Monitoring IBM Cloud

After you install the Instana host agent, IBM Cloud Platform Metrics sensor is automatically installed, but you need to complete the configuration as outlined in the Configuring section. Then, you can view metrics that are related to IBM Cloud in the Instana UI.

Installing the Instana host agent on IBM Cloud Virtual Server

You can install the Instana host agent on IBM Cloud Virtual Server that has access to the Instana backend. Run the Instana host agent on an IBM Cloud Virtual Server that runs on the Linux® operating system. For example, B1.2x8 instances are ideal.

Depending on the number of monitored entities in your cloud environment, you might need to increase the maximum amount of memory that is available to your host agent. You can increase the agent memory by setting the AGENT_MAX_MEM environment variable to a value that is greater than 512 MB, which is the default value. For example, to set the host agent memory to 1 GB, you can set AGENT_MAX_MEM=1024 MB.

Install only one Instana host agent per combination of IBM Cloud account and IBM Cloud region. Installing multiple IBM Cloud agents for the same combination of IBM Cloud account and IBM Cloud region can incur extra costs from IBM Cloud, without the added benefit in quality of monitoring by using Instana.

Configuring

Retrieving API key

  1. Enable collection of IBM Cloud Platform metrics.
  2. From the IBM Cloud dashboard, select the navigation menu.
  3. In the dropdown list, select Observability.
  4. Select Monitoring from the "Observability" page, and then select the "Open dashboard" link.
  5. On the dashboard, select the circle icon with your user initials.
  6. Select settings, and then copy the API Token on the "settings" page. The API token that you copied is your API key.

Configuring the host agent

  1. Search for the "IBM Cloud Platform Services" section in the <agent_install_dir>/etc/instana/configuration.yaml file of the host agent.

  2. Configure an IBM Cloud Monitoring endpoint and API Key for each IBM Cloud location that requires monitoring. Multiple locations can be configured.

    # IBM Cloud Platform Services
#com.instana.plugin.ibmcloud:
#  enabled: true
#  locations: # Support multiple IBM Cloud locations. Add location configuration as follows.
#    - location_endpoint: '<INSERT_ENDPOINT_HERE>' # IBM Cloud Monitoring endpoint. For example, https://us-south.monitoring.cloud.ibm.com
#      apikey: '<INSERT_APIKEY_HERE>' # IBM Cloud Monitoring API Key for this location.
#    - location_endpoint: '<INSERT_ENDPOINT_HERE>' # IBM Cloud Monitoring endpoint. For example, https://us-east.monitoring.cloud.ibm.com
#      apikey: '<INSERT_APIKEY_HERE>' # IBM Cloud Monitoring API Key for this location.

The polling interval, which is the frequency at which the Instana host agent calls the IBM Cloud Monitoring API is fixed at 60 seconds.

Viewing metrics

To view the metrics, complete the following steps:

  1. In the sidebar of the Instana UI, select Infrastructure.
  2. Click a specific monitored host.

Then, you can see a host dashboard with all the collected metrics and monitored processes.

Supported metrics

The following types of metrics are supported to be seen in the Instana UI:

  • IBM Cloudant
  • IBM Cloud Container Registry
  • IBM Cloud Databases for Elasticsearch
  • IBM Cloud Databases for etcd
  • IBM Cloud Databases for MongoDB
  • IBM Cloud Databases for PostgreSQL
  • IBM Cloud Messages for RabbitMQ
  • IBM Cloud Databases for Redis
  • IBM Cloud Functions
  • IBM Cloud Object Storage
  • IBM Cloud Schematics
  • IBM Cloud SQL Query
  • IBM Event Streams
  • IBM Cloud Load Balancer
  • IBM Load Balancer for VPC
  • IBM Cloud Virtual Servers
  • IBM VPC virtual server instances
  • IBM VPN for VPC

For detailed metrics that are related to each type, see IBM Cloud Platform Services Monitoring.

Health signatures

Each sensor has a curated knowledge base of health signatures that are evaluated continuously against the incoming metrics and are used to raise issues or incidents depending on user impact.

Built-in events trigger issues or incidents based on failing health signatures on entities, and custom events trigger issues or incidents based on the thresholds of an individual metric of any entity.

Events might be raised by the agent that sends IBM Cloud Platform Metrics to the Instana backend. See the possible events in Built-in events reference.

Monitoring issues

Connection error

Monitoring issue type: ibmcloud_invalid_apikey

IBM Cloud Platform Metrics sensor fails to connect to IBM Cloud due to an invalid API Key. Make sure that a valid API Key is configured correctly in the configuration.yaml file of the host agent.

Monitoring issue type: ibmcloud_unknown_host

IBM Cloud Platform Metrics sensor fails to connect to IBM Cloud due to unknown host. Make sure that the host is configured correctly in the configuration.yaml file of the host agent.

Monitoring issue type: ibmcloud_connection_error

IBM Cloud Platform Metrics sensor fails to connect to IBM Cloud for reasons other than invalid API Key or unknown host. Look at the host agent log for additional information.