Run Environment ActiveGate on shared VM

[olga_wall]

Hello,

I know that is strongly recommended to install and run routing ActiveGates on a dedicated system.

Nonetheless, has anyone encountered such a case where an ActiveGate was installed on a VM shared with other applications? Did it work in the end or were there any specific problems? 

Could there be any additional issues if the VM where the ActiveGate is installed is also supposed to be monitored by a OneAgent?

Thank you,
Olga

[AntonioSousa · Accepted solution]

@olga_wall,

While it is recommended to operate ActiveGates (AGs) on a dedicated server/VM, there is nothing against sharing it with other applications. Some notes on this:

• All types of AGs (environment,synthetics,cluster,mainframe) can be installed on VMs with other applications. I have done it extensively for the first two cases.
• AGs for routing use port TCP/9999 by default for incoming traffic from OneAgent. You won't probably have other applications using this port. If you want to use TCP/443, it would be difficult (very) to share that HTTPS port with other applications.
• AGs use essentially memory resources. You should monitor that consumption. There are dsfm: metrics available directly in Dynatrace, and in doubt you can install OneAgent on those VMs and monitor Dynatrace with Dynatrace 😃
• AGs used for special purposes (eg. Extensions) are normally self-contained. For instance, current Extensions v1 (to be deprecated in a little more than 6 months) use python 3.8, but you can have whatever python version you want at the OS level.
• You can tweak certain configurations of AGs to make them more efficient/specific. There are several posts in the Community that go into these details, besides some documentation pages.

[olga_wall]

@AntonioSousa, thanks for the helpful insights!