> I also see the agent linked to a DB. What sort of DB is that and what does > it store?
No, it doesnt. I cannot open the link in cell phone. But no DB required at agent side. For sure. > I also see a mention of a queue there, but it's not clear to me what sort of queue that is. Maybe this is an in-memory queue/buffer with trace data that is stored there before being sent out to the Collector over gRPC? Does Skywalking agent have the ability to buffer data locally (in memory? on disk? both?) if it cannot be sent right away? queue existed in memory only. Yes, buffer when segment(a sub trace in a thread of one request) finish. Then use GRPC to send. When cant sent right, buffer in memory, but in threshold, ignore if too many traces. Why not disk for us, many disk in cloud is still based on network, s3 or similar things. So save into the disk cant guarantee anything. > Right. Although, now that I look at that image again, I see the Collector and ES mapping would also be interesting to look at or even use. I guess this Collector also exposes the APIs that the UI calls? Yes, 5.0 will release an new APIs based on GraphQL style. In master now, in here https://github.com/apache/incubator-skywalking/tree/master/apm-protocol/apm-ui-protocol totally new. > Could you please expand a bit on this "more focusing on better aggregation than just tracing"? Do you mean you want to build features X, Y, and Z that analyze traces and provide additional insights and not just the usual waterfall or timeline trace visualizations? Or do you mean that today Skywalking agent captures only traces, but in the future you want it to also capture something else? Not only stack trace. I will find topology of Application, Application metrics, service metrics, jvm status, alarm. Most are rewritten in 5.0. We capture traces and collect JVM status, cpu, memory, gc etc. > But on a serious note, I did have one comment/feedback and it's related to the roadmap. Where is the communication around development happening? I see Gitter, but there isn't much there. I see this dev@ mailing list, but there is not much here either. I see a lot of Github issues and comments, but they look like N or NN people are working on Skywalking, but each person seems to know what they should be doing, so there must be some sort of communication and collaboration happening somewhere, but it looks like that's not visible anywhere? Yes, that is a problem. Because we grow too fast, the four core contributors ask me directly through private mail, even phone. Explain what he is going to contribute. Those four are core PPMC. Each of them are in charge of agent, plugin, backend, UI separately. That is why we move fast, also why we have little discuss document s about the roadmap. We are join an ASF in 2 months, so long way to improve ourselves. Sorry for that. We are willing to change that when more and more people join us in these days. So, please don't feel be blocking. Just ask and join us. ---Original--- From: "Otis Gospodneti?0?4"<[email protected]> Date: 2018/1/24 13:07:22 To: "dev"<[email protected]>; Subject: Re: Skywalking scope Hi Sheng Wu, On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 2:40 PM, ???? Sheng Wu <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, Otis, > Glad to receive your mail. SkyWalking is designed as a complex and full > functional APM and tracing system. If you follow our twitter, will receive > the new UI soon. > > > Aggregation, rules and metrics are always includes, sure. But users, > password and auth are not. > OK. Sounds like those are optional things that the rest of the system does not require. Sounds good! So I guess you want to use the agent alone? Right. The support for a growing number of integrations that Skywalking can trace is interesting. But on https://camo.githubusercontent.com/7d8288e969933ac4ed6d1684f8837c 186eca135f/68747470733a2f2f736b7977616c6b696e67746573742e6769746875622e 696f2f706167652d7265736f75726365732f352e302f6172636869746563747572652e706e67 I also see the agent linked to a DB. What sort of DB is that and what does it store? I also see a mention of a queue there, but it's not clear to me what sort of queue that is. Maybe this is an in-memory queue/buffer with trace data that is stored there before being sent out to the Collector over gRPC? Does Skywalking agent have the ability to buffer data locally (in memory? on disk? both?) if it cannot be sent right away? By that, you need to implement backend of SkyWalking upstream grpc > services, which can be found here, https://github.com/apache/incu > bator-skywalking/tree/master/apm-protocol/apm-network/src/main/proto Right. Although, now that I look at that image again, I see the Collector and ES mapping would also be interesting to look at or even use. I guess this Collector also exposes the APIs that the UI calls? We support that way, using agent alone, but we are more focusing on better > aggregation than just tracing and mutil languages support. Could you please expand a bit on this "more focusing on better aggregation than just tracing"? Do you mean you want to build features X, Y, and Z that analyze traces and provide additional insights and not just the usual waterfall or timeline trace visualizations? Or do you mean that today Skywalking agent captures only traces, but in the future you want it to also capture something else? > You can see, because we build backend, so we can be sure the agent is > designed right, yes? > Yes, I see why you need the full stack and not just the agent. :) We are moving fast, so not that roadmap in document, but in my mind. Sorry, > feel free to ask us anything you want to know. > OK. How about this: when do you sleep? ;) But on a serious note, I did have one comment/feedback and it's related to the roadmap. Where is the communication around development happening? I see Gitter, but there isn't much there. I see this dev@ mailing list, but there is not much here either. I see a lot of Github issues and comments, but they look like N or NN people are working on Skywalking, but each person seems to know what they should be doing, so there must be some sort of communication and collaboration happening somewhere, but it looks like that's not visible anywhere? Thanks, Otis -- Monitoring - Log Management - Alerting - Anomaly Detection Solr & Elasticsearch Consulting Support Training - http://sematext.com/ > > ---Original--- > From: "Otis Gospodneti?0?4"<[email protected]> > Date: 2018/1/24 11:19:09 > To: "dev"<[email protected]>; > Subject: Skywalking scope > > > Hi, > > I was looking at Skywalking as a project focused exclusively on building a > tracing agent with support for both Java bytecode instrumentation and > OpenTracing and perhaps some other forms of instrumentation. However, > browsing through GitHub issues I see references to things like alerts and > to API for retrieving traces and perhaps other data. Then there is also the > UI. And this means there must be a notion of users, passwords, > authentication, alert rules and so on. So Skywalking is not really just an > agent but either already is or aims to be a full APM/transaction tracing > solution? > > Is there some page or doc or email or anything that describes everything > that Skywalking is today and it??s roadmap? > > Also, I am wondering if Skywalking is designed in a way that lets one use > just the tracing agent without everything else? > > Thanks, > Otis > -- > Monitoring - Log Management - Alerting - Anomaly Detection > Solr & Elasticsearch Consulting Support Training - http://sematext.com/ >
