Dynatrax

Dynatrax is an observability solution that integrates OpenTelemetry with Dynatrace for a Python Flask application. It enables you to capture, track, and analyze traces, metrics, and logs in real-time, giving you deep insights into your application’s health and performance.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Features
• Setup and Installation
  • Prerequisites
  • Environment Variables
• Project Structure
• Usage
  • Running the Application
  • Generating Sample Traces and Metrics
• OpenTelemetry Configuration
• Troubleshooting
• Contributing
• License

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Introduction

Dynatrax provides an easy way to instrument a Flask application using OpenTelemetry and Dynatrace. By automatically exporting traces, metrics, and logs, Dynatrax enables in-depth observability for debugging and performance monitoring.

Features

• Tracing: Tracks and visualizes the flow of requests through your application, giving insights into request paths and latencies.
• Metrics: Monitors and records key metrics to assess application health and performance.
• Logging: Provides structured logging, sent directly to Dynatrace, to support diagnostics and troubleshooting.

Setup and Installation

Follow these steps to set up Dynatrax in your environment.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.7+
• Dynatrace account, with access to create API tokens.
• Recommended: A virtual environment to isolate dependencies.

Environment Variables

Dynatrax requires the following environment variables to communicate with Dynatrace:

• DT_API_URL: The base URL for Dynatrace API (e.g., https://your-dynatrace-domain/api/v2/otlp)
• DT_API_TOKEN: Your Dynatrace API token with the necessary scopes (ingest traces, metrics, logs).

Installation Steps

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone 
   cd Dynatrax

2. Setup virtualenv:

   python3 -m venv .venv
   source .venv\bin\activate

3. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Set up environment variables: Configure your environment variables by creating a .env file or exporting them directly in the terminal.

   .env example:

   DT_API_URL=https://your-dynatrace-domain/api/v2/otlp
   DT_API_TOKEN=your_dynatrace_api_token

5. Initialize OpenTelemetry components:

   • Dynatrax uses OpenTelemetry SDKs for manual instrumentation of traces, metrics, and logs. here
   • Verify your requirements.txt includes necessary OpenTelemetry packages: opentelemetry-api opentelemetry-sdk opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http Flask

Project Structure

 Dynatrax/ 
    ├──  opentelemetry_tracer.py
    ├── app.py             # Main application file 
    ├── README.md          # Project documentation
    ├── requirements.txt   # Python dependencies 
    └── .env               # Environment variables (not included in repository) 

Usage

Running the Application

To run Dynatrax, execute the following command:

python app.py

The app should start on http://localhost:5000. You can visit this URL to generate sample traces and metrics.

Generating Sample Traces and Metrics

Dynatrax includes sample endpoints for testing:

1. / Endpoint: The home route that triggers a simple trace.
2. /greet/<name> Endpoint: Greets the user by name and captures a custom trace with the user’s name.

Example:

curl http://localhost:5000/greet/John

This will generate a trace in Dynatrace showing the request path, response time, and any custom attributes.

OpenTelemetry Configuration

OpenTelemetry settings are configured in app.py:

• Tracing: The TracerProvider and BatchSpanProcessor are initialized, and traces are sent to Dynatrace.
• Metrics: A MeterProvider is set up to capture basic metrics (e.g., request counts, durations).
• Logging: LoggerProvider enables sending structured logs directly to Dynatrace.

Troubleshooting

1. No Data in Dynatrace:

   • Ensure that DT_API_URL and DT_API_TOKEN are correctly set and accessible.
   • Verify that your Dynatrace token has the necessary scopes: metrics.ingest, logs.ingest, traces.ingest.

2. Connection Errors:

   • Check that you’re using the correct API URL format: https://<your_dynatrace_url>/api/v2/otlp.
   • Confirm network connectivity from your application to Dynatrace.

Execution Summary:

1. It creates a service

2) Add Custom metrics 3) New Distributed Traces look 4) Classic Distributed Traces look

TODO:

1. Send Logs to Dynatrace

Contributing:

Contributions are welcome! Please fork the repository and submit a pull request.

License:

Dynatrax is open-source and available under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.