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Introduction to creating a GCP connection

  • Latest Dynatrace
  • Explanation

Create your first GCP connection to start ingesting topology, metrics, and logs from your Google Cloud environment into Dynatrace.

You can create your first GCP connection via:

  • Settings Settings app: Use the wizard in Settings Settings to configure the Dynatrace side. Choose Automated via Terraform to let Dynatrace generate a ready-to-run Terraform bundle that sets up Google Cloud resources automatically, or choose Manual to run the Google Cloud steps yourself using the gcloud CLI.

  • gcloud CLI and dtctl: Configure both the Dynatrace side (using dtctl) and Google Cloud resources (using the gcloud CLI) without the wizard. Use this if you have existing automation or prefer full CLI control.

  • Terraform only: Configure both the Dynatrace side and Google Cloud resources entirely using Terraform. Pull the Terraform bundle from GitHub, fill in your variables, and apply—no wizard or CLI required.

    Terraform template

    The Terraform template provided by us is well-tested, but may require adjustments to fit your specific Google Cloud setup (for example, existing naming conventions, organization policies, or network configurations). You are responsible for maintaining your Terraform state and keeping the configuration up to date as your environment changes.

Limitations

SaaS only

GCP Cloud Platform Monitoring is only available for Dynatrace SaaS environments. Managed deployments are not supported.

Connection limit

Each Dynatrace environment supports up to 500 Google Cloud connections by default. To request a higher limit, contact your account team.

One connection per service account

Each Google Cloud service account can back only one connection. Reusing the same service account across multiple connections causes duplicate data ingestion.

No metric backfilling

Metrics with a timestamp older than one hour at ingestion time are not accepted per OpenPipeline limits. Historical metric data cannot be backfilled.

Log timestamp window

Log records with a timestamp older than 24 hours at ingestion time are not accepted per OpenPipeline limits.

Metrics require topology

For supported services, Dynatrace only collects Cloud Monitoring metrics for resources that are already discovered in GCP topology. Resources created or filtered out after the last topology poll do not have metrics until topology is updated.

Tag enrichment delay

Google Cloud tag changes can take up to one hour to propagate to Dynatrace topology. During this window, metrics and logs for affected resources may be ingested without the updated tag values.

Cloud Monitoring API quota

Dynatrace polls the Cloud Monitoring API with your monitoring service account. For large environments, increase the ListTimeSeries quota in the project that holds the service account. See GCP performance and quotas.

Best practices

  • Do not add more than 375 projects to a single metrics scope. Exceeding this limit violates Google Cloud best practices for metric scoping.
  • Group projects with the same monitoring requirements under a single service account. One service account applies the same metric selection, filters, and enrichment to all projects it covers—simpler to operate.
  • Use separate service accounts for projects with different monitoring requirements so each can be paired with its own monitoring configuration.

Troubleshooting

If your connection is set up but no data appears in Dynatrace, see Troubleshoot GCP connections for a step-by-step checklist.

Related tags
Infrastructure Observability