Set up the Dynatrace GCP metric integration on a GKE cluster

Dynatrace version 1.230+

As an alternative to the main deployment, that provides Google Cloud Platform monitoring for both metrics and logs, you can choose to set up monitoring for metrics only. In this scenario, you'll run the deployment script in Google Cloud Shell. Instructions will depend on the location where you want the deployment script to run:

• On a new GKE Autopilot cluster created automatically recommended

• On an existing GKE standard or GKE Autopilot cluster

During setup, GKE will run a metric forwarder container. After installation, you'll get metrics, dashboards, and alerts for your configured services in Dynatrace.

For other deployment options, see Alternative deployment scenarios.

Limitations

Dynatrace GCP metric integration supports up to 50 GCP projects with the standard deployment. To monitor larger environments, you need to enable metrics scope. See Monitor multiple GCP projects - Large environments.

Prerequisites

To deploy the integration, you need to make sure the following requirements are met on the machine where you are running the installation.

• Linux OS only

• Internet access

• GKE Cluster access

• Dynatrace environment access

  You need to configure the Dynatrace endpoint (environment, cluster or ActiveGate URL) to which the GKE autopilot cluster should send metrics and logs. Make sure that you have direct network access or, if there is a proxy or any other component present in between, that communication is not affected.

Tools

You can deploy the Dynatrace GCP integration in Google Cloud Shell or in bash.

If you use bash, you need to install:

• Google Cloud SDK
• kubectl
• helm
• jq (version 1.6)
• yq (version 4.9.x+)
• curl
• unzip

GCP permissions

Running the deployment script requires a list of permissions. You need to create a custom role (see below) and use it to deploy dynatrace-gcp-monitor.

1. Create a YAML file named dynatrace-gcp-monitor-helm-deployment-role.yaml with the following content:

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title: Dynatrace GCP Monitor helm deployment role
description: Role for Dynatrace GCP Monitor helm and pubsub deployment
stage: GA
includedPermissions:
  - container.clusters.get
  - container.configMaps.create
  - container.configMaps.delete
  - container.configMaps.get
  - container.configMaps.update
  - container.deployments.create
  - container.deployments.delete
  - container.deployments.get
  - container.deployments.update
  - container.namespaces.create
  - container.namespaces.get
  - container.pods.get
  - container.pods.list
  - container.secrets.create
  - container.secrets.delete
  - container.secrets.get
  - container.secrets.list
  - container.secrets.update
  - container.serviceAccounts.create
  - container.serviceAccounts.delete
  - container.serviceAccounts.get
  - iam.roles.create
  - iam.roles.list
  - iam.roles.update
  - iam.serviceAccounts.actAs
  - iam.serviceAccounts.create
  - iam.serviceAccounts.getIamPolicy
  - iam.serviceAccounts.list
  - iam.serviceAccounts.setIamPolicy
  - resourcemanager.projects.get
  - resourcemanager.projects.getIamPolicy
  - resourcemanager.projects.setIamPolicy
  - serviceusage.services.enable
  - serviceusage.services.get

2. Run the command below, replacing <your_project_ID> with the project ID where you want to deploy the Dynatrace integration.

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gcloud iam roles create dynatrace_monitor.helm_deployment --project=<your_project_ID> --file=dynatrace-gcp-monitor-helm-deployment-role.yaml

GCP settings

The location where you deploy the integration determines whether you need to change additional settings.

Deploy on a GKE Autopilot cluster

If you deploy the integration on an existing GKE Autopilot cluster or on a new Autopilot cluster that will be automatically created by the deployment script, you don't need to make any additional settings.

Deploy on a GKE standard cluster

If you deploy the integration on an existing GKE standard cluster, you need to:

• Enable Workload Identity on a cluster.
• Enable GKE_METADATA on the GKE node pools.

Dynatrace permissions

• Create an API token and enable the following permissions:
  • API v1:
    • Read configuration
    • Write configuration
  • API v2:
    • Ingest metrics
    • Read extensions
    • Write extensions
    • Read extension monitoring configurations
    • Write extension monitoring configurations
    • Read extension environment configurations
    • Write extension environment configurations

Install

Complete the steps below to finish your setup.

Download the Helm deployment package in Google Cloud Shell

Configure parameter values

Connect your Kubernetes cluster

Run the deployment script

Download the Helm deployment package in Google Cloud Shell

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wget -q "https://github.com/dynatrace-oss/dynatrace-gcp-monitor/releases/latest/download/helm-deployment-package.tar"; tar -xvf helm-deployment-package.tar; chmod +x helm-deployment-package/deploy-helm.sh

Configure parameter values

1. The Helm deployment package contains a values.yaml file with the necessary configuration for this deployment. Go to helm-deployment-package/dynatrace-gcp-monitorand edit the values.yaml file, setting the required and optional parameter values as follows.

   You might want to store this file somewhere for future updates, since it will be needed in case of redeployments. Also, keep in mind that its schema can change. In such case, you should use the new file and only copy over the parameter values.

   Parameter name	Description	Default value
   gcpProjectId	required The ID of the GCP project you've selected for deployment.	Your current project ID
   deploymentType	required Set to 'metrics'.	all
   dynatraceAccessKey	required Your Dynatrace API token with the required permissions.
   dynatraceUrl	required For SaaS metric ingestion, it's your environment URL (https://<your-environment-id>.live.dynatrace.com). For Managed metric ingestion, it's your cluster URL (https://<your_cluster_IP_or_hostname>/e/<your_environment_ID>). For Managed metric ingestion with an existing ActiveGate, it's the URL of your ActiveGate (https://<your_activegate_IP_or_hostname>:9999/e/<your_environment_ID>). Note: To determine <your-environment-id>, see environment ID.
   requireValidCertificate	optional If set to true, Dynatrace requires the SSL certificate of your Dynatrace environment.	true
   selfMonitoringEnabled	optional Send custom metrics to GCP to quickly diagnose if dynatrace-gcp-monitor processes and sends metrics to Dynatrace properly. For details, see Self-monitoring metrics for the Dynatrace GCP integration.	false
   serviceAccount	optional Name of the service account to be created.
   dockerImage	optionalDynatrace GCP Monitor docker image. We recommend using the default value, but you can adapt it if needed.	dynatrace/dynatrace-gcp-monitor:v1-latest
   printMetricIngestInput	optional If set to true, the GCP Monitor outputs the lines of metrics to stdout.	false
   serviceUsageBooking	optional Service usage booking is used for metrics and determines a caller-specified project for quota and billing purposes. If set to source, monitoring API calls are booked in the project where the Kubernetes container is running. If set to destination, monitoring API calls are booked in the project that is monitored. For details, see Monitor multiple GCP projects - Standard environments - Step 4.	source
   useProxy	optional Depending on the value you set for this flag, the GCP Monitor will use the following proxy settings: Dynatrace (set to DT_ONLY), GCP API (set to GCP_ONLY), or both (set to ALL).	By default, proxy settings are not used.
   httpProxy	optional The proxy HTTP address; use this flag in conjunction with USE_PROXY.
   httpsProxy	optional The proxy HTTPS address; use this flag in conjunction with USE_PROXY.
   gcpServicesYaml	optional Configuration file for GCP services.
   queryInterval	optional Metrics polling interval in minutes. Allowed values: 1 - 6	3
   scopingProjectSupportEnabled	optional Set to true when metrics scope is configured, so metrics will be collected from all projects added to the metrics scope. For details, see Monitor multiple GCP projects - Large environments.	false
   excludedProjects	optional Comma-separated list of projects to be excluded from monitoring (for example, <project_A>,<project_B>)

2. Choose which services you want Dynatrace to monitor.

   By default, the Dynatrace GCP integration starts monitoring a set of selected services. Go to Google Cloud Platform supported service metrics for a list of supported services.

Connect your Kubernetes cluster

• If you want to have a new GKE Autopilot cluster created by the deployment script, add --create-autopilot-cluster to the script. Setting up a connection to the cluster will happen automatically in this case and you can proceed to step 4.
• If you run the deployment script on an existing standard GKE or GKE Autopilot cluster, you can connect to your cluster from the GCP console or via terminal. Follow the instructions below.

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gcloud container clusters get-credentials <cluster> --region <region> --project <project>

Run the deployment script

• If you run the deployment script on an existing standard GKE or GKE Autopilot cluster, the deployment script will create an IAM service account with the necessary roles and deploy dynatrace-gcp-monitor to your Kubernetes cluster.
• If you run the deployment script with the --create-autopilot-cluster option, the deployment script will automatically create the new GKE Autopilot cluster and deploy dynatrace-gcp-monitor to it.

To run the deployment script, follow the instructions below.

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cd helm-deployment-package
./deploy-helm.sh

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cd helm-deployment-package
./deploy-helm.sh [--role-name <role-to-be-created/updated>]

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cd helm-deployment-package
./deploy-helm.sh --without-extensions-upgrade

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cd helm-deployment-package
./deploy-helm.sh --create-autopilot-cluster

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cd helm-deployment-package
./deploy-helm.sh --create-autopilot-cluster --autopilot-cluster-name <name-of-new-cluster>

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cd helm-deployment-package
./deploy-helm.sh --create-autopilot-cluster --without-extensions-upgrade

Verify installation

To check whether installation was successful

1. Check if the container is running.

   After the installation, it may take a couple of minutes before the container is up and running.

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   kubectl -n dynatrace get pods

2. Check the container logs for errors or exceptions. You have two options:

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kubectl -n dynatrace logs -l app=dynatrace-gcp-monitor -c dynatrace-gcp-monitor-metrics

3. Check if dashboards are imported.

   In the Dynatrace menu, go to Dashboards and filter by Tag for Google Cloud. A number of dashboards for Google Cloud Services should be available.

Choose services for metrics monitoring

Services enabled by default

Monitoring of following services will be enabled during deployment of GCP Monitor:

• Google APIs
• Google App Engine
• Google BigQuery
• Google Cloud Functions
• Google Cloud Run
• Google Cloud Storage
• Google Compute Engine
• Google Firestore in Datastore mode
• Google Filestore
• Google Kubernetes Engine
• Google Cloud Load Balancing
• Google Cloud Pub/Sub
• Google Cloud Pub/Sub Lite
• Google Cloud SQL

There are more service integrations available, but need to be enabled. Go to Google Cloud Platform supported service metrics for a list of supported services. Next section describes how to manage them.

Manage enabled services

You can manage enabled services through your Dynatrace Hub (Dynatrace UI > Manage > Dynatrace Hub).

Filter for gcp in the hub. Tiles with In environment label or New version available label are already enabled for metrics monitoring.

To enable new service, open it in the hub and press Add to environment.

To disable a service, open it in the hub, go to Configuration tab and remove all loaded versions (ones with thrash bin icon). Make sure to remove all, since if you have been updating specific service, it will keep reverting to previous versions.

Services with New version available label can be updated. Open them in hub and check release notes. The updates can bring new metrics, new assets like dashboards etc. To update a service, press Update extension button in release notes box.

All changes to enabled services are applied to GCP Monitor within few minutes.

Feature sets & available metrics

To see what metrics are included for specific service, check Google Cloud Platform supported service metrics. By default, only defaultMetrics feature set is enabled. To enable additional feature sets, you have to uncomment them in values.yaml file and redeploy whole GCP Monitor.

Current configuration of feature sets can be found in cluster's ConfigMap named dynatrace-gcp-function-config.

Advanced scope management

To further refine monitoring scope, you can use filter_conditions field in values.yaml file. This requires GCP Monitor to be redeployed. See GCP Monitoring filters for syntax.

Example:

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filter_conditions:
resource.labels.location = "us-central1-c" AND resource.labels.namespace_name = "dynatrace"

Enable alerting

To activate alerting, you need to enable metric events for alerting in Dynatrace.

To enable metric events

1. In the Dynatrace menu, go to Settings.
2. In Anomaly detection, select Metric events.
3. Filter for GCP alerts and turn on On/Off for the alerts you want to activate.

View metrics

After deploying the integration, you can see metrics from monitored services (in the Dynatrace menu, go to Metrics and filter by gcp).

Change deployment settings

Change parameters from values.yaml

To load a new values.yaml file, you need to upgrade your Helm release.

To update your Helm release

1. Find out what Helm release version you're using.

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   helm ls -n dynatrace

2. Run the command below, making sure to replace <your-helm-release> with the value from the previous step.

   plaintextcopydownload
   helm upgrade <your-helm-release> dynatrace-gcp-monitor -n dynatrace

For details, see Helm upgrade.

Change deployment type

To change the deployment type (all, metrics, or logs)

1. Find out what helm release version you're using.

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   helm ls -n dynatrace

2. Uninstall the release.

   Be sure to replace <your-helm-release> with the release name from the previous output.

   plaintextcopydownload
   helm uninstall <your-helm-release> -n dynatrace

3. Edit deploymentType in values.yaml with the new value and save the file.

4. Run the deployment command again. For details, see Run the deployment script.

Troubleshoot

To investigate potential deployment and connectivity issues

1. Verify installation
2. Enable self-monitoring optional
3. Check the dynatrace_gcp_<date_time>.log log file created during the installation process.

• This file will be created each time the installation script runs.
• The debug information won't contain sensitive data such as the Dynatrace access key.

4. If you are contacting a Dynatrace product expert via live chat:
   • Make sure to provide the dynatrace_gcp_<date_time>.log log file described in the previous step.
   • Provide version information.
     • For issues during installation, check the version.txt file.
     • For issues during runtime, check container logs.

Uninstall

1. Find out what Helm release version you're using.

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helm ls -n dynatrace

2. Uninstall the release.

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helm uninstall <your-helm-release> -n dynatrace

Alternatively, you can delete the namespace.

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kubectl delete namespace dynatrace

3. To remove all monitoring assets (dashboards, alerts, etc) from Dynatrace, you need to remove all GCP extensions.

To remove an extension

1. In the Dynatrace menu, go to Extensions and search for the GCP extensions.
2. Select an extension you want to remove, and then select the trash icon in the Actions column to remove it.

Repeat the procedure until you remove all GCP extensions.

Monitoring consumption

All cloud services consume DDUs. The amount of DDU consumption per service instance depends on the number of monitored metrics and their dimensions (each metric dimension results in the ingestion of 1 data point; 1 data point consumes 0.001 DDUs). For details, see Extending Dynatrace (Davis data units).