Get answers to the top frequently asked questions for VMware Aria Operations for Applications (formerly known as Tanzu Observability by Wavefront).

Do You Have Tutorials?

Yes!

  • The AWS Integration Tutorial tutorial has:
    • Detailed step-by-step instructions for ingesting data from AWS
    • Links to next steps
  • The Windows Host Integration Tutorial has:
    • Detailed step-by-step instructions for ingesting data from a Windows host machine, when your Operations for Applications service is onboarded to VMware Cloud services.
    • A video about ingesting data from a Windows machine when your Operations for Applications service is not onboarded to VMware Cloud services.
  • The Explore Data Tutorial gives step-by-step instructions for exploring a sample dashboard. You don’t need special permissions follow these steps.
  • The Query Language Tutorial explores the anatomy of a query, includes a few videos, and includes hands-on practice.
  • The Alerts Browser Tutorial and the Create Alerts Tutorial get you started with alerts.

Do You Have Videos?

Yes! We have a channel on VMware TV that includes playlists for getting started, query language, alerting, and more.

Do You Have APIs?



Yes! To access the APIs, click the gear icon in the top right and select API Documentation.

See REST API for details on finding the API token and more.
screenshot of gear icon menu with API documentation selected

How Many Integrations Do You Have? How Can I Learn About Them?



VMware Aria Operations for Applications has more than 250 integrations. Click here for the full list of integrations.

Most of the documentation of the integrations comes from the code and is generated by a script. For best practices and details about some of our integrations, expand Integrations in the TOC on the left and click Integration Details.
screenshot of doc set table of contents, integration details opened

Why Can’t I Edit This Dashboard? This Alert?

By default, all users can view dashboards and alerts. They can also edit dashboards and alerts but cannot save their changes. To do more, you need permissions.

Action

  1. Check your permissions. See:
  2. If you don’t have the permissions you need, ask a user with the proper administration permissions or to grant you the permissions.
  3. If that doesn’t solve the problem, the individual dashboard or alert you’re trying to edit might be protected by access control. The creator of the alert or dashboard or a Super Admin user can grant access.

Why Is Our PPS So High? Why Do We Have Overage?

PPS and Overage determine what a customer is billed:

  • PPS – Or Points per Second, means data points ingested per second to the service. All customers are billed based on their PPS.
  • Overage – Many of our customers have a contract that specifies a certain PPS for a certain amount of time. If the customer exceeds that PPS, the customer is billed for overage.

Because the service runs on AWS, we have to bill based on how much data is ingested. However, we’re interested in helping you lower your bill and get more out of VMware Aria Operations for Applications. We encourage you to find out:

  • Are there dashboards or alerts that ingest data but that are never used?
  • Are your queries looking at too much data, that is, could you filter as part of the query?

Start with Improve PPS Usage and Prevent Overage and learn how to examine your data and how to improve PPS.

Why Is VMware Aria Operations for Applications So Slow?

VMware Aria Operations for Applications can handle a lot of data, but sometimes you need it faster!

Action

  • Improve Rendering Speed: You can make some modifications to slow dashboards to improve rendering speed. See Ensure Optimal Dashboard Performance. Changes include ensuring that sampling is turned on, controlling that only events you need to see are displayed, and more.

  • Improve Data Shape and Cardinality: At the heart of improving rendering speed and query execution speed is the shape of your data. If your dashboard or your query look at only the data you’re actually interested in, performance improves drastically. See Optimizing Data Shape to Improve Performance and Find Ingestion and Query Problems.

Do You Have Other FAQs?

Yes! We have FAQs for several areas of the product.

  • Alerts FAQ has answers about alerts firing (or not firing), tips for optimizing alerts, and more.
  • Kubernetes FAQ has answers to questions about filtering data, monitoring Prometheus endpoints, and more.
  • Tracing FAQ is for users of our tracing offering.
  • Authorization FAQ helps administrators who want the important authorization questions answered.

Search the doc set for FAQ to find more FAQ pages.