topic Re: Using Segments Extensively? Are they working consistently? in Open Q&A

Using Segments Extensively? Are they working consistently?

r_weber — Wed, 20 May 2026 08:56:11 GMT

I must confirm I have a big issue with segments. I might have understood something fundamentally wrong but to me it seems segments are not properly used in all apps the same way.

For example, I'm trying to cover a rather simple usecase: everything from within a K8s namespace (annotated by a owner label) should go into a segment. And I mean everything, the entities, the spans, the logs, the metrics, ...
Let's start with the entities: it's hard to include all (classic, and - oh my - new entities) into the segment! I have not yet found a "simple" rule that - via relationships or tags/labels whatsoever allows me to include all entities that somehow relate to the namespace.
Then even if your segment preview shows the desired entities (e.g. services)...try to switch to the new smartscape to show service topology - nope, doesn't. SERVICEs of that segment show in the services app but do not show in the smartscape app - leaving smartscape app in big environments basically useless and frustrating for users (because they can't properly filter). likely because there is a duplication in the entity data: dt.smartscape.service and dt.entity.service (same(!) value).

Second: the "include everything" doesn't work. For example use the security context (based on MZ - yay! we still need both). Think about this OR(!) condition:

One would expect the classic enities be included (since they match the dt.security.context from the MZ. But no they can't be included because they do not have a namespace!? They have the security context and it is a OR, we shouldn't care if there is a namespace...OR not AND!

Hosently, I've worked a lot on structuring data into MZs for user visibility, but segments just seems to not work as intended or is simply not feature complete it seems!

Happy to get convinced otherwise!

Re: Using Segments Extensively? Are they working consistently?

Julius_Loman — Wed, 20 May 2026 11:41:02 GMT

My feedback is mixed. The preview does not work for me in some cases, similar to yours. I assume this gets improved with the upcoming updates, especially when existing apps will move to Gen3. I always try to test the segment then on real data.

Now you still need to include the classic entities, not even for extension, but also for services or hosts as the apps do not use new smartscape entities yet (they use dt.entity , not dt.smartscape ). I hope this gets improved with the upcoming June/July rally. Including classic entities is more challenging are there are limited options for matching.

Re: Using Segments Extensively? Are they working consistently?

NicoleMT — Wed, 20 May 2026 14:26:44 GMT

We are currently facing the same situation. We are working on implementations, and the new environments are running on Gen3. There is no complete guide or clear use cases available for segments. We are trying to configure them, but in some applications they are not working correctly. To be honest, the process has been a bit tedious.