topic Re: What is the exact, in detail, difference between infrastructure only monitoring and full stack in Dynatrace? in Open Q&A

What Is the Difference Between Infrastructure-Only and Full-Stack Monitoring in Dynatrace?

larry_roberts — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 13:50:58 GMT

Summary: Infrastructure-only monitoring focuses on hosts and processes, while full-stack monitoring includes applications, services, and user experience. This thread explains both approaches and when to use each for optimal observability.

I am trying to find documentation that goes into detail on the exact differences between Infrastructure Monitoring mode monitoring and full stack, and can't seem to find any. I have the full stack down, but I'm not exactly sure what all infrastructure-only will capture.

Thanks!

Re: What is the exact, in detail, difference between infrastructure only monitoring and full stack in Dynatrace?

Joe_Hoffman — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 17:39:16 GMT

Here's the doc page which describes Infra-only monitoring:

https://www.dynatrace.com/support/help/monitor/hos...

Basically, infra-only monitoring captures the infrastructure metrics, such as disk, IO, CPU, memory, process list, etc. But does not capture application details or user experience data. So for example, with Infra-only you would not be able to drill down into the details of transactions that are running thru your Java,.NET, Go, etc. processes, but you would be able to see how much CPU, Memory, Disk IO was being consumed by these processes.

Let us know if this answers your question.

Re: What is the exact, in detail, difference between infrastructure only monitoring and full stack in Dynatrace?

larry_roberts — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 17:40:45 GMT

Thank you!

Re: What is the exact, in detail, difference between infrastructure only monitoring and full stack in Dynatrace?

kalle_lahtinen — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 08:59:32 GMT

Hi,

I think this is a good question. On a Dynatrace UI settings level, one could maybe say that the definition of having full-stack enabled simply means that it allows you to turn on deep monitoring for processes. That in turn leads into various process-specific insights, real user session data, code-level details, etc. - depending on the process.

But let's say you have a server with only one vital process (worth monitoring) running. And for that, there's a compatibility issue with OneAgent, which means you have to disable deep monitoring for that particular process. In this case it would appear there is no reason to keep full-stack mode on for that server, since you won't have deep monitoring enabled for any of the processes. Is my assumption here correct?

Re: What is the exact, in detail, difference between infrastructure only monitoring and full stack in Dynatrace?

skrystosik — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 09:04:22 GMT

Yes in such case you can switch to infrastructure and you will see metrics from hosts and processes without deep monitoring.

Sebastian

Re: What is the exact, in detail, difference between infrastructure only monitoring and full stack in Dynatrace?

MAkimov — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:40:08 GMT

@Joseph M. H. Hello

Is OneAgent Plugin working for Infra-only monitoring ?

Re: What is the exact, in detail, difference between infrastructure only monitoring and full stack in Dynatrace?

larry_roberts — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 11:42:24 GMT

I agree it's not exactly clear. While I understanding it all now, I think it still confuses allot of people who are new to Dynatrace and could be much better explained through better documentation.

Re: What is the exact, in detail, difference between infrastructure only monitoring and full stack in Dynatrace?

Joe_Hoffman — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 16:50:47 GMT

Plugins can run on both infra-only OneAgents as well as full OneAgents.

Here's a doc page that states this fact.

https://www.dynatrace.com/support/help/extend-dynatrace/plugins/oneagent-plugins/how-to-create-a-python-custom-plugin/

Re: What is the exact, in detail, difference between infrastructure only monitoring and full stack in Dynatrace?

Joe_Hoffman — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 17:16:40 GMT

Larry, I"m happy to drive forward some improved doc changes, but I'm not sure what doc changes would help clarify. I'm looking for your suggestions.

There's two key pages that describes the differences:

1) https://www.dynatrace.com/support/help/how-to-use-dynatrace/hosts/basic-concepts/how-effective-is-infrastructure-monitoring-on-its-own/

2) https://www.dynatrace.com/support/help/how-to-use-dynatrace/hosts/basic-concepts/get-started-with-infrastructure-monitoring/

Can you clarify what could be done to clarify the difference between Infra and Full mode?

Re: What is the exact, in detail, difference between infrastructure only monitoring and full stack in Dynatrace?

MarwanC — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 10:36:36 GMT

This might help for the management team at your organisation. It would really help if you can pin point exactly in documentation what Dynatrace do to your application top (RUM) to down approach in order to achieve those objectives and this is exactly what is missing and Larry is seeking.

Infrastructure Monitoring:

Focuses on monitoring the underlying hardware and software components of your IT infrastructure.
Monitors servers, networks, storage devices, and other infrastructure elements.
Provides insights into resource utilization, performance metrics, and health status of individual infrastructure components.
Helps identify issues related to hardware failures, resource bottlenecks, and infrastructure scalability.

Full-Stack Monitoring:

Offers a comprehensive view of the entire application stack, including both infrastructure and application layers.
Monitors not only the infrastructure components but also the application code, databases, APIs, and user experience.
Provides insights into end-to-end performance, including response times, error rates, and dependencies between different components.
Enables tracking of application performance across distributed environments
Helps identify issues impacting the overall user experience, such as slow page load times, transaction failures, and database bottlenecks.

Summary

While infrastructure monitoring focuses on the health and performance of underlying hardware and software, full-stack monitoring offers a more holistic view that includes application-level insights and end-user experience monitoring.