Deploy Dynatrace#

Deploy Dynatrace Approach

This guide offers (2) approaches to deploying Dynatrace for this workshop. To speed things up and get log data into Dynatrace as quickly as possible, the automated (scripted) approach will deploy Dynatrace for you using helper functions. To learn the process of deploying Dynatrace on Kubernetes and to customize the deployment to your needs, you can follow the manual (guided) approach.

Dynatrace provides integrated log management and analytics for your Kubernetes environments by either running the OneAgent Log Module or integrating with log collectors such as Fluent Bit, OpenTelemetry Collector, Logstash, or Fluentd.

Dynatrace provides a flexible approach to Kubernetes observability where you can pick and choose the level of observability you need for your Kubernetes clusters. The Dynatrace Operator manages all the components needed to get the data into Dynatrace for you. This also applies to collecting logs from Kubernetes containers. Depending on the selected observability option, the Dynatrace Operator configures and manages the Log Module to work in conjunction with or without a OneAgent on the node.

Learn More

Kubernetes Platform Monitoring + Application Observability#

Kubernetes platform monitoring sets the foundation for understanding and troubleshooting your Kubernetes clusters. This setup does not include OneAgent or application-level monitoring by default, but it can be combined with other monitoring and injection approaches.

Kubernetes Platform Monitoring: Capabilities

Provides insights into the health and utilization of your Kubernetes clusters, including object relationships (topology)
Uses the Kubernetes API and cAdvisor to get node- and container-level metrics and Kubernetes events
Enables out-of-the-box alerting and anomaly detection for workloads, Pods, nodes, and clusters

Application observability focuses on monitoring application-level metrics by injecting code modules into application Pods. This mode offers multiple injection strategies (automatic, runtime, and build-time) to collect application-specific metrics. For infrastructure-level insights, combine it with Kubernetes platform monitoring.

Application Observability: Capabilities

Dynatrace injects code modules into Pods using the Kubernetes admission controller.
Get granular control over the instrumented Pods using namespaces and annotations.
Route Pod metrics to different Dynatrace environments within the same Kubernetes cluster.
Enable data enrichment for Kubernetes environments.

Automated (Scripted) Approach#

Generate Dynatrace Tokens#

In your Dynatrace tenant, launch the Kubernetes app. From the Overview tab, click on Add cluster.

Add Cluster

We do not need to configure anything on this screen other than generating the tokens. Scroll down to the section Install Dynatrace Operator.

Dynatrace Tokens

Generate a Dynatrace Operator Token. Copy and save the value somewhere, we will need it shortly.

Generate a Data Ingest Token. Copy and save the value somewhere, we will need it shortly.

Set Environment Variables#

The automation script will utilize environment variables for deploying Dynatrace on Kubernetes.

From your terminal, set the environment variables with the export command.

export DT_TENANT=https://abc123.live.dynatrace.com
export DT_OPERATOR_TOKEN=dt0c01.<YOUR-DYNATRACE-OPERATOR-TOKEN>
export DT_INGEST_TOKEN=dt0c01.<YOUR-DATA-INGEST-TOKEN>

Deploy Dynatrace#

Deploy the Dynatrace Operator.

dynatraceDeployOperator

Validate that the Dynatrace Operator was deployed successfully.

kubectl get pods -n dynatrace

Deploy the Dynakube with Kubernetes Platform Monitoring + Application Observability.

deployApplicationMonitoring

Validate that the Dynatrace Dynakube was deployed successfully.

kubectl get pods -n dynatrace

Refresh Application Pods#

Now that Dynatrace is deployed, let's refresh/recycle the application pods for astroshop to inject the OneAgent code modules.

kubectl delete pods -n astroshop --field-selector="status.phase=Running"

Validate Log Ingest#

In your Dynatrace tenant, return to the Kubernetes app. From the Cluster overview tab, click on Namespaces to open the list of Namespaces on the Cluster.

List Namespaces

From the list of Namespaces, click on astroshop. From the Namespace pop-out, click the Logs tab. Verify in the chart that logs are being ingested for the astroshop namespace. Click on Run query on the Show logs in current context option.

Namespace Logs

Validate log data after running the query.

Namespace Logs Query

Continue#

In the next section, we'll learn how to scale your log analytics with Dynatrace.

Continue to Scaling Log Analytics with Dynatrace

Manual (Guided) Approach#

Start Monitoring Kubernetes#

In your Dynatrace tenant, launch the Kubernetes app. From the Overview tab, click on Add cluster.

Add Cluster

1. Select distribution

Choose Other distributions as your distribution, as we will be deploying Dynatrace on a generic Kind Kubernetes cluster.

2. Select observability options

Choose Kubernetes platform monitoring + Application observability as your observability option. This will define your Dynakube spec/configuration.

Toggle the Log Management and Analytics flag/setting to Enabled.

Toggle the Extensions flag/setting to Disabled. We will not be using this feature in this lab.

Toggle the Telemetry endpoints for data ingest flag/setting to Disabled. We will not be using this feature in this lab.

Select Distribution

3. Configure cluster

Give your Kubernetes cluster a name, for example workshop-log-analytics.

4. Install Dynatrace Operator

Generate a Dynatrace Operator Token. Copy and save the value somewhere, in case you need it. The value will automatically be added to the dynakube.yaml file.

Generate a Data Ingest Token. Copy and save the value somewhere, in case you need it. The value will automatically be added to the dynakube.yaml file.

Download the dynakube.yaml file.

Copy the helm install dynatrace-operator command to your clipboard. Use the command from your Dynatrace tenant, but it should look similar to this:

helm install dynatrace-operator oci://public.ecr.aws/dynatrace/dynatrace-operator \
--create-namespace \
--namespace dynatrace \
--atomic

Configure Cluster

Deploy Dynatrace Operator#

Navigate back to your GitHub Codespaces instance. From the terminal, paste the helm install dynatrace-operator command and execute it.

Deploy Dynatrace Operator

Validate the new Dynatrace pods are running:

kubectl get pods -n dynatrace

Deploy Dynakube#

Locate the dynakube.yaml file that you downloaded from your tenant. With the file (directory) open, navigate back to your GitHub Codespaces instance. Click and hold to drag and drop the dynakube.yaml file into your Codespaces instance.

ActiveGate Container Resources

Consider changing the ActiveGate's resources for better performance in this lab environment

kind: DynaKube
spec:
  activeGate:
    resources:
      requests:
        cpu: 100m
        memory: 512Mi
      limits:
        cpu: 500m
        memory: 768Mi

Deploy the Dynakube using kubectl.

kubectl apply -f dynakube.yaml

Wait 3-5 minutes and validate that the Dynatrace pods are running.

kubectl get pods -n dynatrace

NAME	READY	STATUS	AGE
dynatrace-oneagent-csi-driver-7b9kx	4/4	Running	3m5s
dynatrace-operator-747d795b5c-hrmtl	1/1	Running	3m5s
dynatrace-webhook-5b697d4b9d-6v95s	1/1	Running	3m5s
dynatrace-webhook-5b697d4b9d-nvslc	1/1	Running	3m5s
workshop-log-analytics-activegate-0	1/1	Running	90s
workshop-log-analytics-logmonitoring-dxrsh	1/1	Running	89s

Dynakube Log Module Spec#

Enabling Log Management and Analytics with the option Fully managed with Dynatrace Log Module will add the Log Module to the Dynakube spec.

Dynakube sample - Kubernetes platform monitoring + Application Observability + Log Management enabled

---
apiVersion: dynatrace.com/v1beta5
kind: DynaKube
metadata:
  name: workshop-log-analytics
  namespace: dynatrace
  annotations:
    feature.dynatrace.com/k8s-app-enabled: "true"
spec:
  apiUrl: https://<tenant>/api
  metadataEnrichment:
    enabled: true
  oneAgent:
    applicationMonitoring: {}
  activeGate:
    capabilities:
      - routing
      - kubernetes-monitoring
    resources:
      requests:
        cpu: 100m
        memory: 512Mi
      limits:
        cpu: 500m
        memory: 768Mi
  templates:
    logMonitoring:
      imageRef:
        repository: public.ecr.aws/dynatrace/dynatrace-logmodule
        tag: 1.319.83.20250909-095914
  logMonitoring: {}

The Log Module runs as a container in a standalone pod (as part of a daemonset) on each node. The spec.templates.imageRef defines the container image and tag to be used.

templates:
    logMonitoring:
      imageRef:
        repository: public.ecr.aws/dynatrace/dynatrace-logmodule
        tag: 1.319.83.20250909-095914

ImagePullBackOff Error

In case you encounter an ImagePullBackOff error, check public.ecr.aws to make sure the container image with that tag exists. If not, change the value to use an existing one. Container Registry

By enabling the Log Module in your dynakube.yaml definition, this will enable the Dynakube to add a Log Ingest rule scoped at the Cluster-level within the Dynatrace tenant.