Data Collector for hosts

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OpenTelemetry-based Data Collector for Telemetry Data (ODCD) is a collection of stand-alone OpenTelemetry receivers for databases, systems, and applications. It is based on OpenTelemetry Semantic Conventions. A standard OTLP exporter is provided to forward the data from this data collector to a Telemetry backend or an OpenTelemetry Collector.

For more information, see OpenTelemetry-based sensor SDK.

Data collector for hosts gathers system-level metrics from hosts, such as CPU usage, memory consumption, disk I/O, and network traffic. Currently, Instana provides data collector for the following hosts:

  • SNMP Host
  • IBM MQ appliance
  • Simple Linux Host

For more information such as prerequisites, download, configuration, and semantic conventions, see Data Collector for Hosts.

Custom zone configuration

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You can organize OpenTelemetry hosts into custom zones in the Infrastructure Map by using resource attributes. Instana supports multiple zone attributes with a priority-based selection:

Supported zone attributes

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Instana evaluates zone attributes in the following priority order:

  • cloud.availability_zone

    • Official OpenTelemetry semantic convention for cloud availability zones
    • Use for cloud-based hosts (for example, AWS, Azure, GCP)
    • Example: us-east-1a, europe-west1-b

  • host.zone

    • Custom host zone attribute
    • Use for on-premises or custom zone groupings
    • Example: datacenter-1, rack-a, building-north

  • deployment.environment

    • Environment-based grouping
    • Use for logical environment separation
    • Example: production, staging, development

Configuration example

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Add zone attributes to your OpenTelemetry Collector configuration:

resource/host:
  attributes:
    # host zone for the collector
    - key: host.zone
      value: 'instana-idot'
      action: upsert

Add the resource processor to your pipeline based on your use case (traces, logs, or metrics):

pipelines:
  # Trace data pipeline for OTLP data
  traces/otlp:
    receivers: [otlp/receiver]                      # Collect traces from OTLP receiver
    processors: [batch, ..., resource/host]         # Process traces with batching
    exporters: [otlphttp/exporter]                  # Send traces to Instana backend

  # Log data pipeline for OTLP data
  logs/otlp:
    receivers: [otlp/receiver]                      # Collect logs from OTLP receiver
    processors: [batch, ..., resource/host]         # Process logs with severity parsing
    exporters: [otlphttp/exporter]                  # Send logs to Instana backend

  # Metrics data pipeline for OTLP data
  metrics/otlp:
    receivers: [otlp/receiver]                      # Collect metrics from OTLP receiver
    processors: [batch, ..., resource/host]         # Process metrics with batching
    exporters: [otlphttp/exporter]                  # Send metrics to Instana backend
Zone selection behavior
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  • Instana uses the first available zone attribute based on priority
  • If cloud.availability_zone is present, it takes precedence
  • If not, host.zone is used
  • If neither is present, deployment.environment is used as a fallback
  • Hosts without any zone attributes appear in an "Undefined Zone" group
Benefits
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  • Logical grouping: Organize hosts by physical location, environment, or custom criteria
  • Infrastructure Map visualization: Zones appear as groupings in the Infrastructure Map
  • Filtering and search: Use the zone field to filter and search for hosts
  • Context Guide: Zone information is available in the Context Guide for better navigation
Search and filtering
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You can use the entity.zone field to search for hosts by zone:

entity.zone:"datacenter-1"
entity.zone:"production"

This feature is available for OpenTelemetry hosts monitored through the Data Collector for Hosts.