Agent metrics
The Instana host agent collects and reports various metrics about its own performance, configuration, and operational status.
Viewing agent metrics
The Instana agent monitors itself and provides detailed information about its composition, management capabilities, resource consumption, and operational health.You can view these metrics in the agent dashboard to understand agent behavior, troubleshoot issues, and optimize performance.To view agent metrics, complete the following steps:
- From the navigation menu, select .
- Select the specific agent from the Agent details table.
- In the agent dashboard, you can view various metrics that are organized by category.
Agent composition metrics
The following metrics provide information about the agent's composition and configuration:
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Composition | |
| Sensors version | Sensors version (called "agent version" before release 321) of the Instana agent currently running. |
| Agent version | Agent version (called "agent boot version" before release 321) of the bootstrap component that is used when the agent was started. |
| Origin | Installation method used to deploy the Instana agent. |
| Update mode | Update strategy configured for the Instana agent. |
| Log level | Logging level configured for the Instana agent. |
| Mode | Operating mode of the Instana agent. |
| Java runtime | Type of Java runtime used by the Instana agent. |
| Java version | Version of the Java runtime used by the Instana agent. |
| User | Operating system user that is running the Instana agent process. |
| Started at | Date and time when the Instana agent was started. |
Agent management metrics
The following metrics relate to agent management operations and actions:
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Management1 | |
| Change agent mode | Change the mode of the Instana agent: APM, Off, Infrastructure, or AWS |
| Change log level | Change the logging level of the Instana agent |
| Update agent | Update the Instana agent to the latest available version |
| Reset agent | Triggers an internal restart of the Instana agent |
| Reboot agent | Restart the Instana agent process |
| Information | |
| Sensor information | Displays the list and status of sensors currently active in the Instana agent |
| Download logs1 | Downloads the log files that are generated by the Instana agent. |
| Configuration management | |
| Initialize | Triggers the initialization of the Git-based configuration management |
| Support1 | |
| Collect support information | Generates a support package that contain agent state, configuration, logs, and sensor information for troubleshooting purposes. |
| Profile agent | Instana agent self-profiling feature for analyzing agent performance metrics (feature not available). |
Agent monitoring metrics
The following metrics provide real-time monitoring information about the agent's performance and health:
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Monitoring issues | |
| On | Entity or component where the issue occurred |
| Code | Identifier representing the type of issue detected |
| Description | Brief summary of the issue |
| More information | Documentation links to additional technical details and remediation information |
| CPU load | |
| Load | Percentage of CPU resources used by the Instana agent JVM process |
| JVM memory | |
| Heap | Heap memory that is allocated for the Instana agent JVM |
| Direct buffer | Native memory that is allocated outside the JVM heap by the Instana agent |
| Off heap | Auxiliary JVM memory areas that are used for class metadata and thread management |
| Garbage collection2 | |
| MarkSweepCompact time | Time spent on garbage collection in the old (tenured) generation |
| Copy time | Time spent on garbage collection in the young generation during copy operations |
| MarkSweepCompact invocations | Number of garbage collection executions in the old (tenured) generation. |
| Copy invocations | Number of garbage collection executions in the young generation. |
| Network | |
| Received | Amount of data received by the agent from the backend. |
| Sent | Amount of data that is sent from the agent to the backend. |
| Discovery | |
| Discovery time | Time required by the Instana agent to scan and identify processes and services on the host |
| Discovery count | Number of available discovery services during a single discovery cycle |
| Sensors | |
| Sense time | Time the agent spends on collecting sensor metrics |
| Sensor count | Current number of active sensor instances |
| Log output1 | |
| Live log view | Real-time view of agent logs |