Integrated observability products (SaaS)

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Eligible IBM Instana users can access an intelligent, integrated product experience across SaaS instances of Instana, IBM Turbonomic, and IBM Concert. You can get insights from each product without switching tools and move between these products without losing context.

Note: The integrated observability product experience is available to select Instana SaaS customers. For more information, contact your IBM sales representative.

How Instana, Turbonomic, and Concert enhance each other

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Each of these products amplifies the others to deliver a full‑stack observability solution that exceeds the sum of its parts:

  • Instana supplies real‑time performance data to Turbonomic and Concert, giving deeper visibility into the systems they monitor.
  • In Turbonomic, Instana’s application‑level context enriches the resource‑calculation engine, which enables more precise infrastructure optimization.
  • Concert automatically discovers Instana‑tracked application components, Kubernetes clusters, and container details, removing the need to create and upload SBOM files manually.

The integration works both ways:

  • Turbonomic adds automated remediation to Instana’s performance insights. For example, when Instana flags elevated latency, Turbonomic can trigger actions that rebalance workloads to eliminate the delay.
  • Concert identifies common vulnerability exposures (CVEs) and other risks in Instana‑managed applications, then provides recommendations and automation to remediate them.

Together, these products create a proactive observability loop that accelerates issue detection, remediation, and continuous optimization.

Integrated product features

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Since these integrated products share data and authentication details, you can reduce context switching and simplify access for a holistic view of your systems.

This integration provides:

Sidekick: consistent context and shared data

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A shared data layer enables the integrated products to retain the same application context as you move between them. It also powers sidekick, which provides a unified view of key insights from Instana, Turbonomic, and Concert.

This sidebar provides important health indicators from each product and suggests actions to address anomalies, inefficiencies, and vulnerabilities.

Figure 1. The sidekick sidebar
The sidekick sidebar

All insights are tailored to your current application context, so you can quickly assess performance, optimization, and vulnerabilities without switching tools. The data that you see depends on which products you are licensed to use. For more information, see Get a unified view of your environment with sidekick.

Unified navigation

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The unified navigation menu offers a single, expandable entry point for Instana, Turbonomic, and Concert. From this menu, you can access the full set of menu options for each product and seamlessly navigate from one product to another. You can also access shared services such as role-based access control (RBAC), the community hub, and the IBM Software Catalog.

The unified navigation menu is available when two or more integrated observability products are enabled in your environment. Open the unified navigation menu by clicking the Open navigation icon in the menu bar.

Figure 2. Open navigation icon
Open navigation icon

Use the expanded menu to easily switch between integrated products. Selecting a product in the first column reveals the full product menu in the second column. You can also visit the community hub, manage trial users in the IBM SaaS Console, or explore related products in the Software Catalog.

Figure 3. Unified navigation menu
Unified navigation menu
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Centralized user management

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When you start an integrated SaaS trial of Concert or Turbonomic from your Instana instance, you can manage user access and permissions from a unified view in the IBM SaaS Console. Instana administrators in the Owner role can access the console by selecting Manage subscriptions from the unified navigation menu.

For more information, see the following resources:

Enhanced help and onboarding

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All integrated products provide a comprehensive help panel where you can find a collection of support resources such as:

  • Tours and walkthroughs
  • Product documentation
  • Support links
  • Help for other integrated products

To access the help panel from any integrated product, click the question mark icon in the menu bar.

Figure 4. Integrated product help
Integrated product help

Common authentication

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Integrated products use a common authentication model. You sign in once with your existing credentials to access any of the three products that you are entitled to. You can sign in with whatever mechanism you already use to access Instana, such as your corporate identity provider or your IBMid. After you sign in, you can easily move between products by using the unified navigation menu without having to authenticate again.

Community hub

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The community hub, accessible from the unified navigation menu, connects you with product-specific communities of peers and experts where you can get answers, stay informed, and share ideas.

IBM Software Catalog

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The IBM Software Catalog is available directly from the unified navigation menu. You can visit the catalog to learn more about a selected set of integrated products, their value together, and how to start a trial or purchase products.

Starting a trial

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Eligible Instana administrators with the Owner role can provision integrated trials of Turbonomic and Concert directly from the Instana UI. If you are not in the Owner role, you can ask your administrator to start a trial for you. TO find out whether your SaaS instance of Instana is eligible for the integrated product experience, contact your IBM sales representative.

Concert

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  1. From the unified navigation menu, click Instana > Applications.
  2. Select an application from the list.
  3. Go to the Vulnerabilities tab and click Try it free.
    • If you are not in the Instana Owner role, click Request trial to ask your administrator to start a trial.
  4. Follow the setup and onboarding instructions for the Concert SaaS trial.
  5. After you finish onboarding, enable the integration from the Vulnerabilities tab in Instana.
  6. Add users and delegate roles in your integrated Concert SaaS trial instance.

Turbonomic

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  1. From the unified navigation menu, click Instana > Applications.
  2. Select an application from the list.
  3. Go to the Optimizations tab and click Try it free.
    • If you are not in the Instana Owner role, click Request trial to ask your administrator to start a trial.
  4. Follow the setup and onboarding instructions for the Turbonomic SaaS trial.
  5. After you finish onboarding, enable the integration from the Optimizations tab in Instana.
  6. Add users and delegate roles in your integrated Turbonomic SaaS trial instance.

You can also learn about and start trials of these and other integrated observability products from the Software catalog in the unified navigation menu.