The Instana Connector enables seamless integration between an Instana instance and AIOps, allowing for the collection and processing of both metric and event data. In this article, we will focus on the metric collection aspect and the improvements introduced in Release 4.11.

The connector interacts with Instana APIs to retrieve metric data for selected technologies. However, since Instana enforces API rate limits for each token, exceeding those limits could previously lead to errors and delays in metric collection until the quota reset.

Release 4.11 introduces significant enhancements designed to make metric ingestion more flexible, efficient, and scalable:

• Enhanced Application-Perspective Filtering — extended to Services and Endpoints
• Optimized API usage — fewer calls, smarter batching, dynamic throttling, and improved throughput

These improvements bring greater control for operations teams, reduce unnecessary load, and ensure metric data flows more reliably across large environments.

Why These Enhancements Matter

1. More Fine-Grained Filtering Beyond the Application Scope

Previously, application-level filters allowed users to limit metric collection (or visibility) for an entire application. But in real-world production environments, teams often need more precision.

With 4.11:

·       Application filters can now cascade down to services and endpoints associated with those applications.

·       Ops teams gain more control to reduce noise and conserve bandwidth by excluding unwanted components.

·       Filtering logic is applied earlier, so irrelevant data is dropped before ingestion or processing.

In short: monitoring is now more selective and targeted, giving teams visibility exactly where it matters.

2. Smarter API Usage & Rate Optimization

a) Redesigned Ingestion API

In high-scale environments, the old metric-ingestion approach could generate large volumes of API calls, sometimes approaching rate ceilings. The 4.11 release addresses this challenge with:

·       A more efficient ingestion API replacing legacy calls

·       Batching, consolidation, and throttling strategies to minimize overhead

·       Fewer API calls per interval, resulting in higher throughput and more stable collection

The result: a leaner, more resilient integration that avoids unnecessary retries and scales smoothly across large workloads.

b) Dynamic Rate Limit Throttling

To further improve resilience, the connector now includes dynamic rate limiting:

·       The rate limiter continuously monitors API quotas after each call.

·       Based on the remaining quota and reset time, it adjusts the request throttling strategy dynamically.

·       If quota is high, requests proceed at normal speed.

·       If quota is running low, requests are spread out evenly to avoid hitting the ceiling.

·       If quota is nearly exhausted, aggressive throttling ensures uninterrupted data collection until reset.

This adaptive approach ensures optimal use of Instana API resources, prevents errors, and keeps metric collection running smoothly under varying workloads.

New Dependency introduced for Infrastructure Metrics Data Collection

Alongside these enhancements, Release 4.11 introduces a new dependency for certain Instana environments when collecting infrastructure metrics:

·       Instana SaaS and Self-Hosted Standard Edition users automatically benefit from the improvements.

·       Self-Hosted Custom and Classic Edition users must enable BeeInstana for the Infrastructure Metric data collection. Customers have the provision for backward compatibility to continue relying on the older approach.

This ensures that infrastructure metrics can still flow in those environments. However, the trade-off is that the older approach does not provide the new efficiencies of 4.11. Customers can leverage this backward compatibility until they are ready to enable BeeInstana.

Looking Ahead

The Instana-Connector 4.11 release strengthens the foundations of metric collection by giving teams:

·       More control — through fine-grained filtering across apps, services, and endpoints

·       Better efficiency — via a redesigned ingestion API and smarter batching

·       Greater scalability — enabled by dynamic rate limit throttling and BeeInstana support

These changes are part of our ongoing effort to improve observability integrations, ensuring that monitoring keeps pace with the growing complexity of modern systems.