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# System Semantic Conventions: Instrumentation Design Philosophy | ||
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The System Semantic Conventions are caught in a strange dichotomy that is unique | ||
among other semconv groups. While we want to make sure we cover obvious generic | ||
use cases, monitoring system health is a very old practice with lots of | ||
different existing strategies. While we can cover the basic use cases in cross | ||
platform ways, we want to make sure that users who specialize in certain | ||
platforms aren't left in the lurch; if users aren't given recommendations for | ||
particular types of data that isn't cross-platform and universal, they may come | ||
up with their own disparate ideas for how that instrumentation should look, | ||
leading to the kind of fracturing that the semantic conventions should be in | ||
place to avoid. | ||
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The following sections address some of the most common instrumentation design | ||
questions, and how we as a working group have opted to address them. In some | ||
cases they are unique to the common semantic conventions guidance due to our | ||
unique circumstance, and those cases will be called out specifically. | ||
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## Namespaces | ||
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Relevant discussions: | ||
[\#1161](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions/issues/1161) | ||
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The System Semantic Conventions generally cover the following namespaces: | ||
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- `system` | ||
- `process` | ||
- `host` | ||
- `memory` | ||
- `network` | ||
- `disk` | ||
- `memory` | ||
- `os` | ||
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Deciding on the namespace of a metric/attribute is generally informed by the | ||
following belief: | ||
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**The namespace of a metric/attribute should logically map to the Operating | ||
System concept being considered as the instrumentation source.** | ||
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The most obvious example of this is with language runtime metrics and `process` | ||
namespace metrics. Many of these metrics are very similar; most language | ||
runtimes provide some manner of `cpu.time`, `memory.usage` and similar metrics. | ||
If we were considering de-duplication as the top value in our design, it would | ||
follow that `process.cpu.time` and `process.memory.usage` should simply be | ||
referenced by any language runtime that might produce those metrics. However, as | ||
a working group we believe it is important that `process` namespace and runtime | ||
namespace metrics remain separate, because `process` metrics are meant to | ||
represent an **OS-level process as the instrumentation source**, whereas runtime | ||
metrics represent **the language runtime as the instrumentation source**. | ||
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In some cases this is simply a matter of making the instrumentation's purpose as | ||
clear as possible, but there are cases where attempts to share definitions | ||
across distinct instrumentation sources poses the potential for a clash. The | ||
concrete example of a time we accepted this consequence is with `cpu.mode`; the | ||
decision was to | ||
[unify all separate instances of `*.cpu.state` attributes into one shared `cpu.mode` attribute](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions/issues/1139). | ||
The consequence of this is that `cpu.mode` needs to have a broad enum in its | ||
root definition, with special exemptions in each different `ref` of `cpu.mode`, | ||
since `cpu.mode` used in `process.cpu.time` vs `container.cpu.time` vs | ||
`system.cpu.time` etc. has different subsets of the overall enum values. We | ||
decided as a group to accept the consequence in this case, however it isn't | ||
something we're keen on dealing with all over system semconv, as the | ||
instrumentation ends up polluted with so many edge cases in each namespace that | ||
it defeats the purpose of sharing the attribute in the first place. | ||
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## Two Class Design Strategy | ||
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Relevant discussions: | ||
[\#1403 (particular comment)](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions/issues/1403#issuecomment-2368815634) | ||
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We are considering two personas for system semconv instrumentation. If we have a | ||
piece of instrumentation, we decide which persona it is meant for and use that | ||
to make the decision for how we should name/treat that piece of instrumentation. | ||
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### General Class: A generalized cross-platform use case we want any user of instrumentation to be able to easily access | ||
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When instrumentation is meant for the General Class, we will strive to make the | ||
names and examples as prescriptive as possible. This instrumentation is what | ||
will drive the most important use cases we really want to cover with the system | ||
semantic conventions. Things like dashboards, alerts, and broader o11y setup | ||
tutorials will largely feature General Class instrumentation covering the [basic | ||
use cases][use cases doc] we have laid out as a group. We want this | ||
instrumentation to be very clear exactly how and when they should be used. | ||
General Class instrumentation will be recommended as **on by default**. | ||
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### Specialist Class: A more specific use case that specialists could enable to get more in-depth information that they already understand how to use | ||
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When instrumentation falls into the Specialist Class, we are assuming the target | ||
audience is already familiar with the concept and knows exactly what they are | ||
looking for and why. The goal for Specialist Class instrumentation is to ensure | ||
that users who have very specific and detailed needs are still covered by our | ||
semantic conventions so they don't need to go out of their way coming up with | ||
their own, risking the same kind of disparate instrumentation problem that | ||
semantic conventions are intended to solve. The main differences in how we | ||
handle Speciialist Class instrumentation are: | ||
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1. The names and resulting values will map directly to what a user would expect | ||
hunting down the information themselves. We will rarely be prescriptive in | ||
how the information should be used or how it should be broken down. For | ||
example, a metric to represent a process's cgroup would have the resulting | ||
value match exactly to what the result would be if the user called | ||
`cat /proc/PID/cgroup`. | ||
2. If a piece of instrumentation is specific to a particular operating system, | ||
the name of the operating system will be in the instrumentation name. See | ||
[Operating System in names](#operating-system-in-names) for more information. | ||
For example, a metric for a process's cgroup would be `process.linux.cgroup`, | ||
given that cgroups are a specific Linux kernel feature. | ||
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### Examples | ||
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Some General Class examples: | ||
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- Memory/CPU usage and utilization metrics | ||
- General disk and network metrics | ||
- Universal system/process information (names, identifiers, basic specs) | ||
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Some Specialist Class examples: | ||
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- Particular Linux features like special process/system information in procfs | ||
(see things like | ||
[/proc/meminfo](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/proc_meminfo.5.html) or | ||
[cgroups](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/cgroups.7.html)) | ||
- Particular Windows features like special process information (see things like | ||
[Windows Handles](https://learn.microsoft.com/windows/win32/sysinfo/about-handles-and-objects), | ||
[Process Working Set](https://learn.microsoft.com/windows/win32/procthread/process-working-set)) | ||
- Niche process information like open file descriptors, page faults, etc. | ||
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## Instrumentation Design Guide | ||
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When designing new instrumentation we will follow these steps as closely as | ||
possible: | ||
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### Choosing Instrumentation Class | ||
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In System Semantic Conventions, the most important questions when deciding | ||
whether a piece of instrumentation is General or Specialist would be: | ||
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- Is it cross-platform? | ||
- Does it support our [most important use cases][use cases doc] then we will | ||
make it general class | ||
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The answer to both these questions will likely need to be "Yes" for the | ||
instrumentation to be considered General Class. Since the General Class | ||
instrumentation is what we expect the widest audience to use, we will need to | ||
scrutinize it more closely to ensure all of it is as necessary and useful as | ||
possible. | ||
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If the answer to either one of these is "No", then we will likely consider it | ||
Specialist Class. | ||
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### Naming | ||
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For General Class, choose a name that most accurately descibes the general | ||
concept without biasing to a platform. Lean towards simplicity where possible, | ||
as this is the instrumentation that will be used by the widest audience; we want | ||
it to be as clear to understand and ergonomic to use as possible. | ||
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For Specialist Class, choose a name that most directly matches the words | ||
generally used to describe the concept in context. Since this instrumentation | ||
will be optional, and likely sought out by the people who already know exactly | ||
what they want out of it, we can prioritize matching the names as closely to | ||
their definition as possible. For specialist class metrics that are platform | ||
exclusive, we will include the OS in the namespace as a sub-namespace (not the | ||
root namespace) if it is unlikely that the same metric name could ever be | ||
applied in a cross-platform manner. See | ||
[this section](#operating-system-in-names) for more details. | ||
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### Value | ||
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For General Class, the value we can be prescriptive with the value of the | ||
instrumentation. We want to ensure General Class instrumentation most closely | ||
matches our vision for our general use cases, and we want to ensure that users | ||
who are not specialists and just want the most important basic information can | ||
acquire it as easily as possible using out-of-the-box semconv instrumentation. | ||
This means we are more likely within General Class instrumentation to make | ||
judgements about exactly what the value should be, and whether the value should | ||
be reshaped by instrumentation in any case when pulling the values from sources | ||
if it serves general purpose use cases. | ||
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For Specialist Class, we should strive not to be prescriptive and instead match | ||
the concept being modeled as closely as possible. We expect specialist class | ||
instrumentation to be enabled by the people who already understand it. In a | ||
System Semconv context, these may be things a user previously gathered manually | ||
or through existing OS tools that they want to model as OTLP. | ||
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### Case study: `process.cgroup` | ||
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Relevant discussions: | ||
[\#1357](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions/issues/1357), | ||
[\#1364 (particular thread)](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions/pull/1364#discussion_r1730743509) | ||
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In the `hostmetricsreceiver`, there is a Resource Attribute called | ||
`process.cgroup`. How should this attribute be adopted in System Semantic | ||
Conventions? | ||
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Based on our definitions, this attribute would fall under Specialist Class: | ||
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- `cgroups` are a Linux-specific feature | ||
- It is not directly part of any of the default out-of-the-box usecases we want | ||
to cover | ||
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In this attribute's case, there are two important considerations when deciding | ||
on the name: | ||
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- The attribute is specialist class | ||
- It is Linux exclusive, and is unlikely to ever be introduced in other | ||
operating systems since the other major platforms have their own versions of | ||
it (Windows Job Objects, BSD Jails, etc) | ||
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This means we should pick a name that matches the verbiage used by specialists | ||
in context when referring to this concept. The way you would refer to this would | ||
be "a process's cgroup, collected from `/proc/<pid>/cgroup`". So we would start | ||
with the name `process.cgroup`. We also determined that this attribute is | ||
Linux-exclusive and are confident it will remain as such, so we land on the name | ||
`process.linux.cgroup`. | ||
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Since this metric falls under Specialist Class, we don't want to be too | ||
prescriptive about the value. A user who needs to know the `cgroup` of a process | ||
likely already has a pretty good idea of how to interpret it and use it further, | ||
and it would not be worth it for this Working Group to try and come up with | ||
every possible edge case for how it might be used. It is much simpler for this | ||
attribute, insofar as it falls under our purview, to simply reflect the value | ||
from the OS, i.e. the direct value from `cat /proc/<pid>/cgroup`. With cgroups | ||
in particular, there is high likelihood that more specialized semconv | ||
instrumentation could be developed, particularly in support of more specialized | ||
container runtime or systemd instrumentation. It's more useful for a working | ||
group developing special instrumentation that leverages cgroups to be more | ||
prescriptive about how the cgroup information should be interpreted and broken | ||
down with more specificity. | ||
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## Operating System in names | ||
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Relevant discussions: | ||
[\#1255](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions/issues/1255), | ||
[\#1364](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions/pull/1364#discussion_r1852465994) | ||
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Monitoring operating systems is an old practice, and there are numerous heavily | ||
differing approaches within different platforms. There are lots of metrics, even | ||
considering common stats like memory usage, where there are platform-exclusive | ||
pieces of information that are only valuable to those who specialize in that | ||
platform. | ||
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Thus we have decided that any instrumentation that is: | ||
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1. Specific to a particular operating system | ||
2. Not meant to be part of what we consider our most important general use cases | ||
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will have the Operating System name as part of the namespace. | ||
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For example, there may be `process.linux`, `process.windows`, or `process.posix` | ||
names for metrics and attributes. We will not have root `linux.*`, `windows.*`, | ||
or `posix.*` namespaces. This is because of the principle we’re trying to uphold | ||
from the [Namespaces section](#namespaces); we still want the instrumentation | ||
source to be represented by the root namespace of the attribute/metric. If we | ||
had OS root namespaces, different sources like `system`, `process`, etc. could | ||
get very tangled within each OS namespace, defeating the intended design | ||
philosophy. | ||
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[use cases doc]: ./use-cases.md |
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