DDUs for business events

The DDU consumption model outlined here for business events only affects Dynatrace SaaS environments that are activated for Dynatrace Grail for business events. DDU consumption for all other DDU capability types remains unchanged. For details about activating business events for your Dynatrace environment, contact a Dynatrace ONE product specialist by selecting the Chat button in the upper-right corner of the Dynatrace web UI.

This page explains how DDUs are consumed by business events and how you can estimate and track your environment’s DDU consumption. For full details on these capabilities, see the business events documentation.

DDU consumption model for business events

The DDU consumption model for business events is based on three dimensions of data usage (Ingest & Process, Retain, and Query). The unit of measure for consumed data volume is gigabytes (GB). Each of the three data usage dimensions consumes DDUs based on a different weight (see the DDU consumption row in the table below for details).

Total DDU consumption for business events is calculated by multiplying the DDU weight of each of the three data-usage dimensions with the data volume in GB.

	Ingest & Process	Retain	Query
Definition	Ingested data is the amount of raw data in bytes sent to Dynatrace before enrichment and transformation.	Retained data is the amount of data saved to storage after data parsing, enrichment, transformation, and filtering but before compression.	Queried data is the amount of data read during the execution of a DQL query, including sampled data.
DDU consumption	100.00 DDUs per GB	0.30 DDUs per GB retained per day	1.70 DDUs per GB read

Ingest & Process

What‘s included with the Ingest & Process data-usage dimension?


Data delivery	Delivery of business events via OneAgent, RUM JavaScript, or Generic Event Ingestion API (via ActiveGate)
Topology enrichment	Enrichment of business events with data source and topology metadata
Data transformation	Add, edit, or drop any business event attribute Perform mathematical transformations on numerical values (for example, creating new attributes based on calculations of existing fields) Extract business, infrastructure, application, or other data from raw business events. This can be a single character, string, number, array of values, or other. Extracted data can be turned into a new field, allowing additional querying, filtering, etc. Mask sensitive data by replacing specific business attributes with a masked string
Data-retention control	Manage data retention periods of incoming business events based on bucket assignment rules
Conversion to time series (with Dynatrace SaaS version 1.257+)	Create metrics from business event attributes (note that creating custom metrics consumes additional DDUs beyond those consumed for ingestion and processing.)

Apply the following calculation to determine your DDU consumption for the Ingest & Process data-usage dimension:
(number of GB ingested) × (100.00 DDU weight) = DDUs consumed

Be aware that data enrichment and processing can increase your data volume typically by 0.5-1.0 kB per event. Depending on the source of the data, and the attributes and metadata added during processing, the total data volume after processing can increase by a factor of 2 or more. Processing can also be used to drop unwanted event attributes to reduce retained data volume.

Retain

What’s included with the Retain data-usage dimension?


Data availability	Retained data is accessible for analysis and querying until the end of the retention period.
Retention periods	Choose a desired retention period: 35 days (default) 1 year 3 years

Apply the following calculation to determine your DDU consumption for the Retain data-usage dimension:
(number of GB of processed data stored) × (retention period in days) × (0.30 DDU weight) × (number of days that data is stored) = DDUs consumed

Query

Query data usage occurs when:

Submitting custom DQL queries in the Logs & Events viewer in advanced mode.
Dashboard tiles that are based on business event data are configured to trigger DQL queries. Each query execution results in data refresh and can include sampled data.
Executing DQL queries via API.

What’s included with the Query data-usage dimension?


On-read parsing	Use DQL to query historical business events in storage and extract business, infrastructure, or other data across any timeframe, and use extracted data for follow-up analysis. No upfront indexes or schema required for on-read parsing
Aggregation	Perform aggregation, summarization, or statistical analysis of business event data across specific timeframes or time patterns (for example, data occurrences in 30-second or 10-minute intervals), mathematical, or logical functions.
Reporting	Create reports or summaries with customized fields (columns) by adding, modifying, or dropping existing business event attributes.
Context	Use DQL to analyze business event data in context with relevant data on the Dynatrace platform, for example, user sessions or distributed traces.

Apply the following calculation to determine your DDU consumption for the Query data-usage dimension:
(number of GB of uncompressed data read during query execution) × (1.70 DDU weight) = DDUs consumed

Calculate DDU consumption across data-usage dimensions

Step 1 – Ingest & Process

Let’s assume that you ingest 5 GB of business event data per day into Dynatrace. The yearly DDU consumption for Ingest & Process is 182,500 DDUs:


Ingest volume per day	5 GB
Ingest volume per year	1,825 GB	5 (GB data per day) × 365 (days)
DDU consumption per year	182,500 DDUs	1,825 (GB per year) × 100.00 (DDUs per GB)

Step 2 - Retain

After processing, enriched data of 9 GB (5 GB × 1.8 for enrichment) is added to storage daily and retained for 35 days. The yearly DDU consumption (after a ramp-up period of 35 days) for Retain is 34,675 DDUs:


Retained volume for 1 day	9 GB	5 (GB data per day) × 1.8 (enrichment)
Retained volume for 35 days	315 GB	9 (GB data per day) × 35 (days)
DDU consumption per day	95 DDUs	315 (GB) × 0.3 (DDUs per GB per day)
DDU consumption per year	34,675 DDUs	95 (DDUs) × 365 (days)

If the same amount of processed data is added to storage daily and retained for 365 days, the yearly DDU consumption (after a ramp-up of 365 days in this case) for Retain is 359,890 DDUs.


Retained volume for 1 day	9 GB	5 (GB data per day) × 1.8 (enrichment)
Retained volume for 365 days	3,285 GB	9 (GB data per day) × 365 (days)
DDU consumption per day	986 DDUs	3,285 (GB) × 0.3 (DDUs per GB per day)
DDU consumption per year	359,890 DDUs	986 (DDUs) × 365 (days)

Step 3 - Query

Let’s assume that to monitor business performance and investigate anomalies your team executes DQL queries with an average of 250 GB of data read daily. The yearly DDU consumption for Query in this case is 155,125 DDUs:


Data volume read per day	250 GB
Data volume read per year	91,250 GB	250 (GB data per day) × 365 (days)
DDU consumption per year	155,125 DDUs	91,260 (GB per year) × 1.70 (DDUs per GB)

Step 4 – Total DDU consumption

The total DDU consumption for the scenario with 35 days of data retention is 3,058,500 DDUs.
The total yearly DDU consumption for the scenario with 35 days of data retention is 372,300 DDUs:


Ingest – DDU consumption per year	182,500 DDUs
Retain – DDU consumption per year	34,675 DDUs
Query – DDU consumption per year	155,125 DDUs
Total DDU consumption per year	372,300 DDUs

FAQs

Can I change the retention period for business events?

Beginning with Dynatrace version 1.253, you can manually set the data retention period for your SaaS environment to 35 days (default), 1 year, or 3 years.

Where can I check my environment’s DDU consumption for business events?

In the Dynatrace menu, go to Manage > Consumption. You’ll need the change monitoring settings permission or an admin account to access this page.
On the Davis data units (DDU) page:
a. In the Consumption by DDU pool table, see the Events row.
b. In the DDU consumption details section, go to the Business events tab.

What is the DDU weight of one log or business event record?

For Log Management and Analytics, volume of data in gigabytes (GB) is the unit of measure. Consumption is based on three data-usage dimensions. The weight of DDU consumption per dimension is as follows:

Ingest & Process: 100.00 DDUs per GB of data ingested and processed
Retain: 0.30 DDUs per GB per day for data stored
Query: 1.70 DDUs per GB for data read from storage during query execution

What is the size of one business event record?

The number and size of individual business event records isn’t relevant for DDU consumption. For business events, DDU consumption for a given period is calculated based on (1) the volume of data ingested and processed, (2) the volume of data stored per day, and (3) the volume of data read from storage during query execution.

Are there any host-included DDUs available for business events?

No, business events always consumes DDUs for Ingest & Process, Retain, and Query. Note that you can choose to only ingest and process data without storing it or querying it. Each Dynatrace environment includes a free tier of 200,000 DDUs per year, which can be used for Ingest & Process, Retain, and Query.

How can I activate business events for my environment?

Currently, the activation of business events is tied to the activation of Dynatrace Grail and Log Management and Analytics. Simply activate Log Management and Analytics—everything else will be handled for you automatically. Once Log Management and Analytics is activated for your environment, the DDU consumption model that uses gigabytes as the unit of measure replaces the event-based consumption model that’s used for Log Monitoring Classic. Consumption of other DDU-based capability types, including Log Monitoring Classic if used in parallel, will remain unchanged.

Does the Dynatrace platform consume DDUs for fractional GB? Would 0.5 GB of Ingest & Process consume only 50 DDUs?

Yes, every ingested GB (or fraction thereof, before enrichment and processing) is added together and then multiplied by the DDU weight of 100.00 DDUs. For example, DDU consumption for Ingest & Process of 10.50 GB equates to 1,050 DDUs.
10.50 (GB log data) × 100.00 (DDU weight) = 1,050 DDUs

I want to convert business event attributes into metrics. How will this affect my environment’s DDU consumption?

While writing ingested business events to time series is a cost-effective way of visualizing business-event metrics, this approach consumes additional DDUs for creating custom metrics beyond the DDUs that are consumed for Ingest & Process.

Do failed query executions consume DDUs?

No, when internal failures occur while executing a query (for example, a time-out) no DDUs are consumed.

Do canceled query executions consume DDUs?

If you cancel a query execution, all data read before the cancellation will be factored into your DDU consumption.

What is data enrichment, and how much volume will it add to my data?

Business events are automatically enriched with contextual metadata during processing. This increases the volume of business events ingested via OneAgent or API by roughly 0.5 kB per event. For RUM events, the volume increases by roughly 1 kB per event. For example, if OneAgent collects 30 GB of business events (one million business events with a size of 30 kB each), the total volume after automatic enrichment is 30.5 GB.

30 (kB per event) × 1,000,000 (number of events) + 0.5 (kB of enriched data per event) × 1,000,000 (number of events) = 30,500,000 kB = 30.5 GB