Calculate your consumption of Log Management and Analytics - Query (DPS)

Latest Dynatrace
Concept
6-min read
Published Aug 12, 2025

Query data usage occurs when:

Executing DQL queries in Notebooks, Workflows, Custom Apps and via API
Dashboard tiles that are based on log data trigger the execution of DQL queries on refresh and include sampled data
Submitting DQL queries by clicking the ‘Run query’ button (for example, in the Logs & Events viewer in simple and advanced mode or on unified analysis pages)

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

Concept

Explanation

On-read parsing

Use DQL to query historical logs in storage and extract business, infrastructure, or other data across any timeframe, and use extracted data for follow-up analysis

Aggregation

Perform aggregation, summarization, or statistical analysis of data in logs across specific timeframes or time patterns (for example, data occurrences in 30-second or 10-minute intervals)

Reporting

Create reports or summaries with customized fields (columns) by adding, modifying, or dropping existing log attributes

Context

Use DQL to analyze log data in context with relevant data on the Dynatrace platform, for example, user sessions or distributed traces

The usage of Distributed Tracing Distributed Tracing and Services Services is included with Dynatrace. No consumption is generated by these apps.

How consumption is calculated: GiB scanned

Queried data is the volume of data read during the execution of a DQL query. It is calculated per gibibyte scanned (GiB scanned).

Apply the following calculation to determine your consumption for the Query data-usage dimension:

consumption = (number of GiB of uncompressed data read during query execution) × (GiB scanned price as per your rate card)

Query consumption is based on the GiB of data scanned to return a result. The highest potential cost for a query is equal to the volume of logs within the query’s search range times the price on your rate card.

Grail applies various optimizations to improve response time and reduce cost. In some cases, these optimizations will identify portions of data that are not relevant to the query result—the price for scanning that data is discounted by 98%.

The impact of Grail's scan optimizations varies based on data and query attributes. It may evolve as Dynatrace improves Grail's query intelligence.

Track your consumption

This section describes the different Dynatrace tools that you can use to track consumption and costs.

Track your consumption with Metrics

Dynatrace provides a built-in usage metric that helps you understand and analyze your organization's consumption of Log Management and Analytics - Query. To use this metric, in Data Explorer, enter DPS in the Search field.

Log Management and Analytics usage - Query

Key: builtin:billing.log.query.usage

Dimension: Byte

Resolution: 1 hour

Description: Number of bytes read during the execution of a DQL query, including sampled data.

You can monitor the total scanned bytes for Query in hourly intervals for any selected timeframe using the metric builtin:billing.log.query.usage.

The example below shows usage aggregated in 1-hour intervals between 2023-09-04 and 2023-09-11 (last 7 days).

Track your consumption with DQL queries

The following DQL query provides an overview of total Query usage in gibibytes scanned:

fetch dt.system.events
| filter event.kind == "BILLING_USAGE_EVENT"
| filter event.type == "Log Management & Analytics - Query"
| dedup event.id
| summarize {
data_read_bytes = sum(billed_bytes)
}, by: {
startHour = bin(timestamp, 1d)
}

The example below shows the daily query usage visualized in a line chart for the last 30 days:

Track your consumption and costs in Account Management

You can also view usage metrics in Account Management. Go to Account Management > Subscription > Overview > Cost and usage details > Usage summary and select the Log Management and Analytics - Query capability.

Track your consumption and costs via API

You can query metrics via the Environment API - Metrics API v2.