Configuring Dynatrace Integrations

The integration between Dynatrace and the Virtana Platform is architected as a programmatic, API-driven connection. This design choice prioritizes technical flexibility, allowing for automated setup and management without relying on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) during the initial configuration phase. The architecture involves a two-stage communication protocol, which includes an initial discovery handshake to retrieve environmental schemas and a subsequent configuration step to establish a persistent data stream.

This integration employs the Dynatrace Environment API and the Virtana Integration Manager API. Communication is secured using HTTPS, which encrypts all telemetry and configuration data during transit. The Virtana Platform centralizes event collection, receiving push-based notifications from Dynatrace whenever a system issue is detected. This method provides instantaneous visibility into emerging issues in the Global View dashboard, offering an advantage over polling mechanisms.

Viewing Dynatrace problems/events as a Global View alert

After integrating Dynatrace, you will see Dynatrace problems ingested into the Virtana Platform and displayed as GV alerts alongside alerts from other sources, including Container Observability, Infrastructure Observability, and Service Observability. The Virtana Platform incorporates each Dynatrace problem into the Global View alert schema, so you see it in the standard Global View alert lists and detail pages, while preserving key Dynatrace context like severity, title, and entity information.

Dynatrace configuration prerequisites

Before initiating the API calls, you must generate an access token within your Dynatrace instance.

Go to the Access Token section in Dynatrace.
Click Generate New Token and provide a name.
Set the expiration date for the token.
Note
As a best practice, create a token without an expiration date. If a token expires or becomes invalidated, alerts will stop flowing into Global View.
Select the following four scopes for the integration to function with minimal security risk:
- Read settings
- Write settings
- Read problems
- Write problems
In Dynatrace, a scope is a defined level for applying settings, permissions, and data filtering, and ensures least privilege by granting granular access.
Click Generate Token.
You can view your generated token in Access token page.
Note
In the Access token page, copy and save the Token ID immediately, as it is only displayed once.

Integration setup using API

The integration process requires two sequential API calls.

Use the Retrieve Schema API (/integration-svc/integrations/config/retrieve_schema?integration_type=dynatrace) to identify the alerting profiles available in your Dynatrace environment.
Enter values for the following fields.
Component
Description
Domain
Your Dynatrace instance domain.
API Access Token
The Dynatrace-generated token.
The response will include a list of Alerting Profiles, such as default and default for ActiveGate token expiry. Note the ID of the profile you wish to use.

Component	Description
Domain	Your Dynatrace instance domain.
API Access Token	The Dynatrace-generated token.

To configure the integration, use the Config API (/integration-svc/integrations/config?integration_type=dynatrace) to finalize the setup within Global View.

Enter values for the following fields. These parameters are required for the configuration.

Component	Description
Config Name	A custom name for the integration.
Description	User-defined description.
Domain	Your Dynatrace domain.
API Access Token	The same Dynatrace access token used in Step 1.
Alerting Profile	The specific Profile ID retrieved from the previous call.

Once this request is sent, the Dynatrace configuration is created in the Virtana Platform. To view Dynatrace integration, go to Settings > Integrations > Action Integrations.

Viewing Alerts in Global View

After the integration is configured, Dynatrace will automatically send problem notifications to the Virtana Platform whenever an issue is detected.

To open alerts, perform the following steps.

Log in to the Virtana Platform and navigate to the Global View.
Click Alerts.
To initiate a filter for the Dynatrace alerts, enter Dynatrace in the search bar.
The system will display various alert types, including infrastructure issues such as server down and token expiration warnings.

To verify the integration, check for a new problem notification. In Dynatrace, go to Settings > Integration > Problem notifications. Look for the integration notification, which enables data flow from Dynatrace to Virtana’s incident management system.

Viewing the Global View alerts as Dynatrace problem/event

After you configure the integration in Dynatrace, each relevant Global View alert from the Virtana Platform appears in Dynatrace as a problem or event, enriched with Virtana-specific context such as the originating Global View alert ID, source, account, region, or service. As a result, you can work primarily in Dynatrace to see when Virtana has detected a cost, capacity, or performance issue related to the same infrastructure or application entities you monitor with Dynatrace.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have configured the required permission in your Dynatrace instance. See Dynatrace Configuration Prerequisites.
To create or update the Alert Response policy in the Global View, your assigned user group must meet the following criteria:
- The user group must be assigned a data access group.
- The assigned data access group needs access to the source alerts.

Push Global View alerts to Dynatrace

Perform the following steps to push the Global View alerts as a problem/event in Dynatrace:

Log in to the Virtana Platform and navigate to the Global View.
Click the Governance and select Alert Response.
The Alert Response page opens.
In the Alert Response page, click New Custom Policy.
Generate Policy With Copilot window opens.

Create an Alert Response Policy, for example, IngestOthersCriticalAlertAsDynatraceProblem.

You can enter criteria for selecting alerts that you want to push to Dynatrace, such as source: Others, severity: Critical. Use HTTP as a policy action. Enter the targeted event_type in Dynatrace, for example, CUSTOM_EVENT. You can add additional information as properties.

name: "<Enter policy name>"
description: "<Enter policy description>"
criteria: "event_provider: Others AND -status: Closed AND severity: Critical "
category: "alert_response"
precedence: 1

actions:
  - type: "action"
    criteria: "true"
    action_type: "http"
    action_name: "Http_Notification"
    provider_name: "System"
    parameters:
      headers:
        Authorization: "Api-Token <your-dynatrace-api-token>"
        Content-Type: "application/json"
      endpoint: "https://<your-dynatrace-domain>/api/v2/events/ingest"
      data:
        eventType: "CUSTOM_EVENT"
        source: "Virtana Global View"
        external_source: "$alert.event_provider_id"
        title: "$alert.summary"
        properties:
          dt.entity: "$alert.entity_name"
          dt.entity_id: "$alert.entity_id"
          severity: "$alert.severity"
          rootCause: 
          additionalInfo:

To apply a different problem event, see Dynatrace Events API v2 - POST an event and provide eventType and other properties accordingly.

Check if the targeted alert has activity for the policy application.
In the Alert Response list page, check the policy that has alerts associated.
In Dynatrace, check the problems list page to view new problems that get added with mapped property values.

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