Tracing

Introduction

Mendix now supports tracing via OpenTelemetry. When tracing is enabled the runtime will generate traces that will help you analyze errors and performance. These traces can be sent to observability tools like Jaeger or Datadog.

Generated spans

The runtime generates spans for:

• Runtime operations coming from the front end, for example microflow calls, retrieves, commits, and deletes
• Microflow execution within the runtime, including sub-microflow calls
• Microflow loops and loop iterations
• Execution of task queue tasks

Configuration

Minimal Configuration

Tracing configuration is handled through the OpenTelemetry Java Agent. Use the following steps to set up a minimal tracing configuration:

1. Download opentelemetry-javaagent.jar from the OpenTelemetry Java Instrumentation release page.

2. In the Server settings of Studio Pro, locate the field Extra JVM parameters and add the following:

   -javaagent:{/path/to/opentelemetry-javaagent.jar} -Dotel.instrumentation.common.default-enabled=false -Dotel.instrumentation.opentelemetry-api.enabled=true -Dotel.service.name="{My App}"
   

   • Change {/path/to/opentelemetry-javaagent.jar} to the location where you saved the agent earlier. Make sure it is the full absolute path to the file, e.g. C:\Users\SomeUser\Documents\opentelemetry-javaagent.jar (Windows) or /Users/SomeUsers/Documents/opentelemetry-javaagent.jar (MacOS).
   • Change {My App} to the name under which you want your traces to appear.

This will enable Mendix related tracing, while silencing the tracing of internals. The OpenTelemetry Java Agent sends traces to http://localhost:4318/v1/traces using the http/protobuf protocol by default.

Testing

To test the tracing you can use Jaeger. For example, the all-in-one binary or docker image. Jaeger will listen to the above endpoint by default.

Alternatively you can set up the OpenTelemetry collector, which will also listen to the default endpoint and can be configured to send to backends which support OpenTelemetry. Check with your APM vendor to confirm that OpenTelemetry is supported. The free online collector configuration tool OTelBin can help with collector configuration.

All settings

Below we list the ones that are supported by the Mendix runtime. See Configure the SDK for a reference on the settings that are prefixed with otel..

The Java Agent can be configured through system properties, which can be added to the Extra JVM parameters field (for example, -Dotel.exporter.otlp.traces.endpoint), or set through environment variables.