Connect a Service Observability data source

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read

    • Connect Service Observability to an external application performance management (APM) instance. Service Observability displays metrics in the Service Operations Workspace (SOW) from that APM instance.

    Before you begin

    You must enter a connection URL and credentials for your APM vendor. You can either use an existing connection or create one. Note the following for specific vendors:
    Table 1. Vendor-specific connection information
    APM Vendor Connection information
    AWS

    The connection URL must be specific to the region to be monitored, for example, https://monitoring.us-east-2.amazonaws.com.
    Azure The connection URL should be https://management.azure.com.
    Splunk Observability The connection URL must include the Realm, for example, https://stream.[REALM].signalfx.com

    If you're using existing credentials, you need the credential name. If you're creating credentials, collect the following information.

    Table 2. Vendor-specific credential requirements
    APM vendor Credential type Information needed
    AppDynamics OAuth 2.0
    • OAuth Client ID
    • OAuth Client secret
    • OAuth token URL
    • AppDynamics account name
    Azure OAuth 2.0
    • OAuth Client ID
    • OAuth Client secret
    • OAuth token URL
    • Subscription ID
    AWS AWS credentials
    • Access key
    • Secret key

    If the user associated with this key is restricted to specific permissions, they must include the following, scoped to all resources:

    • cloudwatch:Describe scoped to all resources

    • cloudwatch:Get scoped to all resources

    • cloudwatch:List scoped to all resources

    • cloudtrail:LookupEvents

    • tag:GetResources

    • tag:GetTagKeys

    • tag:GetTagValues

    • apigateway:Get
    Datadog API
    • API key
    • Application key
    If an application key is restricted to a specific scope, those scopes are required for the following endpoints:
    • https://api.datadoghq.com/api/v2/catalog/entity
    • https://api.datadoghq.com/api/v1/hosts
    • https://api.datadoghq.com/api/v1/query
    • https://api.datadoghq.com/api/v2/query/timeseries
    Dynatrace API API key

    The API key must have Read entities and Read metrics scope permissions.
    New Relic API
    • Account ID
    • API key
    Prometheus (on-premise) Basic Auth
    • Basic Auth credential user name
    • Basic Auth credential password
    • The name of the MID Server your Prometheus instance is hosted on
    SolarWinds Basic Auth
    • Basic Auth credential user name
    • Basic Auth credential password
    • The name of the MID Server your SolarWinds instance is hosted on
    Splunk Observability API Access token

    Role required: sn_sow_svcobs.admin

    About this task

    The first step to ingesting APM data is to create a connection to the APM instance.

    Service Observability supports the following APM vendors:
    • Amazon CloudWatch
    • AppDynamics
    • Datadog
    • Dynatrace
    • Microsoft Azure Monitor
    • New Relic
    • Prometheus (on-premise)
    • SolarWinds on-premise
    • Splunk Observability

    Procedure

    1. Navigate based on your version of Service Observability.
      • Version 1.5.0: Navigate to All > Service Operations Workspace > Configurations, then navigate to Service Observability Management > Manage Observability > Data sources
      • Version 1.6 or later: Navigate to All > Service Operations Workspace > Configurations, then navigate to Service Observability > Data sources.
    2. Select your APM vendor.
    3. On the Add connection form, fill in the fields.
      You can use an existing HTTP or HTTPs connection and an existing API key credential or create one.
    4. Select Save.

    Result

    A new connection appears in the list of observability data sources. You use this connection when you create a data mapping.

    What to do next

    Map your connection to the services that you want to monitor in Service Observability. See Create and manage data mappings.