Enabling optional features for Classic Edition

You can enable or disable optional features on Self-Hosted Classic Edition (Docker) by using the feature flags. Some optional features are disabled by default.

Add feature flags to the settings.hcl file, which is generated automatically when you install the Instana backend as in Installing Instana, and set the enabled field to true. Then, run the command instana update to apply the changes.

BeeInstana Metric Pipeline (public preview)

This feature includes a new data pipeline with additional Instana backend components and a datastore (BeeInstana) to the store of the infrastructure metrics. Based on this data, further features can be activated in the product.

Custom Infrastructure dashboards
Infrastructure Explore

Ensure that enough free space is available in the storage location for the metric data, and the entire system is not currently being operated at its capacity limits. This is because the additional components might endanger the stability.

An estimated disk size of 1 million metrics can be derived from this table:

Table 1. BeeInstana metric
Period in seconds	Retention	Disk size in GBs
10	1	72.72
60	30	418.88
300	90	289.35
3600	395	191.49

To enable the pipeline and Custom Infrastructure dashboards, enable the following feature flag in the settings.hcl file, and apply this change by using an instana update command to the system.

feature "beeinstana" {
  enabled=true
}

Furthermore, you can activate Infrastructure Explore by using the following feature flag:

feature "infraEntityExplore" {
  enabled=true
}

The Native histogram metric support feature is not available for Classic Edition.

OpenStack monitoring feature flag

To enable the OpenStack monitoring feature, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "openstackEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}

SAP monitoring feature flag

To enable the SAP monitoring feature, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "sapEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}

VMware Tanzu feature flag

To enable VMware Tanzu, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "pcfEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}

For more information about this optional feature, see Monitoring Cloud Foundry and VMware Tanzu (formerly known as Pivotal Cloud Foundry).

VMware® vSphere feature flag

To enable VMware vSphere, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "vsphereEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}

For more information about this optional feature, see Monitoring vSphere.

IBM Z HMC feature flag

To enable IBM Z HMC, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "zhmcEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}

For more information about this optional feature, see Monitoring IBM Z HMC.

IBM Power HMC feature flag

To enable IBM Power HMC, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "phmcEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}

For more information about this optional feature, see Monitoring IBM Power HMC.

IBM J9 VM memory leak detection feature flag

To enable the memory leak detection of IBM J9 VM, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "rulesMemoryleakEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}

For more information about this optional feature, see the JVM section of the Built-in Events Reference page.

Feature flag for 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. To enable WalkMe, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "walkmetoolenabled" {
  enabled=true
}

Feature flags for 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.

To enable the Get answers button, set the corresponding feature flag in the settings.hcl file. 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.

feature "assistmeEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}
feature "walkmetoolenabled" {
  enabled=true
}

Analyze infrastructure feature flag

To enable analyze infrastructure, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "beeinstanainframetricsEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}

Nutanix feature flag

To enable Nutanix, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "nutanixEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}

Windows Hyper-V feature flag

To enable Windows Hyper-V, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "windowsHypervisorEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}

For more information, see Monitoring Windows Hyper-V (public preview).

XenServer feature flag

To enable XenServer, set the following option in the settings.hcl file:

feature "xenserverEnabled" {
  enabled=true
}
```## Feature flags for public preview capabilities

Instana provides some capabilities as public preview features. To enable any of those features, see [Optional Features (public preview)](../../self_hosted/docker_based/installation.html#optional-features)