is excellent, offering quick response times and detection, with alerting features that make the tool effective in scanning and providing recommendations for corrective action.

To improve Splunk AppDynamics, I would say we need additional training and training materials to fully understand its full capabilities.

Regarding needed improvements, everything is good with respect to the training material.

I have been using Splunk AppDynamics for approximately two years.

Splunk AppDynamics is stable within our organization, with no issues.

Splunk AppDynamics' scalability meets our needs as our organization grows, accommodating the data ingested flexibly and allowing full customization within our environment.

The customer support for Splunk AppDynamics has been positive in my experience, and I would rate the customer support a 10.

I haven't used any other solution; Splunk AppDynamics was highly recommended, so I haven't explored any other applications.

I see time saved, breaking down the response time from hours to minutes when an incident is alerted to us.

I purchased Splunk AppDynamics through a third-party reseller, not through the AWS Marketplace.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Splunk AppDynamics is great; it was easy to implement and the cost fits our budget.

I only evaluated one option, and that is Splunk AppDynamics.

I would rate Splunk AppDynamics a 10 on a scale of one to 10.

I choose 10 for my rating because the customization for Splunk AppDynamics is great; it is easily customizable, easy to use, and the interface is updated with respect to overall live information.

My advice to others looking into using Splunk AppDynamics is to clearly identify the metrics, start with the most critical, and then expand; it's also important to configure the dashboard and alerts to meet organization requirements, providing training to the respective team for monitoring and support.

My overall rating for Splunk AppDynamics is a 10.

Regarding Splunk AppDynamics, I was exposed to it in 2023, though I did not work extensively with it. It was used for application performance monitoring for an e-commerce client with a vast application setup. They aimed to quantify metrics such as footprint, latency, and performance, so we deployed it in a cloud-based setup covering both SaaS and on-premises applications.

We also utilized a feature to detect high-level vulnerabilities, providing a risk score. However, we focused more on the application layer performance monitoring rather than network performance.

We also utilized it for Digital Experience Monitoring, observing how the application performed across various endpoints, such as laptops, mobile phones, or web browsers. It provided observability and insights into potential breaches in SLAs, helping us understand performance issues across different layers. Moreover, it assisted in monitoring applications interacting with AI models, performing anomaly-based detection for latency spikes or performance reductions.

The app teams believe Splunk AppDynamics enhances business resilience by providing insights into the application context, though I primarily focus on infrastructure metrics. Application teams benefit from it as it distinguishes whether an issue is application or infrastructure-related. It aids infrastructure teams in pointing out application-specific problems when the underlying network layer is clean.

This differentiation is crucial, especially when everything is built on one server, such as the front-end, back-end, and databases.

Splunk AppDynamics is known for its comprehensive capabilities and functionality, providing a 360-degree view of application performance. It assists in adaptive Digital Experience Monitoring and evaluating SLAs to prevent performance degradation.

The platform's performance monitoring feature captures telemetry across various endpoints and scenarios, even including API-specific context. It helps identify whether performance issues are at the application layer by sampling data over time and generating alerts for deviations, facilitating anomaly-based detection. Additionally, it calculates thresholds and notifies any critical performance issues.

Although it does not primarily focus on network performance, it excels at monitoring application performance, especially in API evaluation, time to first byte, mean latency, and other metrics. Splunk AppDynamics also monitors apps interacting with AI models, which is a unique offering compared to competitors.

Splunk AppDynamics, although feature-rich, is known to be expensive. There is an overlap of functionalities with other traditional products, which may lead to redundancies, especially for infrastructure teams who might find it superfluous.

Despite its robust vulnerabilities detection feature, it is not a full-fledged VMDR tool like Qualys or Nessus. For companies already invested in such tools, the noise and overlap from Splunk AppDynamics' vulnerability detection might be unnecessary. It is better suited for smaller enterprises without dedicated vulnerability management solutions.

Overall, although the platform stability and customer support are strong, the added features might not justify the cost for all enterprises.

Platform stability is good. Splunk always had great customer support, an operations team, and technical assistance. Now it is consumed by Cisco, and they are equally doing a fantastic job there.

The support is awesome. After Cisco came in, the overall support and service have become much better, showcasing a notable improvement. It works the way they claim it works, or it is supposed to work. Overall, I rate them as 8.5 out of 10.

We used some professional services because we wanted to implement it quickly. They helped with optimization and setting everything up according to our needs.

Regarding ROI, the reduction in turnaround time, particularly in performance degradation detection and response, improved by around 17 to 18 percent. This improvement helped justify the cost of acquisition, especially for our client, who served APIs consumed by third parties with strict SLAs having financial implications for service degradation.

There are other vendors in application performance monitoring, such as Dynatrace, which are less premium-priced than Splunk AppDynamics. Splunk AppDynamics has always been expensive, and while it leads in functionality, other solutions are available for different budgets.

Splunk AppDynamics is not doing anything uniquely that competitors such as Elastic are not doing. We use PRTG for network monitoring and rely on other tools for network performance telemetry.

We did not utilize its vulnerability management feature extensively due to its overlap and noise, as we already have robust VMDR solutions. Different enterprises may find value in this for small setups needing a packaged vulnerability tool.

Splunk AppDynamics documentation is excellent, and the deployment process is straightforward, especially for existing Splunk AppDynamics clients. Knowing where APIs are is crucial, and the setup typically involves agent and API integrations.

While invaluable for application teams, it might be less valuable for infrastructure professionals focusing on underlying parameters, except as a tool to differentiate application versus infrastructure issues.

Given Cisco's integration, this solution has improved with robust customer support, functioning as expected despite facing high costs and similar alternative solutions. I rate this solution a 9 overall.