Where to get Services Outgoing Web Service Calls Details

[smitty]

Hi everyone,
I'm new to Dynatrace and could use some help understanding how to get the right metrics for our setup.

We have a Java WebLogic Web Application that makes calls through an AWS ALB to a backend WebLogic servers Web Services.  All servers have OneAgent in full mode and we have the AWS Cloud Integration.  I find the metrics for the requests to the backend Web Services as these show up as normal metrics for things like Response Time, Request Count, HTTP 5xx counts.   The problem is I need the metrics for the calls from the front end WebLogic Servers to the backend.  Under Services for a specific front end WebLogic Server Dynatrace shows graphs for the Outgoing services to the individual backend WebLogic Servers and I can pin the DQL from these, but I can't find a way to get the specific URLs being called and Web Service request details from this, for example this is the pinned DQL from the Services Outgoing services calls response time to one of the backend servers:

// Microchart: percentile lookup 50
timeseries responseTime_p50_timeseries = percentile(dt.service.request.response_time, 50), by: { dt.entity.service }, bins: 60, filter: dt.entity.service == "SERVICE-27EE790CB3E603B3", nonempty: true | fieldsAdd metricName = "Response time p50"
| append[// Microchart: percentile lookup 90
timeseries responseTime_p90_timeseries = percentile(dt.service.request.response_time, 90), by: { dt.entity.service }, bins: 60, filter: dt.entity.service == "SERVICE-27EE790CB3E603B3", nonempty: true | fieldsAdd metricName = "Response time p90"]
| append[// Microchart: percentile lookup 99
timeseries responseTime_p99_timeseries = percentile(dt.service.request.response_time, 99), by: { dt.entity.service }, bins: 60, filter: dt.entity.service == "SERVICE-27EE790CB3E603B3", nonempty: true | fieldsAdd metricName = "Response time p99"]

This shows overall response time from one front end server to one backend server, but what I want is the request details from the front end server to the backend servers for it's call.  This is important to see the load distribution to each backend servers from the front end servers as well.

Is there some specific configuration that needs to be done in order to set this up since it doesn't appear to be available by default.  We are on a non Platform Subscription license though and don't appear to have full access to all features.  Is this the reason we don't get the level of detail I'm looking for?

Thanks,
Smitty

[t_pawlak]

Hi Smitty,

by default Dynatrace aggregates outgoing service calls at the service entity level, so you only see overall response time, failure rate, request count, etc. It doesn’t automatically break down calls by individual URLs or web service operations.

You can try this way:

Request attributes

Go to Settings → Server-side service monitoring → Request attributes.

Define a new Request Attribute (e.g. backendUrl).

Capture the http.url, http.path, or SOAPAction header from the outgoing requests.

Once the attribute is defined, you can filter/split metrics by that attribute and see which URLs are being called and how they perform.

Custom services

If calls are grouped too broadly, define a custom service around the WebLogic client classes/methods.

This forces Dynatrace to treat specific operations as separate service endpoints, with their own metrics.

Service flow and PurePaths

Service Flow gives you distribution of calls between frontend and backend.

PurePaths (traces) show the actual URLs and parameters for individual requests.

Multidimensional custom metrics

After you capture the request attribute, you can create a multidimensional metric that uses this attribute as a dimension.

This way you’ll have a dashboard-ready metric (e.g., response time per backend URL) without manually digging into traces.

The good news: these features are available on classic/non-Platform subscriptions, so you don’t need Grail or Business Events to achieve this.

[smitty]

Thanks for your detailed answer.   I've not gotten to work yet, but still trying.

I setup a SOAPAction Request Attribute as follows.  What I'm finding though is it only shows up for the Server side and not any Client calls.

I'm working on setting up the Custom service also to see if maybe that will resolve the missing Requests, but need more time to find the right AXIS Library Java class to instrument since AXISClient.invoke isn't working.  I should be able to figure this out with some local debugging, but wanted thank you and let you know your post has been very helpful.  I'll mark it as accepted once I get things working.