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.

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.

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.

After you enable logging, you can use these capabilities:
  • 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.
To ensure that logging is properly enabled, complete the following steps:
  1. Make sure that logging is enabled in the Core specification by using the feature.logging.enabled feature flag. Run the following command:
    stanctl backend apply --core-feature-flags feature.logging.enabled=true
  2. 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
     
Note: Important: The Cassandra cluster dashboards are not visible for a time frame that starts from before you enable this feature and ends after you enable it. If you change the seed IP addresses, the dashboard continuity also breaks. Clusters continue to be searchable, but in the preceding cases, it is not possible to view metric charts during the transition period.

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
Note: The AI gateway and configuration is required for incident summarization.

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).

To enable Intelligent incident investigation, update the featureFlags section in the core.yaml file as shown in the following example:
...
featureFlags:
  - name:  feature.rca.agentic.enabled
    enabled: true
...
Note: The root cause analysis feature must also be enabled for intelligent incident investigation. For more information about enabling that feature, see Root cause analysis.

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
Note: The AI gateway and configuration are required for Kubernetes AI assistant.

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
     
Note: The AI gateway and configuration are required for SLO assistant.

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