Apply memory limits

The following configuration example shows how you configure a Collector instance and its native memory limiter processor to guarantee memory allocation keeps within the specified parameters.

Recommended configuration

For optimal memory usage with your Collector instance, we recommend that you apply this configuration with all setups.

Prerequisites

Demo configuration

receivers:
  otlp:
    protocols:
      grpc:
        endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4317
      http:
        endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4318


processors:
  memory_limiter:
    check_interval: 1s
    limit_percentage: 70
    spike_limit_percentage: 30


exporters:
  otlphttp:
    endpoint: ${env:DT_ENDPOINT}
    headers:
      Authorization: "Api-Token ${env:DT_API_TOKEN}"


service:
  pipelines:
    traces:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [memory_limiter]
      exporters: [otlphttp]
    metrics:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [memory_limiter]
      exporters: [otlphttp]
    logs:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [memory_limiter]
      exporters: [otlphttp]
Configuration validation

Validate your settings to avoid any configuration issues.

Components

For our configuration, we configure the following components.

Receivers

Under receivers, we specify the standard otlp receiver as active receiver component for our Collector instance.

This is mainly for demonstration purposes. You can specify any other valid receiver here (for example, zipkin).

Processors

Under processors, we specify the memory_limiter processor with the following parameters:

  • check_interval configured to check the memory status every second
  • limit_percentage configured to allow a maximum memory allocation of 70 percent
  • spike_limit_percentage configured to allow a maximum spike memory usage of 20 percent

With this configuration, the Collector checks the memory allocation every second and starts to apply limits (for example, rejecting requests or forcing garbage collection) when the allocated memory exceeds 70 percent, with a temporary spike limit of 20 percent.

Exporters

Under exporters, we specify the default otlphttp exporter and configure it with our Dynatrace API URL and the required authentication token.

For this purpose, we set the following two environment variables and reference them in the configuration values for endpoint and Authorization.

Service pipelines

Under service, we assemble our receiver and exporter objects into pipelines for traces, metrics, and logs and enable our memory limiter processor by referencing it under processors for each respective pipeline.

Limits and limitations

Data is ingested using the OpenTelemetry protocol (OTLP) via the Dynatrace OTLP APIs and is subject to the API's limits and restrictions. For more information see:

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