Metrics powered by Grail

The consumption model for Metrics powered by Grail is based on three dimensions of data usage (Ingest & Process, Retain, and Query).

The unit of measure for Ingest & Process is the number of ingested metric data points. A metric data point is a single measurement of a metric. Some built-in metrics, for example, Host Monitoring metrics are included and not billed. Host Monitoring also includes a fixed number of metric data points that are deducted from your environment's total data-point consumption. The number of included metric data points is a function of the number of Infrastructure and Full-Stack Monitoring hosts, see built-in metrics for details.

For the Retain dimension, the unit of measure for consumed data volume is gibibytes (GiB).

15 months (462 days) of 1-minute granularity is included with Metrics powered by Grail, hence it is the volume in excess of 462 days that affects monitoring consumption.

Query is included with Ingest & Process.

Ingest & Process

Here's what's included with the Ingest & Process data-usage dimension:

Included metrics reduce data point consumption

Usage stream for the Metrics - Ingest & Process DPS capability.

Total platform usage

The total platform usage includes every metric data point persisted in Grail.

If many data points within a given metric interval are persisted as one data point in Grail, only one data point is counted for total product usage.

Included non-billable metric usage

Included non-billable metrics are classified according to their metric key.

Mainframe monitoring

Metrics that originate from mainframe monitored entities are licensed under Mainframe Monitoring and are non-billable.

Legacy metrics coming from Extension Framework 1.0 (EF 1.0)

Legacy metrics that originate from EF 1.0 extensions starting with legacy.dotnet.perform, legacy.tomcat, and legacy.containers are non-billable.

Self-monitoring metrics/system metrics

System metrics are metrics produced and controlled by Dynatrace to implement a functionality or to enable self-observability. These metrics, which are stored in the bucket dt_system_metrics, are non-billable.

Included non-billable metric data points

Full-Stack Monitoring

Metrics that originate from Full-Stack monitored entities are subject to limited metric data point consumption. 900 metrics data points are included for each charged GiB of memory of each Full-Stack monitored entity for each 15 minute monitoring interval.

Infrastructure Monitoring

Metrics that originate from Infrastructure-monitored entities are subject to limited metric data point consumption. 1,500 metrics data points are included for entities being infrastructure monitored every 15 minutes. 1,500 metrics data points are included for each Infrastructure-monitored entity for each 15 minute monitoring interval.

For instance, an Infrastructure-monitored host (regardless of memory size) grants 1,500 included data points for each 15 minute interval.

Total billable Usage

Every metric data point that doesn’t qualify for non-billable usage is included in your total billable usage.

Metric dimensions increase data point consumption

A single metric that is written once per minute will consume 525.6 k metric data points annually:

1 metric data point × 60 min × 24 h × 365 days = 525.6k metric data points/year

Note that a single metric can have multiple dimensions. For example, if you have the same metric for 2 instances of your cloud service, you will consume 2 metric data points:

2 instances × 1 metric data point × 60 min × 24 h × 365 days = 1,051.2k metric data points/year

Metric data points are not billed based on an increase in dimensions, but rather by the increased number of metric data points. If dimensions are added, but the number of metric data points remains the same, then billable metric data points usage does not change:

Therefore, in this case, the same number of metric data points is consumed as shown in the calculation above.

Retain

Here's what's included with the Retain data-usage dimension:

15 months (462 days) of 1-minute granularity is included with Metrics powered by Grail, hence it is the volume in excess of 462 days that affects monitoring consumption.

Apply the following calculation to determine your consumption for the Retain data-usage dimension:
(number of GiB-days) × (retention period in days) × (GiB-day price as per your rate card) × (number of days that data is stored in excess of 462 days) = consumption in your local currency

Query

Querying metrics using the timeseries command like the one below is included, irrespective of the origin of the query (Dashboards, Notebooks, Apps or API).

timeseries avg(dt.host.cpu.usage)

Queries involving other data types generally incur usage at each query, even when they output time series format, for example using the maketimeseries command:

fetch logs | maketimeseries count()

If you frequently use predefined maketimeseries or summarize commands, it might be more cost-effective for you to create a log metric.

Log metrics are regular metrics that incur Ingest & Process usage (and Retain above 15 months), but no Query usage (being regular metrics). The above example could be turned into a log metric log.all_logs_count, consuming 525,600 metric data points per year (assuming at least one log record per minute), and the query would then become timeseries sum(log.all_logs_count).

Assuming the equivalent query using logs (fetch logs | maketimeseries count()):

The query usage over the logs version would be 40 GiB * 10 * 365 = 146,000 GiB per year. When multiplied by the price on your rate card, the Ingest & Process cost of the log metric could be 2 orders of magnitude less than the Query cost of the command using the logs, and even more so if the amount of logs scanned increases (due to longer timeframes, for example).

Consumption examples

Following are example calculations which show how each data-usage dimension contributes to the overall usage and consumption.

Step 1 – Ingest & Process

For example, say that you produce 55 million billable metric data points per day which you ingest into Metrics powered by Grail. The monthly consumption for Ingest & Process is calculated as follows:

Step 2 – Retain

Following the Ingest & Process step, your data is retained and enriched on an on-going basis. If you ingest 1.5 billion data points per day, 9 GiB of data might be added daily to your storage. Assuming you don't change the default retention period, metric data will be retained for 15 months (462 days) and there will be no billable Retain usage.

In this example, you increased the retention period to 5 years (1,832 days). The monthly consumption (after a ramp-up period of 1,832 days) for Retain is calculated as follows:

Step 3 – Query

Querying metrics using the timeseries command is included.

Step 4 – Total consumption

The total monthly consumption for this example scenario of 5 years of data retention is the sum of the monthly consumption for Ingest & Process and Retain.