Kibana APM without installing APM agents

Elastic Observability APM
#1

Hi All,

I am newbie. Please let me know if its possible to use KIBANA APM, without having APM server and APM agent. Can we use kibana APM just by doing ECS mapping in logstash and storing the index in elasticsearch.

OR is it mandatory to have APM agents installed and configured to use KIBANA APP?

Thanks

#2

Hi and welcome :wave:

That's possible. All the data APM uses is just a regular index. While it's possible, it's definitely more convenient to use the existing APM Agents. May I ask why it's not an option for you?

Another option is to send data directly to APM Server via the intake API: Events Intake API | APM Server Reference [7.12] | Elastic. I'd recommend this over directly storing data in Elasticsearch.

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#3

Thank you so much for info and quick response. Here the external system applications do not allow any code insertion even if it is two line. Hence, we wanted to check if only by doing ECS mapping can we make use of KIBANA APM.
And, also are there any mandatory / specific (Minimum number of fields) to have ECS mapped a in order to explore APM.

Thank you

#4

Depending on the runtime/language of that 3rd party application, you might be able to attach an agent without any code changes. That's possible for Java-based applications, for example. See Automatic setup with apm-agent-attach-standalone.jar | APM Java Agent Reference [1.x] | Elastic.

The APM Server intake API has links to the JSON schemas of the events (see Events Intake API | APM Server Reference [7.12] | Elastic). These contain information about the required and optional fields.

1 Like
#5

Thank you so much for the info. External application is on SFDC (SalesForce) and application is developed using APEX. I am really not sure if we can use JAVA APM agent. Please confirm if it can be used OR is there any other suitable way to do it. Thank you