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Identities in Splunk APM 🔗
Important
The original µAPM product, released in 2019, is now called µAPM Previous Generation (µAPM PG). Wherever you see the reference, µAPM now refers to the product released on March 31, 2020.
If you’re using µAPM Previous Generation (µAPM PG), see Overview of SignalFx Microservices APM Previous Generation (µAPM PG).
An identity represents a unique set of indexed span tags for a Splunk APM object, and always includes at least one service. Each service has at least one identity. An identity can represent any one of these APM objects:
| APM object | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Service | Service-1 |
The name of a service you instrumented and are collecting traces from. |
| Endpoint | Service-1.Endpoint-1 |
The first span for a service. |
| Operation | Service-1.Operation-1 |
A span within a single service. |
| Edge | Service-1.Endpoint-1->Service-2.Endpoint-2 |
The span between two services. |
| Workflow | Service-1.InitEndpoint-1 |
The endpoint where traces initiate. |
APM objects can generate multiple identities that correspond to the same APM object. If a set of indexed span tags for a span that corresponds to a certain APM object is unique, the APM object generates a new identity for the unique set of indexed span tags.
For example, a service myService reports a tenant span tag something for its endpoint /foo/bar, and doesn’t report a tenant span tag for its endpoint /another/endpoint. Because myService reports a tenant span tag for one endpoint and not another, it forces the endpoint without a specified tenant span tag to have a tenant span tag value of unknown. As a result, the service has two unique sets of span tags, and two identities.