topic Re: Enterprise ActiveGate role and requirement for Managed? in Dynatrace Managed Q&A

Enterprise ActiveGate role and requirement for Managed?

jeff_rowell — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 10:05:19 GMT

According to the documentation (Link) both a Cluster and an Enterprise AG is required for a managed deployment. I'm puzzled by this statement given that installation of AGs are optional - looks to be an error in the documentation. Can somebody clarify what the difference between an Enterprise and a Cluster AG is? We have several Cluster AGs configured but no Enterprise AG. Also, I have read elsewhere on the forum that Cluster AGs were formerly called "Public AGs"... is that correct? It seems to me that the Cluster AGs are what would be considered to be a "Private" AG (some of the older ViLT material I have shows a diagram in which a Managed deployment has a Private AG).

Re: Enterprise ActiveGate role and requirement for Managed?

Julius_Loman — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 10:39:35 GMT

It really depends on the features you want/need to use.

The Cluster ActiveGate (previously called Public Gateway) - is needed in cases:

monitoring of mobile apps
using the synthetic monitoring (the browser one, not single http/https requests)
using agentless RUM monitoring (Cluster ActiveGate servers the RUM JS) or browser RUM extension
using Dynatrace OpenKIT for instrumenting fat clients / nonweb applications
publishing the API to the "outside world" for example for Dynatrace Davis, Dynatrace Mobile App or other services - unless your Cluster is directly reachable from internet

Cluster ActiveGate is exists only for Dynatrace Managed.

Environment ActiveGate (previously called Private Gateway, applies for both SaaS and Managed) is used mostly for proxying firewall communication as it aggregates agent traffic. Typically it is for a single environment only, but it can be configured to serve multiple environments within a Dynatrace cluster. It is also required for

http synthetic monitors
storing memory dumps
executing activegate plugins (monitoring of F5/DataPower/ ... )

Sometimes it is also mentioned that it is required for VMWare monitoring, but the gateway on the Managed cluster node itself is sufficient for this purpose (valid only for Dynatrace Managed, for SaaS you need to have and ActiveGate for VMWare monitoring).

This page may help you to decide if you need Environment Active Gate:
Install an Environment ActiveGate on Windows

Re: Enterprise ActiveGate role and requirement for Managed?

jeff_rowell — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 10:40:32 GMT

Thank you for your detailed comments. Regarding the link
provided, I had reviewed that previously; it’s unfortunate that it does not
provide any clarifications of what an Enterprise or a Cluster AG is… it simply
makes reference to ActiveGates in general. It would be nice if the
documentation was updated to make the role of these two AG types clear. I found
another page (Managed deployments)
that provides some details related to Cluster and Environment AGs.

My understanding is that the main purpose of configuring
an Environment AG would be when you want to deploy agents in an external
network and need the AG to be a proxy for the configuration of the
inter-network communications. In our deployment we have Cluster AGs configured
in the DMZ which provide a similar proxy function in facilitating a single
point of Firewall rule configuration to allow for communication of the agents
in the DMZ to the cluster on the main internal network.

Re: Enterprise ActiveGate role and requirement for Managed?

Julius_Loman — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 19:31:03 GMT

Yes, that statement in your link is definitely a documentation error. If you have Managed you might need both types depending on your environment and the features you want to use. One hidden point - there is actually an ActiveGate running on the cluster node itself - that's why you don't need the environment ActiveGate to monitor VMWare on Managed.