Prometheus Observability tab for Service Observability

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Prometheus Observability tab for Service Observability

    The Prometheus Observability tab within the Service Details page provides dashboards and charts that display performance metrics critical for monitoring service health and resource utilization. This feature is essential for ServiceNow customers to gain insights into their services, ensuring optimal performance and quick resolution of issues.

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    Key Features

    • Application Dashboard: Displays performance metrics for the selected service, including request rate, error percentage, average response time, throughput, and active requests. Note that customized dashboards may vary from the standard metrics shown.
    • Compute Dashboard: Offers metrics related to the hosts serving the service, such as CPU, memory, and disk utilization, along with details of all active servers and VM instances.
    • Database Dashboards: Provides metrics for databases related to the service, including MySQL and PostgreSQL performance indicators like thread utilization, active connections, transaction rates, and network traffic.

    Key Outcomes

    By utilizing the Prometheus Observability tab, ServiceNow customers can:

    • Monitor real-time performance and health of their services.
    • Quickly identify and address performance bottlenecks or errors.
    • Access detailed metrics on both application and database levels to inform operational decisions.

    This functionality enables improved service reliability and performance through proactive monitoring and management.

    Dashboard and charts on the Prometheus Observability tab of the Service Details page in the SOW.

    Application dashboard

    This dashboard displays performance metrics for the selected service.
    Note:
    If the dashboards have been customized, they might not reflect the information shown on this page.
    Table 1. Service KPIs
    Chart Description Data source
    Request Rate Aggregate rate of transactions through the service, per second. Prometheus
    Error % Percent of transactions that have an error. Prometheus
    Average Response Time Aggregate duration of transactions through the service, in seconds. Prometheus
    Throughput Count of successful transactions, per second. Prometheus
    Active Requests Count of current in-flight requests to the service. Prometheus
    Response Time (95th Percentile) 95th percentile response time for HTTP requests, in seconds. Prometheus
    Average Request Size Average size of requests to the service, in bytes. Prometheus
    Average Response Size Average size of responses from the service, in bytes. Prometheus

    Compute dashboard

    This dashboard displays metrics for hosts related to the service.

    Table 2. Host
    Chart Description Data source
    CPU utilization Percent of the host processing power being consumed. Prometheus
    Memory utilization Percent of memory the host is using. Prometheus
    Disk utilization Percent of the host disk being used. Prometheus
    All Active Servers Information for all servers the service is actively using. Select a host link to view more detailed information. CMDB
    All Active VM Instances Information for all virtual machines the service is actively using. Select a host link to view more detailed information. CMDB

    Database dashboards

    These dashboards display metrics for databases related to the service.

    Table 3. MySQL
    Chart Description Data source
    Thread Utilization % Percent of the database's threads being consumed. Prometheus
    Queries Per Second Number of queries made to the database by the service, per second. Prometheus
    InnoDB Memory % Percent of InnoDB buffer pool being consumed. Prometheus
    Active Connections Number of connections to the database. Prometheus
    Aborted Connections Rate of aborted connections. Prometheus
    Uptime Average number of hours the database has been available. Prometheus
    Inbound Network Traffic Number of bytes per second of inbound traffic to the database. Prometheus
    Outbound Network Traffic Number of bytes per second of outbound traffic to the database. Prometheus
    Slow Queries Rate of slow queries detected by MySQL, per second. Prometheus
    All MySQL Instances Information for all databases the service is actively using. Select a database link to view more detailed information. CMDB
    Table 4. PostgreSQL
    Chart Description Data source
    Active Sessions Count of sessions currently active. Prometheus
    Idle Sessions Count of idle sessions. Prometheus
    Committed Transactions Total committed transactions since server start. Prometheus
    Failed Transactions Total rolled back transactions since server start. Prometheus
    Deadlocks Total deadlocks detected since server start. Prometheus
    Locks Count Current count of locks given out by the database. Prometheus
    Cache Hit Ratio Percentage of database requests that can be served by the cache. Prometheus
    All PostgreSQL Instances Information of all databases the service is actively using. Select a database link to view more detailed information. CMDB