SkyWalking is an open source application performance management (APM) tool for cloud-native applications. SkyWalking supports distributed tracing, analysis of performance metrics, and dependency analysis of applications and services. This topic describes how to integrate self-managed SkyWalking with Alibaba Cloud Service Mesh (ASM). This allows you to view application monitoring metrics and therefore improves the observability of ASM instances.

Prerequisites

Step 1: Create a service for SkyWalking

  1. Log on to the ACK console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane of the ACK console, click Clusters.
  3. On the Clusters page, find the cluster that you want to manage and click the name of the cluster or click Details in the Actions column. The details page of the cluster appears.
  4. In the left-side navigation pane of the details page, choose Network > Services
  5. On the Services page, click Create in the upper-right corner.
  6. In the Create Service dialog box, set the parameters as required and click Create.
    Take note of the following key parameters. For more information about other parameters, see Manage Services.
    • Type: the method that is used to access the service. In this example, select Server Load Balancer and then Public Access.
    • Backend: the backend application that is associated with the service. In this example, select Skywalking.
    • Port Mapping: Set the service port and container port. The container port must be the same as the one that is exposed by the backend pod. In this example, set the container port to port 11800.
    On the Services page, find the created service and click the IP address in the External Endpoint column. The SkyWalking page appears.

Step 2: Enable self-managed SkyWalking

  1. Log on to the ASM console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Service Mesh > Mesh Management.
  3. On the Mesh Management page, find the ASM instance that you want to configure. Click the name of the ASM instance or click Manage in the Actions column.
  4. On the details page of the ASM instance, choose ASM Instance > Base Information in the left-side navigation pane. On the Basic Information page, click Settings.
  5. In the Settings Update panel, select Integrate Self-managed Skywalking, enter the endpoint and port number of SkyWalking, and then click OK.

Step 3: Request the Bookinfo application

  1. Download the Siege stress testing tool and configure environment variables.
    For more information about Siege, visit GitHub.
  2. Run the following command on your computer to keep requesting the Bookinfo application to generate traffic data: 
    GATEWAY_URL=$(k -n istio-system get service istio-ingressgateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')
siege -c 3 "http://${GATEWAY_URL}/productpage"

Step 4: View application monitoring metrics

  • In the upper part of the SkyWalking page, click Topology to view the traces among services. Topology
  • In the upper part of the SkyWalking page, click Dashboard. Then, click the Global tab to view the status of services. The metrics such as loads, latency, and health status are displayed. Global dashboard
  • In the upper part of the SkyWalking page, click Dashboard. Then, click the Service tab to view the performance data of services. The metrics such as average latency, loads, and success rates are displayed. Service dashboard
  • In the upper part of the SkyWalking page, click Dashboard. Then, click the Instance tab to view the monitoring metrics of instances. Instance dashboard
  • In the upper part of the SkyWalking page, click Dashboard. Then, click the Endpoint tab to view the monitoring metrics of endpoints. Endpoint dashboard