Setting up Datadog APM on EKS + Fargate

In this post, I will go through the steps required to integrate Datadog APM with EKS using Fargate as computing option.

The process is very similar to Setting up Datadog APM on ECS, Fargate(Spring Boot).

The datadog agent container must run as a sidecar of each of your application's container.

Installing datadog agent

We will use helm to install datadog agent into Kubernetes cluster.

First, run the command below to add datadog's repository to helm.

helm repo add datadog https://helm.datadoghq.com
helm repo update

After that, we have to edit values.yaml file, which will be used as a configuration file used by datadog agent running in the cluster. The fields I overrided(edited) are as below.

• registry: Apply the value of AWS in the comment.
• datadog.apiKey: Value of the API key that you created in Datadog.
• datadog.apm.portEnabled: Set to true.

Finally, let's run the command below to finish installation.

helm install datadog-agent -f values.yaml datadog/datadog

---

Configuring APM

To integrate Datadog APM with your application, you must make sure that your application uses datadog agent when running itself. For instance, I have a Spring boot application (JVM), and corresponding dockerfile looks as below.

There is 1 datadog agent installed on your EKS cluster, and another datadog agent running as a process of your application to collect metrics.

FROM openjdk:11-jdk AS builder
WORKDIR application
ARG JAR_FILE=build/libs/MY_APP.jar
COPY ${JAR_FILE} application.jar
RUN java -Djarmode=layertools -jar application.jar extract

FROM openjdk:11-jdk
WORKDIR application
RUN  apt-get update \
  && apt-get install -y wget \
  && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
RUN wget -O dd-java-agent.jar 'https://dtdg.co/latest-java-tracer'

COPY --from=builder application/application.jar ./application.jar
RUN true
COPY --from=builder application/dependencies/ ./
RUN true
COPY --from=builder application/spring-boot-loader/ ./
RUN true
COPY --from=builder application/snapshot-dependencies/ ./
RUN true
COPY --from=builder application/application/ ./
RUN true

ENV TZ Asia/Seoul

ENTRYPOINT ["java", "-javaagent:dd-java-agent.jar", "-Ddd.profiling.enabled=true", "-XX:FlightRecorderOptions=stackdepth=256", "org.springframework.boot.loader.JarLauncher"]

In the example above, dd-java-agent.jar uses port 8126 of container running datadog agent to send metrics to datadog.

Now all we have to do is to add another container spec to Kubernetes deployment file.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: planit-deployment
  namespace: planit
  labels:
    app: planit
spec:
  replicas: 3
  revisionHistoryLimit: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: planit
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: planit
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: "CONTAINER_NAME"
          image: "YOUR_IMAGE_NAME"
          imagePullPolicy: Always
          ports:
            - containerPort: 8080
              protocol: TCP
        - name: datadog-agent 
          image: datadog/agent:latest
          ports:
            - containerPort: 8126
              name: traceport
              protocol: TCP
          env:
            - name: DD_KUBERNETES_KUBELET_NODENAME
              valueFrom:
                fieldRef:
                  apiVersion: v1
                  fieldPath: spec.nodeName
            - name: DD_API_KEY
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: datadog-secret
                  key: DD_API_KEY
            - name: DD_SITE
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: datadog-secret
                  key: DD_SITE
            - name: DD_EKS_FARGATE
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: datadog-secret
                  key: DD_EKS_FARGATE
            - name: DD_APM_ENABLED
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: datadog-secret
                  key: DD_APM_ENABLED
            - name: DD_ENV
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: datadog-secret
                  key: DD_ENV
            - name: DD_SERVICE
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: datadog-secret
                  key: DD_SERVICE
            - name: DD_VERSION
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: datadog-secret
                  key: DD_VERSION
            - name: DD_PROFILING_ENABLED
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: datadog-secret
                  key: DD_PROFILING_ENABLED
            - name: DD_APM_IGNORE_RESOURCES
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: datadog-secret
                  key: DD_APM_IGNORE_RESOURCES
            - name: DD_LOGS_INJECTION
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: datadog-secret
                  key: DD_LOGS_INJECTION

datadog-secret is a Kubernetes secret object I created to store configuration values related to Datadog.

After deploying new Kubernetes deployment, you should be able to see APM working well as below.