Spans

Created: 10 Feb 2021 | Updated: 13 Jul 2023

Span Tags vs Resource Tags

The distinction between Span Tags and Resource Tags allows a fine-grained separation between tags that belong to an actual operation (Span Tags) and tags that belong to an entity producing telemetry data. (Resource Tags, for example: a Db2 system or a MQ Log Manager). If your APM software does not support this distinction, Resource Tags will automatically be transformed into Span Tags.

Tag Semantics

z/IRIS Tag semantics will adhere to the OpenTelemetry Semantic Conventions. To cater for mainframe system and subsystem processing not yet included in OTEL's semantics, the following tag prefixes will be used.

Proprietary traces may differ from OpenTelemetry conventions. These differences will referenced in the relevant trace documentation for each observability platform that requires z/IRIS stream proprietary trace formats.

Attribute Prefix	Mainframe system context
`ibm.**`	IBM machine identifiers.
`zos.**`	IBM z/OS operating system-wide identifiers. For example, `zos.sysplex.name` identifies the z/OS LPAR cluster that processed the requests and can be found in all mainframe related spans to identify any request processed by the same `zos.sysplex.name`.
`zos.cics.**`	IBM CICS attributes
`zos.cf.**`	IBM System Z Coupling facility attributes
`zos.db2.**`	IBM Db2 attributes
`zos.connect.**`	IBM z/OS Connect attributes
`zos.jes.**`	IBM JES2 attributes
`zos.job.**`	IBM Job attributes
`zos.mq.**`	IBM MQ attributes
`zos.omvs.**`	IBM z/OS Unix System Services attributes
`zos.racf.**`	IBM RACF attributes
`zos.wlm.**`	IBM Workload Manager attributes

Common tags

Each span created by z/IRIS contains the following tags. The value of the tag will be sourced from SMF or constant value determined by z/IRIS.

z/IRIS Telemetry tag	IBM SMF source	Constant value
`host.name`	SMFxSID LPAR name
`host.arch`		`s390x`
`os.type`		`z_os`
`otel.scope.name`		`com.mainstorconcept.ziris.irontap`
`otel.scope.version`		Current version of the z/IRIS IronTap server.
`otel.library.name`		`com.mainstorconcept.ziris.irontap` Deprecated. Exporters may continue to use this tag for backward compatibility.
`zos.subsystem.name`	SMFxSSI z/OS Subsystem name.

Service

z/IRIS defines the value service.nameor service tag according to the subsystem, application or unit of work that the span represents.

Services	Description
`cics`	CICS transactions processed on z/OS. Spans are created from performance records contained in SMF type 110. >> CICS Transaction
`db2`	Traces created from Db2 z/OS SMF records types 100-102, that provide performance and error information about calls processed by an IBM Db2 z/OS server. >> Db2 Span
`ibmmq`	MQ Tasks that use MQ objects to process messages. Spans are created from SMF Type 116 subtypes 1 and 2 >> MQ for z/OS
`JES2`	Traces created from SMF record type 30 where SMF30WID=JES2 that provide performance and error information about z/OS batch jobs. >> z/OS Work
`OMVS`	Traces created from SMF record type 30 where SMF30WID=OMVS that provide performance and error information about OMVS processes that were spawned on z/OS systems. >> z/OS Work
`STC`	Traces created from SMF record type 30 where SMF30WID=STC that provides Started task performance and error information from z/OS systems. >> z/OS Work
`TSO`	Traces created from SMF record type 30 where SMF30WID=TSO that provide TSO user activity from z/OS systems. >> z/OS Work
`zosconnect`	Traces created from z/OS Connect record type 123 that provide performance and error information about REST API calls processed by an IBM z/OS Connect server. >> z/OS Connect