WMI tutorial - custom topology

Having a well-defined topology model helps make sense of all the metrics and data ingested in Dynatrace.

For an Extensions 2.0 extension, this all happens in the topology section, which is split into two parts:

  • types - defines which new entity types the extension monitors
  • relationships - defines if and how these entity types relate to each other

Key aspects when defining types

  • idPattern - Must be unique enough to represent each device instance without duplicating it
  • sources - Must define rules for all metrics of the extension that should be split by this entity
  • condition - Can make use of functions like $prefix(...) to define patterns for metric keys
  • attributes - Are optional details that can be extracted from the dimensions of metrics

Key aspects when defining relationships

  • sources - Any metric that matches the pattern will be evaluated for a relationship. This means it should belong to both entity types part of the relationship

Find your new entities in UI

Navigate to ../ui/entity/list/{entity-type} on your Dynatrace environment. For example:

  • ../ui/entity/list/wmi:generic_host
  • ../ui/entity/list/wmi:generic_network_device

Tasks

  1. Add the topology section to your extension.yaml using the template below.
  2. Define two entity types for a Generic Host and a Generic Network Device.
  3. Ensure that network devices are aware of the type (Adapter or Interface).
  4. Create a relationship between the two where a Generic Network Device runs on a Generic Host.
  5. Package and upload a new version of your extension.
  6. Validate the new entities are created.

For more information on extending the Dynatrace topology, see Custom topology model

topology:
  types:
    - name: wmi:generic_host
      displayName: Generic Host
      enabled: true
      rules:
        - idPattern: wmi_generic_host_{dt.entity.host}
          sources:
            - sourceType: Metrics
              condition: $prefix(custom.demo.host-observability)
          attributes: []
          requiredDimensions: []
          instanceNamePattern: Generic Host on {dt.entity.host}
    - name: wmi:generic_network_device
      displayName: Network device
      enabled: true
      rules:
        - idPattern: wmi_generic_{dt.entity.host}_{network.type}_{network.name}
          sources:
            - sourceType: Metrics
              condition: $prefix(custom.demo.host-observability.network)
          attributes:
            - pattern: '{network.name}'
              key: wmi_network_name
              displayName: Name
            - pattern: '{network.type}'
              key: wmi_network_type
              displayName: Type
          requiredDimensions: []
          instanceNamePattern: Network {network.type} {network.name} on {dt.entity.host}
  relationships:
    - typeOfRelation: RUNS_ON
      fromType: wmi:generic_network_device
      toType: wmi:generic_host
      enabled: true
      sources:
        - sourceType: Metrics
          condition: $prefix(custom.demo.host-observability)

Results

You should see new entities created for your generic host and generic network device entity types:

hosts

network_devices

Next step: Unified analysis page