Overview of DEM

DEM provides a capability to monitor real user experience. It collects data about how actual users interact with and experience web applications. You can enable DEM for Liberty data collector, HTTP Server, and NGINX.

DEM uses Unified Agent plug-ins for LWDC and OpenTracing to send data to the Monitoring server. The LWDC plug-in and OpenTracing plug-in are automatically enabled after you install Monitoring DataProvider Management. For more information about installing Monitoring DataProvider Management, see Installing and uninstalling Monitoring DataProvider Management. For more information about deploying Unified Agent plug-ins, see Deploying Unified Agent.

Architecture

Prerequisites

• If you deploy DEM in IBM Cloud Private, DEM supports monitoring kube services that are exposed by Ingress only. Make sure that the following settings are enabled in your IBM Cloud Private environment.

  • If SSL Passthrough is enabled in ingress, ensure that X-FORWARDED-FOR is enabled. Set the following annotation to ingress to pass client IP to X-FORWARDED-FOR header.

    ingress.kubernetes.io/configuration-snippet: | 
          proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For   $proxy_protocol_addr;
    

  • If you are using ingress rewriting rules, ensure that X-Original-URI header is supported to pass original URI. By default it is enabled.

• Make sure the Kubernetes data collector is installed and enabled. Otherwise, the DEM service cannot be found in Monitoring portal. For more information, see Kubernetes data collector.

• Make sure the Unified Agent plug-ins for LWDC and OpenTracing are enabled. Basically, as long as you install Monitoring DataProvider Management, the LWDC plug-in and OpenTracing plug-in are automatically enabled. For more information about deploying Unified Agent plug-ins, see Deploying Unified Agent.

Deployment options

• To enable DEM in Liberty application monitoring, see DEM for Liberty applications.
• To enable DEM on HTTP Server, see Installing and configuring the DEM plug-in for HTTP Server.
• To enable DEM on NGINX, see Installing and configuring the DEM plug-in for NGINX.