Enabling observability with OpenTelemetry

Gain a deeper insight into your environment with OpenTelemetry.

OpenTelemetry is available by default on each master domain manager and Dynamic Workload Console installed with a fresh installation. You can also enable it after upgrading to the current version.

After the installation or upgrade has completed, perform the following steps to enable OpenTelemetry:

Install and configure a tracing tool of your choice, for example Jaeger, Prometheus, or Splunk.
Stop WebSphere Application Server Liberty, as described in Application server - starting and stopping.
Browse to the following paths:

master domain manager

On UNIX operating systems

TWA_home/usr/servers/engineServer

On Windows operating systems

TWA_home\usr\servers\engineServer

Dynamic Workload Console

On UNIX operating systems

DWC_home/usr/servers/dwcServer

On Windows operating systems

DWC_home\usr\servers\dwcServer
Edit the following properties in the server.env configuration file, based on the specifics of your environment:
```
 
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://{OPENTELEMETRY_HOSTNAME}:{OPENTELEMETRY_PORT}
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT={OPENTELEMETRY_HOSTNAME}:{OPENTELEMETRY_PORT}
OTEL_SDK_DISABLED=false
OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL
```
where

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT

A base endpoint URL for any signal type, with an optionally-specified port number

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT

Endpoint URL for trace data only, with an optionally-specified port number

OTEL_SDK_DISABLED

Disable the SDK for all signals

OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER

Trace exporter to be used

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL

OTLP transport protocol. Supported values are as follows:

grpc

for protobuf-encoded data using gRPC wire format over HTTP/2 connection

http/protobuf

for protobuf-encoded data over HTTP connection

http/json

for JSON-encoded data over HTTP connection

For more information about the properties in the server.env file, see OpenTelemetry documentation.
Start WebSphere Application Server Liberty, as described in Application server - starting and stopping.

You have now configured OpenTelemetry to work with IBM® Workload Scheduler. The resulting telemetry data are displayed on the workstation you specified in the server.env file.

When enabling OpenTelemetry, it is important to be aware that it generates a substantial amount of data, which may impact system performance, especially on AIX operating systems.

Configuration file example

Consider the following example in which tracing is configured with Jaeger:


OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317
OTEL_SDK_DISABLED=false
OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=otlp
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=grpc
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_PROTOCOL=grpc