IBM Cloud Activity Tracker collector

[ 1 Overview ] [ 2 Devo collector features ] [ 3 Data sources ] [ 4 Minimum configuration required for basic pulling ] [ 5 Accepted authentication methods ] [ 6 Run the collector ] [ 7 Collector services detail ] [ 8 Collector operations ] [ 9 Change log ]

Overview

The IBM Cloud Activity Tracker collects all activity events within IBM cloud.

Devo collector features

Feature	Details

Feature	Details
Allow parallel downloading (`multipod`)	`not allowed`
Running environments	`collector server` `on-premise`
Populated Devo events	`table`
Flattening preprocessing	`no`
Allowed source events obfuscation	`yes`

Data sources

Data source	Description	API endpoint	Collector service name	Devo table	Available from release

Data source

Description

API endpoint

Collector service name

Devo table

Available from release

IBM cloud

IBM cloud activity events

/v2/export

activity_tracker

cloud.ibm.activity_tracker.audit

v1.0.0

For more information on how the events are parsed, visit our page.

Minimum configuration required for basic pulling

Although this collector supports advanced configuration, the fields required to retrieve data with basic configuration are defined below.

This minimum configuration refers exclusively to those specific parameters of this integration. There are more required parameters related to the generic behavior of the collector. Check setting sections for details.

Setting	Details

Setting

Details

service_key

The IBM Cloud Activity Tracker service key.

See Activity Tracker Service Keys for more information on how to obtain and/or configure your service key.

Please note that the IBM Cloud Activity Tracker requires a service key—not an ingestion key.

base_url

The IBM Cloud logging API endpoint for the Activity Tracker instance.

See the Activity Tracker endpoints page for a list of available endpoints.

Most base_urls follow the pattern https://api{region}.logging.cloud.ibm.com

See the Accepted authentication methods section to verify what settings are required based on the desired authentication method.

Accepted authentication methods

Authentication method	Service key	Base URL
Service key	Required	Required

Run the collector

Once the data source is configured, you can either send us the required information if you want us to host and manage the collector for you (Cloud collector), or deploy and host the collector in your own machine using a Docker image (On-premise collector).

Collector services detail

This section is intended to explain how to proceed with specific actions for services.

Event service

Internal process and deduplication method

All events are fetched via the v2 Export API and filtered/ordered by their created timestamp. The collector continually pulls new events since the last recorded timestamp. A unique hash value is computed for each event and used for deduplication purposes to ensure events are not fetched multiple times in subsequent pulls.

Please note that IBM Cloud supports a limited number of concurrent exports for the v2/export endpoint. To see your limits, check the v2/export API details page. Users should only configure one instance of the collector for any given Activity Tracker instance.

Devo categorization and destination

All events of this service are ingested into the table cloud.ibm.activity_tracker.audit

Setup output

A successful run has the following output messages for the setup module:

2023-08-31T09:30:01.135    INFO InputProcess::MainThread -> LogPullerSetup(unknown,ibm_cloud_activity_tracker#10001,activity_tracker#predefined) -> Starting thread
2023-08-31T09:30:01.137    INFO InputProcess::LogPullerSetup(unknown,ibm_cloud_activity_tracker#10001,activity_tracker#predefined) -> Testing fetch from /v2/export.
2023-08-31T09:30:01.794    INFO InputProcess::LogPullerSetup(unknown,ibm_cloud_activity_tracker#10001,activity_tracker#predefined) -> Successfully tested fetch from /v2/export. Source is pullable.
2023-08-31T09:30:01.794    INFO InputProcess::LogPullerSetup(unknown,ibm_cloud_activity_tracker#10001,activity_tracker#predefined) -> Setup for module <LogPuller> has been successfully executed

Puller output

2023-08-31T09:30:02.142    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> Running the persistence upgrade steps
2023-08-31T09:30:02.143    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> Running the persistence corrections steps
2023-08-31T09:30:02.143    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> Running the persistence corrections steps
2023-08-31T09:30:02.143    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> No changes were detected in the persistence
2023-08-31T09:30:02.144    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) Finalizing the execution of pre_pull()
2023-08-31T09:30:02.144    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> Starting data collection every 60 seconds
2023-08-31T09:30:02.144    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> Pull Started
2023-08-31T09:30:02.145    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> Fetching all event logs via params={'from': 1693485435, 'to': 1693488602, 'prefer': 'head'}
2023-08-31T09:30:02.908    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> Sending 183 event(s) to cloud.ibm.activity_tracker.audit.
2023-08-31T09:30:02.932    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> No more pagination_id values returned. Setting pull_completed to True.
2023-08-31T09:30:02.935    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> Updating the persistence
2023-08-31T09:30:02.936    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> (Partial) Statistics for this pull cycle (@devo_pulling_id=1693488602141):Number of requests made: 1; Number of events received: 185; Number of duplicated events filtered out: 2; Number of events generated and sent: 183; Average of events per second: 231.194.
2023-08-31T09:30:02.936    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> Statistics for this pull cycle (@devo_pulling_id=1693488602141):Number of requests made: 1; Number of events received: 185; Number of duplicated events filtered out: 2; Number of events generated and sent: 183; Average of events per second: 231.142.

After a successful collector’s execution (that is, no error logs found), you will see the following log message:

2023-08-31T09:30:02.936    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> The data is up to date!
2023-08-31T09:30:02.936    INFO InputProcess::LogPuller(ibm_cloud_activity_tracker,10001,activity_tracker,predefined) -> Data collection completed. Elapsed time: 0.795 seconds. Waiting for 59.205 second(s) until the next one

This collector uses persistent storage to download events in an orderly fashion and avoid duplicates. In case you want to re-ingest historical data or recreate the persistence, you can restart the persistence of this collector by following these steps:

Edit the configuration file.
Change the value of the reset_persistence_auth parameter to a different one.
Save the changes.
Restart the collector.

The collector will detect this change and will restart the persistence using the parameters of the configuration file or the default configuration in case it has not been provided.

This collector has different security layers that detect both an invalid configuration and abnormal operation. This table will help you detect and resolve the most common errors.

Error Type	Error Id	Error Message	Cause	Solution
InitVariablesError	1	Invalid start_time_in_utc: {ini_start_str}. Must be in parseable datetime format.	The configured start_time_in_utc parameter is a non-parseable format.	Update the start_time_in_utc value to have the recommended format as indicated in the guide.
InitVariablesError	2	Invalid start_time_in_utc: {ini_start_str}. Must be in the past.	The configured start_time_in_utc parameter is a future date.	Update the start_time_in_utc value to a past datetime.
SetupError	101	Failed to fetch OAuth token from {token_endpoint}. Exception: {e}.	The provided credentials, base URL, and/or token endpoint is incorrect.	Revisit the configuration steps and ensure that the correct values were specified in the config file.
SetupError	102	Failed to fetch data from {endpoint}. Source is not pullable.	The provided credentials, base URL, and/or token endpoint is incorrect.	Revisit the configuration steps and ensure that the correct values were specified in the config file.
ApiError	401	Error during API call to [API provider HTML error response here]	The server returned an HTTP 401 response.	Ensure that the provided credentials are correct and provide read access to the targeted data.
ApiError	429	Error during API call to [API provider HTML error response here]	The server returned an HTTP 429 response.	The collector will attempt to retry requests (default up to 3 times) and respect back-off headers if they exist. If the collector repeatedly encounters this error, adjust the rate limit and/or contact the API provider to ensure that you have enough quota to complete the data pull. Please note that IBM Cloud supports a limited amount of concurrent searches for the Activity Tracker instances at any given time. Please refer to your IBM Cloud plan for these limitations (most plans only support one concurrent search). If you encounter a 429 due to a concurrent search, and the collector proceeds normally during the subsequent pull, then there is nothing to correct. If you repeatedly encounter a 429 due to a concurrent search, make sure that you do not have multiple collectors running against the same Activity Tracker instance and that you do not have other, non-Devo-collector API searches running against the Activity Tracker instance.
ApiError	498	Error during API call to [API provider HTML error response here]	The server returned an HTTP 500 response.	If the API returns a 500 but successfully completes subsequent runs then you may ignore this error. If the API repeatedly returns a 500 error, ensure the server is reachable and operational.

Collector operations

This section is intended to explain how to proceed with specific operations of this collector.

Initialization

The initialization module is in charge of setup and running the input (pulling logic) and output (delivering logic) services and validating the given configuration.

A successful run has the following output messages for the initializer module:

Events delivery and Devo ingestion

The event delivery module is in charge of receiving the events from the internal queues where all events are injected by the pullers and delivering them using the selected compatible delivery method.

A successful run has the following output messages for the initializer module:

Sender services

The Integrations Factory Collector SDK has 3 different senders services depending on the event type to delivery (internal, standard, and lookup). This collector uses the following Sender Services:

Sender services	Description

Sender services	Description
`internal_senders`	In charge of delivering internal metrics to Devo such as logging traces or metrics.
`standard_senders`	In charge of delivering pulled events to Devo.

Sender statistics

Each service displays its own performance statistics that allow checking how many events have been delivered to Devo by type:

Logging trace	Description

Logging trace

Description

Number of available senders: 1

Displays the number of concurrent senders available for the given Sender Service.

sender manager internal queue size: 0

Displays the items available in the internal sender queue.

This value helps detect bottlenecks and needs to increase the performance of data delivery to Devo. This last can be made by increasing the concurrent senders.

Total number of messages sent: 44, messages sent since "2022-06-28 10:39:22.511671+00:00": 21 (elapsed 0.007 seconds)

Displayes the number of events from the last time and following the given example, the following conclusions can be obtained:

44 events were sent to Devo since the collector started.
The last checkpoint timestamp was 2022-06-28 10:39:22.511671+00:00.
21 events where sent to Devo between the last UTC checkpoint and now.
Those 21 events required 0.007 seconds to be delivered.

To check the memory usage of this collector, look for the following log records in the collector which are displayed every 5 minutes by default, always after running the memory-free process.

The used memory is displayed by running processes and the sum of both values will give the total used memory for the collector.
The global pressure of the available memory is displayed in the global value.
All metrics (Global, RSS, VMS) include the value before freeing and after previous -> after freeing memory

Change log

Release	Released on	Release type	Details	Recommendations

Release

Released on

Release type

Details

Recommendations

v1.0.0

Nov 3, 2023

initial release

Features:

Activity Tracker: Enable the collection and, storage of information about the cloud activity in the IBM Cloud environment.

Released with Devo Collector SDK v1.10.0

Recommended version