Data retention periods
Dynatrace stores and retains different types of monitored data from your environments. The monitoring data is stored on the Dynatrace cluster. The following table shows the general retention periods for service data (distributed traces), Real User Monitoring (user actions and user sessions), synthetic monitors, Log Monitoring, and metric time series data.
| Data type | Dynatrace SaaS | Dynatrace Managed |
|---|---|---|
| Distributed traces, code-level insights, and errors | 10 days | Configurable, with maximum 365 days of retention time |
| Services: Requests and request attributes | 35 days | Configurable, with maximum 365 days of retention time |
| RUM: User action data | 35 days | Configurable, with maximum 35 days of retention time |
| RUM: User sessions | 35 days | 35 days |
| RUM: Mobile crashes | 35 days | 35 days |
| RUM: Session Replay | 35 days | Configurable, with maximum 35 days of retention time |
| Synthetic | 35 days | Configurable, with maximum 35 days of retention time |
| Log Monitoring | 35 days | 35 days (in Log Monitoring v1, configurable from 5 days to 90 days |
| Metrics | 5 years | 5 years |
| OneAgent diagnostics (support archives and analysis results) | 30 days | Configurable, default is 30 days |
| Davis problems and events | 14 months | 14 months |
| OpenTelemetry ingested traces | 10 days | Configurable, with maximum 365 days of retention time |
Distributed traces, code-level insights, and errors
Dynatrace stores the complete details of every transaction (distributed traces) for 10 days. This enables you to analyze individual transactions and get all details, including RUM waterfall analysis and JavaScript errors. For trial users, an additional storage-size limit applies, which might lead to shorter retention times.
A short-timeframe analysis accesses code-level data that is available for 10 days. After 10 days, session data is optimized for aggregated views. Non-aggregated and aggregated code-level data produce comparable results for longer timeframes, while differences may be expected for shorter timeframes.
Services: Requests and request attributes
Short-term storage of the data related to service metrics used in multidimensional analysis and request charting. This data is available for 35 days with the following interval granularity levels:
| Timeframe | Interval granularity |
|---|---|
| Less than 20 minutes | 10 seconds |
| 20–40 minutes | 20 seconds |
| 40–60 minutes | 30 seconds |
| More than 1 hour | 1 minute |
A short-timeframe analysis accesses code-level data that is available for 10 days. After 10 days, session data is optimized for aggregated views. Non-aggregated and aggregated code-level data produce comparable results for longer timeframes, while differences may be expected for shorter timeframes.
RUM: User action data
Aggregated user action metrics, which are used in tables like Top user actions and Top JavaScript errors, are available for 35 days. After 10 days, user actions data is optimized for aggregated views, and some individual user actions become unavailable for individual analysis. However, the sample set is large enough for statistically correct aggregations.
RUM: User sessions
Includes Session Replay data. All user session data is stored for 35 days. Note that waterfall analysis and JavaScript error data are stored with Distributed traces, code-level insights, and errors.
RUM: Mobile crashes
Includes all crash data and stack traces of mobile and custom applications. The data is stored for 35 days.
RUM: Session Replay
Minimum size of required Session Replay storage volume is entirely load-dependent. A maximum size isn't required. In SaaS deployments, a dedicated disk is used for Session Replay data.
In Dynatrace Managed deployments, the Session Replay data storage directory is a dedicated file store that's used exclusively for Session Replay data. For more information about storage size recommendations, see Configure the secondary disk.
Log Monitoring
Log Monitoring enables you to store all logs centrally within external storage. This makes log data available independent of log files themselves.
For Dynatrace SaaS customers, log files are stored in Amazon Elastic File System in the zone where your Dynatrace environment resides. You don't have to worry about storage performance, availability, or free space. Disk storage costs are included in your Log Monitoring subscription.
To store log files centrally on your Dynatrace Managed cluster, you must provide a common Network File System (NFS) mount point (path) that is identical and available for all cluster nodes. With this approach, it's your responsibility to ensure appropriate levels of performance, availability, and free space on the mounted NFS volume.
Memory dumps
Memory dumps are immediately deleted from the disk once they're uploaded to ActiveGate. When an upload isn't possible, memory dumps up to 20 GB are stored on the disk for up to 2 hours.
Metrics
The following interval granularity levels are available for dashboarding and API access:
| Timeframe | Interval granularity |
|---|---|
| 0–14 days | 1 minute |
| 14–28 days | 5 minutes |
| 28–400 days | 1 hour |
| 400 days–5 years | 1 day |
To provide accurate calculations for timeseries metrics, Dynatrace uses the P2 algorithm to calculate the quantiles dynamically. This algorithm is known to yield good results and it works well with values in the long tails of value distributions. However, the aggregation algorithm is neither associative ((a + b ) + c == a + ( b + c )) nor commutative (a + b + c == c + b + a). For some metrics, for example, response times, this might lead to different quantile values each time the algorithm runs or when the data is aggregated in different ways, for example, one metric is split by URL and another by browser.
OneAgent and ActiveGate diagnostics
OneAgent diagnostics and ActiveGate diagnostics are optional features that enable you to collect and analyze support archives for anomalies.
Support archives are created by Dynatrace OneAgent or Dynatrace ActiveGate and stored in Cassandra, where they are automatically deleted after 30 days. When you allow Dynatrace to analyze an issue, an additional copy of the support archive is stored in the configured AWS S3 bucket. Results of the issue analysis and the support archive are also automatically deleted from the AWS S3 bucket after 30 days. Dynatrace OneAgent and Dynatrace ActiveGate do not keep copies of created support archives.
You can delete OneAgent or ActiveGate diagnostics issues at any time. If you delete an issue, the related support archive and analysis report are deleted from Cassandra and the AWS S3 bucket immediately. The analysis result in Dynatrace Health Control is deleted after 30 days.