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:

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

Dynamic Workload Console

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:
```
 
OTEL_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
```
where

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.

Set the following properties in the jvm.option file as described below:


-Dotel.resource.attributes = service.name=<service_name>
-Dotel.metrics.exporter = none
-javaagent:<TWA_DIR>/usr/servers/engineServer/opentelemetry-javaagent.jar

Start WebSphere Application Server Liberty, as described in Application server - starting and stopping.

Results: You have now configured OpenTelemetry to work with HCL Workload Automation. The resulting telemetry data are displayed on the workstation you specified in the server.env file.

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

Consider the following example in which tracing is configured with Jaeger:


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