Authors: Rajesh K. Jeyapaul, Sanju S Nair, Sidharth S, Neha Ghongade
Introduction
Instana is a fully automated real-time observability platform that puts performance data in context to deliver rapid issue prevention and remediation. Instana is available as a self-hosted (on-premise) solution or as a SaaS solution. To use the self-hosted (on-premises) Instana, you need to install the Instana backend, which is the Instana server.
Good news for the Power architecture-based users is that now the Instana server is available as a self hosted environment on OCP on Power architecture. A closed beta build to try it out for free. This version is available till August 2023 for evaluation.
This blog describes how to avail the build and use it to have an Observability environment monitored by using OCP on Power.
Installing Instana server on OCP (Power9)
Installing Instana server on OCP (Power9) is simple. It requires just a cluster with three worker nodes and the required tools and binaries.
- Instruction are available in the provided Github doc
Availing closed beta build
Reach out to the following contacts to avail the closed beta build. IBM will provide you installation assistance and guidance on using the build to monitor your application. Do not use the closed beta in the production environment. GA build is expected in 3Q.
Contact :
- Sridhar Venkatesh - Product Manager - svenkatesh@us.ibm.com
- Rajesh Jeyapaul - Architect - jrkumar@in.ibm.com
To install the monitoring agent (Instana client agents) on Power and monitor the application by using the closed beta Instana server, refer to Sample App Monitoring using Agent.
Sample App Monitoring using Agent
Modern microservice-based cloud-native architecture has many applications which are bind together with multiple protocols and utilities. Along with the powerful features of this architecture comes some unanticipated issues such as Distributed Tracing, Resource Monitoring, Incident-Alerting, and so on. Instana with Observability gives you actionable insights into the issues and many other problems before it affects the application user experience.
You can monitor any cloud-native or standalone application by deploying Instana Agent (on the environment where application is running) and point it towards the Instana server (In this case server running on OCP on Power).
The following steps demonstrates observability of Instana by using simple tracing application.
a. Deploying sample application
b. Installing Instana Agent
To Install the Instana agent on your environment, refer to Installing Instana agents and pick the method according to your environment.
c. Monitoring application
Observability is composed of metrics, logs, and distributed traces. These three components are also known as the three pillars of observability. Instana agent activates the sensors by detecting the runtimes of your application and starts monitoring the application by using Instana server.
Click here to watch a demo for the tracing application.
For more information on Power architecture, refer to Microservices Monitoring On Power Architecture Using Instana.
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