Java Agent self observability dashboard

SkyWalking java agent reports itself metrics by Meter APIS in order to measure tracing performance. it also provides a dashboard to visualize the agent metrics.

Data flow

1. SkyWalking java agent reports metrics data internally and automatically.
2. SkyWalking OAP accept these meters through native protocols.
3. The SkyWalking OAP Server parses the expression with MAL to filter/calculate/aggregate and store the results.

Set up

Java Agent so11y is a build-in feature, it reports meters automatically after boot.

Self observability monitoring

Self observability monitoring provides monitoring of the runtime performance of the java agent itself. agent.service_name is a Service in Agent so11y, and land on the Layer: SO11Y_JAVA_AGENT.

Self observability metrics

Unit	Metric Name	Description	Data Source
Count Per Minute	meter_java_agent_created_tracing_context_count	Created Tracing Context Count (Per Minute)	SkyWalking Java Agent
Count Per Minute	meter_java_agent_finished_tracing_context_count	Finished Tracing Context Count (Per Minute)	SkyWalking Java Agent
Count Per Minute	meter_java_agent_created_ignored_context_count	Created Ignored Context Count (Per Minute)	SkyWalking Java Agent
Count Per Minute	meter_java_agent_finished_ignored_context_count	Finished Ignored Context Count (Per Minute)	SkyWalking Java Agent
Count Per Minute	meter_java_agent_possible_leaked_context_count	Possible Leak Context Count (Per Minute)	SkyWalking Java Agent
Count Per Minute	meter_java_agent_interceptor_error_count	Interceptor Error Count (Per Minute)	SkyWalking Java Agent
ns	meter_java_agent_tracing_context_execution_time_percentile	Tracing Context Execution Time (ns)	SkyWalking Java Agent

Customizations

You can customize your own metrics/expression/dashboard panel. The metrics definition and expression rules are found in /meter-analyzer-config/java-agent.yaml The self observability dashboard panel configurations are found in /config/ui-initialized-templates/so11y_java_agent.