Enabling observability with OpenTelemetry
Gain a deeper insight into your environment with OpenTelemetry.
About this task
OpenTelemetry is available by default on each master domain manager and Dynamic Workload Console installed with a fresh installation. You can also enable it after upgrading to the current version.
After the installation or upgrade has completed, perform the following steps to enable OpenTelemetry:
Procedure
- Install and configure a tracing tool of your choice, for example Jaeger, Prometheus, or Splunk.
- Stop WebSphere Application Server Liberty, as described in Application server - starting and stopping.
-
Browse to the following paths:
master domain manager
- On UNIX operating systems
- TWA_home/usr/servers/engineServer
- On Windows operating systems
- TWA_home\usr\servers\engineServer
- On UNIX operating systems
- DWC_home/usr/servers/dwcServer
- On Windows operating systems
- DWC_home\usr\servers\dwcServer
-
Edit the following properties in the server.env
configuration file, based on the specifics of your environment:
whereOTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://{OPENTELEMETRY_HOSTNAME}:{OPENTELEMETRY_PORT} OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT={OPENTELEMETRY_HOSTNAME}:{OPENTELEMETRY_PORT} OTEL_SDK_DISABLED=false OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL
- OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT
- A base endpoint URL for any signal type, with an optionally-specified port number
- OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT
- Endpoint URL for trace data only, with an optionally-specified port number
- OTEL_SDK_DISABLED
- Disable the SDK for all signals
- OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER
- Trace exporter to be used
- OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL
- OTLP transport protocol. Supported values are as follows:
grpc
- for protobuf-encoded data using gRPC wire format over HTTP/2 connection
http/protobuf
- for protobuf-encoded data over HTTP connection
http/json
- for JSON-encoded data over HTTP connection
For more information about the properties in the server.env file, see OpenTelemetry documentation.
- Start WebSphere Application Server Liberty, as described in Application server - starting and stopping.
Results
When enabling OpenTelemetry, it is important to be aware that it generates a substantial amount of data, which may impact system performance, especially on AIX operating systems.
Configuration file example
About this task
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317
OTEL_SDK_DISABLED=false
OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=otlp
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=grpc
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_PROTOCOL=grpc