Enabling optional features for Standard Edition
You can enable or disable optional features on Standard Edition by using the feature flags. Some optional features are disabled by default.
- Synthetic monitoring
- Automation framework
- Business processes
- IBM Power HMC
- IBM PowerVC
- IBM Z HMC
- Linux KVM hypervisor
- OpenStack
- VMware Tanzu
- SAP
- Smart Alerts for Infrastructure (public preview)
- VMware vSphere
- Windows Hyper-V
- XenServer
- Integration of WalkMe and AssistMe with the Get answers button
- Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler monitoring
- Logging
- Cassandra cluster group nodes by seed IP addresses
- ServiceNow ITSM app alert channel
- Process environment variables
- AI action generation
- AI gateway
- Incident summarization
- Intelligent incident investigation
- Impacted users
- Kubernetes AI assistant
You can enable the following optional features on Standard Edition.
Some optional features might require more CPU, memory, and storage. Check the hardware requirements before you enable a feature.
- For single-node deployments, see Hardware requirements
- For three-node deployments, see Hardware requirements
- For five-node deployments, see Hardware requirements
Synthetic monitoring
For more information, see Synthetic monitoring.
-
Enable Synthetic monitoring:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.synthetics.enabled=true -
Disable Synthetic monitoring:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.synthetics.enabled=false
Automation framework
For more information, see Managing actions.
-
Enable Automation framework:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.automation.enabled=true -
Disable Automation framework:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.automation.enabled=false
Business processes
For more information, see Business processes.
-
Enable Business processes:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.business.observability.enabled=true -
Disable Business processes:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.business.observability.enabled=false
IBM Power HMC
For more information, see Monitoring IBM Power HMC.
-
Enable IBM Power HMC:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.phmc.enabled=true -
Disable IBM Power HMC:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.phmc.enabled=false
IBM PowerVC
For more information, see Monitoring IBM PowerVC.
-
Enable IBM PowerVC:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.powervc.enabled=true -
Disable IBM PowerVC:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.powervc.enabled=false
IBM Z HMC
For more information, see Monitoring IBM Z HMC.
-
Enable IBM Z HMC:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.zhmc.enabled=true -
Disable IBM Z HMC:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.zhmc.enabled=false
Linux KVM hypervisor
For more information about Linux KVM hypervisor, see Monitoring Linux KVM hypervisor.
-
Enable Linux KVM hypervisor:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.linuxkvmhypervisor.enabled=true -
Disable Linux KVM hypervisor:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.linuxkvmhypervisor.enabled=false
OpenStack
For more information, see Monitoring IBM OpenStack.
-
Enable OpenStack:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.openstack.enabled=true -
Disable OpenStack:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.openstack.enabled=false
VMware Tanzu
For more information, see Monitoring Cloud Foundry and VMware Tanzu.
-
Enable VMware Tanzu:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.pcf.enabled=true -
Disable VMware Tanzu:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.pcf.enabled=false
SAP
For more information, see Monitoring SAP.
-
Enable SAP:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.sap.enabled=true -
Disable SAP:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.sap.enabled=false
Smart Alerts for Infrastructure (public preview)
For more information, see Smart Alerts for Infrastructure
-
Enable Smart Alerts for Infrastructure (public preview):
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.infra.smart.alerts.enabled=true -
Disable Smart Alerts for Infrastructure (public preview):
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.infra.smart.alerts.enabled=false
VMware vSphere
For more information, see Monitoring vSphere.
-
Enable VMware vSphere:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.vsphere.enabled=true -
Disable VMware vSphere:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.vsphere.enabled=false
Windows Hyper-V
For more information about Windows Hyper-V, see Monitoring Windows Hyper-V.
-
Enable Windows Hyper-V:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.windowshypervisor.enabled=true -
Disable Windows Hyper-V:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.windowshypervisor.enabled=false
XenServer
For more information about XenServer, see Monitoring XenServer.
-
Enable XenServer:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.xenserver.enabled=true -
Disable XenServer:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.xenserver.enabled=false
Integration of WalkMe and AssistMe with the Get answers button
To enhance the user experience, WalkMe and AssistMe are integrated with the Get answers button in the Instana UI. AssistMe provides integrated product assistance. It displays relevant tours, articles, and quick links to documentation, community, and ticket management in one place to make sure that you receive help when needed.
WalkMe
You can enable WalkMe to display guided tours, tooltips, and in-product messages that help users onboard faster, discover key features, and obtain contextual support.
-
Enable WalkMe:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.walkme.tool.enabled=true -
Disable WalkMe:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.walkme.tool.enabled=false
Get answers button
When the Get answers button is enabled, you can click the button in the Instana UI to access WalkMe guidance and the AssistMe support panel.
-
Enable the Get answers button:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.assistme.enabled=true stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.walkme.tool.enabled=true -
Disable the Get answers button:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.assistme.enabled=false
Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler monitoring
The monitoring of Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler is enabled by default. However, you can disable this feature if not needed.
-
Disable the Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler monitoring:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.kubernetes.horizontal.pod.autoscaler.enable=false
Logging
For more information about the logging feature, see Logging.
When you enable logging, you can use the following features in Standard Edition. You do not need an additional license to use these features. For more information, see License and entitlement requirements.
- Smart Alerts for logs (only for logs that originate from Instana tracers). For more information, see Logging Smart Alerts.
- Unbounded analytics for logs (only for logs that originate from Instana tracers). For more information, see Analyzing logs.
- A summary of the current retention period, log volume, and log count. For more information, see Summary.
- Make sure that logging is enabled in the Core specification by using the
feature.logging.enabledfeature flag. Run the following command:stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.logging.enabled=true - Download the add-on license key from the portal and apply the key. For more information, see Sales key renewal.
To disable logging, run the following command:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.logging.enabled=false
Cassandra cluster group nodes by seed IP addresses
Instana groups cassandra nodes by cluster name. Sometimes, the environment contains more than one cluster with the same name.
-
Enable grouping nodes by seed IP addresses:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.group.cassandra.nodes.by.seed.ipaddresses=true -
Disable grouping nodes by seed IP addresses:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.group.cassandra.nodes.by.seed.ipaddresses=false
ServiceNow ITSM app alert channel
The ServiceNow ITSM (IT Service Management) app alert channel propagates alert notifications between Instana and ServiceNow application. For more information, see ServiceNow ITSM app
-
Enable ServiceNow ITSM app alert channel:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.alert.channel.bidirectional.enabled=true stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.service.now.advanced.enabled=true -
To disable the ServiceNow ITSM app alert channel, run:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.alert.channel.bidirectional.enabled=false stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.service.now.advanced.enabled=false
Process environment variables
The process plugin can be configured to extract environment variables as tags. These tags can be used to filter or group upon.
- To enable Process environment variable extraction:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.process.extract.environment.variables.tags.enabled=true - To disable Process environment variable extraction:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.process.extract.environment.variables.tags.enabled=false
AI action generation
For more information, see Intelligent Remediation: Action generation with AI.
- Enable AI action generation:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.action.ai.generation.enabled=true - Disable AI action generation:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.action.ai.generation.enabled=false
AI gateway
For more information, see AI gateway.
- Enable AI gateway:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.ai.gateway.enabled=true - Disable AI gateway:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.ai.gateway.enabled=false
Incident summarization
The incident summarization feature enables the summarization of an incident using AI. This feature is available from the Summary and notes with AI pane for an incident when you are viewing the incident details. For more information, see Incident summarization.
- Enable incident summarization:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.incident.ai.summarization.enabled=true - Disable incident summarization
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.incident.ai.summarization.enabled=false
Intelligent incident investigation
Intelligent incident investigation identifies the probable root cause (RCA) for an incident across your entire environment using agentic AI, causal AI analysis, and large language models (LLMs).
featureFlags section in the core.yaml file as shown in the following example:
...
featureFlags:
- name: feature.rca.agentic.enabled
enabled: true
...
In addition, your environment must also meet additional prerequisites. For more information about these requirements and the overall feature, see Intelligent incident investigation.
Fast Triage
The Fast Triage feature helps find and display associations between EUM entities Monitoring websites, Monitoring mobile applications. andServices.
When this feature is enabled, a Dependencies tab containing a relationship graph will be available from a Website or Mobile App dashboard.
- Enable fast triage:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.match.calls.beacons.streaming.enabled=true - Disable fast triage:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags eature.match.calls.beacons.streaming.enabled=false
Kubernetes AI assistant
The Kubernetes AI assistant feature enables AI-powered assistance in the Kubernetes cluster dashboard page. For more information about the feature, see Kubernetes AI assistant.
- Enable Kubernetes AI assistant:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.kubernetes.ai.agent.enabled=true - Disable Kubernetes AI assistant:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.kubernetes.ai.agent.enabled=false
SLO assistant
The SLO Assistant feature generates summaries and explanations of an SLO by using AI. The feature is available on the SLO dashboard when you view SLO details for an SLO. To generate a summary, click Generate AI summarization. For more information about the feature, see AI-powered SLO analysis
-
To enable SLO assistant, run the following command:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.slo.ai.agent.enabled=true -
To disable SLO assistant, run the following command:
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.slo.ai.agent.enabled=false
Impacted users
The impacted users feature for Smart Alerts helps identify widespread performance issues by tracking how many users experience a certain condition.
Currently, impacted users are supported for:
- Websites
- Mobile applications
- Application perspectives with scope "For this application perspective"
For more information, see Impacted users for application perspective Smart Alerts, Impacted users for websites, and Impacted users for mobile apps.
Enable impacted users for websites and mobile apps
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.eum.impacted.users.for.website.and.mobile.alert.enabled=true
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.eum.sa.impacted.users.enabled=true
Disable impacted users for websites and mobile apps
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.eum.impacted.users.for.website.and.mobile.alert.enabled=false
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.eum.sa.impacted.users.enabled=false
Enable impacted users for application perspectives
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.eum.impacted.users.appalert.enabled=true
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.eum.impacted.traces.enabled=true
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags config.ingestion.beacons.bytrace.enabled=true
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags config.ingestion.eum.impacted.trace.enabled=true
Disable impacted users for application perspectives
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.eum.impacted.users.appalert.enabled=false
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.eum.impacted.traces.enabled=false
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags config.ingestion.beacons.bytrace.enabled=false
stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags config.ingestion.eum.impacted.trace.enabled=false