Service level objectives widgets (public preview)

Service level objectives (beta) and service level objectives widgets are separate capabilities.

Terminology

Service level objective (SLO): Defines the target value for the service level that is measured by a SLI. As an example, the SLO might specify that a particular SLI is 99.9% of the defined time.

Error Budget: The specified target value of an SLO implicitly defined a small budget where the service is allowed to not work fully reliably. This error budget allows the incorporation of planned or unplanned downtime of the service that is unavoidable in practice.

SLO widgets

Instana enables users to create custom dashboard widgets for their SLOs to display and analyze the performance of their services over time. The widget can be either an Error budget chart or an Indicator chart. The time span over which the widget displays the data can be set to either the time window of the selected SLO or the time that is selected by the user in the time picker in the upper-right side of the UI.

The following image illustrates an example of an error budget SLO widget that is called Demo Widget and is configured by using an application SLO called Example Application SLO and an SLO target value of 99%. The time span that is selected by the user is set to 6 hours. The widget is set to display the data over the time span selected by the user. The SLO in the example has a latency indicator blueprint of event count type and a threshold value of 75 milliseconds. The example SLO was not achieved in the selected time frame because the remaining error budget was less than 0.

SLO widget

Configuration

Adding SLO widgets

You can set up an SLO widget for any of your SLOs. To add an SLO widget, go to one of your custom dashboards to open the dialog for Adding a Widget. Next, complete the following steps:

  1. In the dialog sidebar, click SLO > Next. The dialog opens the configuration section to set up an SLO widget.
  2. Select whether you want to create an SLO widget for your application or website SLO.
  3. Select the Service Level Objective for the particular SLO type from the list. Create an SLO by clicking Add new SLO and following instructions described in the Creating an SLO, if no SLO is available for the previously selected SLO type or a new SLO is necessary.
  4. Select the chart type from an Error budget chart or an Indicator chart.
  5. Enter a title for the widget.
  6. Verify your widget in the preview. If no preview is displayed, click Highlight missing configuration to immediately see what is missing.
  7. To create the SLO widget configuration, click Create.
  8. To save the SLO widget configuration on your custom dashboard, click Save changes.

Using SLO widgets

With SLO widgets, you can pick the time frame for which data is displayed. Use the buttons in the upper-right side of the widget to select to display the data for Selected Time or SLO Time Window.

  • The selected time option displays data for the time period that is chosen in the time picker in the upper-right side. For example, if the time picker is set to display data for the last 6 hours, the widget set to display data for Selected Time displays data for the last 6 hours.
  • The SLO time window option displays data for the time window that is configured for the selected SLO.

SLO status and error budget values that are displayed in the widget summary is always calculated against the entire SLO time window. Dynamically recalculating the SLO status or error budget based on the time-picker is not supported.

SLO widget can display an Error budget chart or an Indicator chart. The type of chart is selected during the creation of the widget. The widget can display only one type of the chart. If both charts are required, the second widget must be created and the other chart type must be selected by following instructions in Adding SLO widgets. If an incorrect chart type, incorrect SLO, or incorrect name is selected when you create the widget, you can always edit it.

Editing SLO widgets

When the configuration of an SLO widget needs to be changed, the SLO widget can be edited by completing the following steps:

  1. Go to the custom dashboard where the SLO widget in question is added.
  2. Find the SLO widget that needs editing.
  3. Click the ellipsis button.
  4. Click Edit.
  5. Change the value of the fields necessary by following the instructions in Adding SLO widgets.

Copying SLO widgets

The SLO widget can be copied by completing the following steps:

  1. Go to the custom dashboard where the SLO widget in question is added.
  2. Find the SLO widget that needs copying.
  3. Click the ellipsis button.
  4. Click Copy.
  5. Change the value of the fields necessary by following instructions in Adding SLO widgets.