Migrating from the Instana Connector to the Observer

If you have defined the Instana Connector to integrate with Instana and intend to switch to the Instana Observer, you must disable the previous integration and delete previously retrieved data before defining and running the Instana Observer. This will prevent the creation of duplicate resources.

When migrating from the Instana Connector to the Instana Observer, you first edit the existing Instana Connector integration to disable the topology, then delete the provider resources to remove data from the old integration, and finally scale the instana-topology-integrator pod to zero. You then define and run the Instana Observer.

Remember: The Instana Observer provides a more efficient alternative to the Instana Collector, which uses more system resources. You can use either to collect topology data, but not both.

About this task

The topology model created by the AIOps Instana Topology Integrator differs slightly from that created by the Instana Observer. Key differences are:

  • The data properties from the Instana APIs are no longer stored as first level properties in the resources, but are instead nested under a parent property named InstanaData.
  • The Observer creates a History Exclusion Rule, which means that property changes to instanaData will no longer drive topology history.
  • The Instana end point resources are now members of the same Instana resource group as the Infrastructure resources.
  • A single topology resource is created for each Instana service rather than a copy for each application (as before).
  • Where possible the Instana end point resources will be connected to the Infrastructure resources via the technologies attributed to the service.
  • As with all observers you cannot schedule jobs with a period that is shorter than the length of time it takes the topology to consume the data. If the next job is scheduled to start before the previous one has completed then it will be skipped.
  • The name attribute of a resource is now the Instana label, which is more readable when looking at a topology view. If the name was previously used in a rule, such as a File Enrichment Rule, then the rule will need to be amended.

Procedure

  1. Disable the Topology Integrator to prevent the Instana connector pod from downloading topology data from Instana.

    Important: Make a note of the topology configuration parameters which were used as you will need them later when creating a new job for the Instana Observer.

    The instana-topology-integrator pod registers itself with the Topology Configuration UI using the name of instana-observer; to avoid clashes between it and the Instana Observer it should be scaled to zero.

    a. Log in to IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps console.

    b. Expand the navigation menu (four horizontal bars), then click Define > Integrations.

    c. On the Manage integrations tab of the Integrations page, click the Instana integration type.

    d. Click the integration that you want to disable.

    e. Go to the Collect topology data section and use the toggle to disable the integration.

    Note: Disabling topology data collection for an integration does not delete the integration. Also, the Collector will continue to collect event and metric data.

    For more information about Instana integrations, see the Creating Instana integrations topic.

  2. Backup your UI configuration and existing Observer jobs, and then delete the old topology data using one of the following methods (substeps).

    • Clear out all the topology data as documented in in Clearing out topology data without reinstalling.

    • Remove the old topology using the delete provider resources crawler, which can be run from the Data administration routines UI. Remember that this crawler has a limit (of 10,000) on the number of resources it can delete, which means that if there are more than this number of resources in your existing Instana topology, either use the alternative method (Clearing out topology data without reinstalling), or contact IBM Support for further assistance.

What's next

Next, define and run Instana Observer jobs using the same parameters as the AIOps Instana Topology Integrator, as described in Configuring Instana Observer jobs.

Remember: When you use the Instana Observer instead of the Connector, the name attribute of a resource is now the Instana label, which means that if the name was previously used in a rule (for example a File Enrichment Rule), you must amend the rule accordingly.