View General Health | Honeycomb

View General Health

Honeycomb’s Home area provides a snapshot of your dataset. Home displays visualizations of some commonly-used queries and breakdowns, and an overview of your most recent traces and events. Both can be used as a jumping-off point to explore your data.

Use this view to become familiar with key system metrics and to check on the health of your systems.

Data Visualizations 

Home displays the following data visualizations:

  • Total Traces: Total number of distinct traces or requests that have been sent.
  • Total Error Events: Total number of spans or events with errors.
  • 95th Percentile Latency: 95th-percentile latency of traces or requests that have been sent.
The visualizations displayed in Honeycomb's Home area. They include total traces, total error events, and 95th percentile latency. A number visualization is displayed above a chart visualization. The chart visualization has an accompanying dropdown that allows you to group by a field. Beneath the chart visualization, a table displays numeric values related to the data. Above all of the visualizations, there are two dropdowns that allow you to select the dataset and the time window.

You can control the data your visualizations show by:

  • selecting the desired dataset and time window
  • selecting a field to group by (for charts only)

You can access additional settings and data visualization options by:

  • selecting Dataset Settings, which controls the current dataset’s settings
  • selecting Explore Templates to add Board Templates, which provides additional visualizations to be saved as Boards. These visualizations go beyond what appears on the Home area.

Total Traces 

Both “Total Traces” visualizations display the total number of distinct traces or requests during the selected time window.

The Total Traces visualizations. A number visualization is displayed above a chart visualization. The chart visualization has an accompanying dropdown that allows you to group by a field. Beneath the chart visualization, a table displays numeric values related to the data.

You can separate the data in your chart visualizations into groups, so you can compare data segments. To do so, select from the available fields in the accompanying dropdown. The accompanying table shows values for each group, plus the total number of traces for the given time period.

Note
If your dataset is not a tracing dataset (that is, it does not include trace.trace_id or equivalent), then the number visualization will not display and the chart visualization will default to “Total Events”, which will count all events that Honeycomb receives.

Total Error Events 

Both “Total Error Events” visualizations display the total number of spans or events with errors during the selected time window.

The Total Error Events visualizations. A number visualization is displayed above a chart visualization. The chart visualization has an accompanying dropdown that allows you to group by a field. Beneath the chart visualization, a table displays numeric values related to the data.

You can separate the data in your chart visualizations into groups, so you can compare data segments. To do so, select from the available fields in the accompanying dropdown. The accompanying table shows values for each group, plus the total number of error events for the selected time period.

Note
Both “Total Error Events” visualizations rely on a source field being mapped to the Error dataset field. To ensure both visualizations are populated, configure your dataset definition or send a source field named error to Honeycomb.

95th Percentile Latency 

Both “95th Percentile Latency” visualizations display the 95th-percentile latency of traces or requests that have been sent over the selected time window.

In statistics, a percentile describes how a value compares to other values in the sample. A 95th percentile means that 95% of values in the sample are below that value. 95th percentile latency means that 95% of traces or requests are faster than that threshold value.

The 95th Percentile Latency visualizations. A number visualization is displayed above a chart visualization. The chart visualization has an accompanying dropdown that allows you to group by a field. Beneath the chart visualization, a table displays numeric values related to the data.

You can separate the data in your chart visualizations into groups, so you can compare data segments. To do so, select from the available fields in the accompanying dropdown. The accompanying table shows values for each group, plus the total 95th percentile (p95 Latency) for the given time period.

Note
Both “95th Percentile Latency” visualizations rely on a source field being mapped to the Duration dataset field. To ensure both visualizations are populated, configure your dataset definition or send a source field named duration_ms to Honeycomb.

Grouping Data in Chart Visualizations 

You can quickly compare segments of key data in your chart visualizations by separating your data into groups. Grouping your data by useful fields helps you explore your data and assess the health of your system.

The Total Traces visualization with its Group By menu selected and menu options displaying.

To group your data, select a field from a chart visualization’s accompanying dropdown. Once you have selected a field, the chart visualization’s accompanying table will populate with values for each group. This data can help you answer questions like:

  • What route is erroring the most?
  • What function is erroring the most?
  • What user is sending the most requests?
  • What route takes the longest to process a request?

Available Fields 

Each chart visualization’s accompanying dropdown is populated with source fields mapped to Honeycomb dataset fields. You can map your source fields to the selected dataset’s dataset fields using Dataset Definitions.

Dataset fields you can map include:

  • Error: Value that indicates an error occurred.
  • HTTP Status Code: Code that indicates the success, failure, or other status of a request.
  • Name: Name of the function or method in which the span was created.
  • Route: HTTP URL or equivalent route processed by the request.
  • User: User making the request in the system.
Note
Only source fields that have been mapped to dataset fields in dataset definitions appear in the dropdown. To ensure the dropdown includes the source field you want to group by, configure your dataset definitions.

For datasets that include Kubernetes metadata, the following fields are included if available:

  • k8s.pod.name, source.k8s.pod.name, or destination.k8s.pod.name: Name of the Kubernetes pod.
  • k8s.container.name, source.k8s.container.name, or destination.k8s.container.name: Name of the Kubernetes container.
  • k8s.node.name, source.k8s.node.name, or destination.node.name: Name of the Kubernetes node.
  • k8s.namespace.name, source.k8s.namespace.name, or destination.k8s.namespace.name: Name of the Kubernetes namespace.
  • source.k8s.service.name or destination.k8s.service.name: Name of the Kubernetes service.

Learn more about sending Kubernetes data to Honeycomb.

Recent Traces and Events 

In addition to data visualizations, Home displays an overview of the most recent traces or events in your dataset or service.

Note
The traces and events shown are independent of the time frame selected in the time window dropdown at the top of the page.

Recent Traces 

If you have sent traces into your dataset, the Recent Traces view displays the five traces with the most recent root spans for the selected service.

Display of Recent Traces tab with list

To inspect the spans in a trace, select the waterfall icon for the row that contains that trace; this will allow you to navigate to the trace’s waterfall diagram.

To see the breakdown of a trace by span name, hover over the Details field in the row that contains that trace.

Recent Events 

The Recent Events view displays the five most recent events in your dataset.

Display of Recent Events tab with list

To see the full JSON for an event, select the expand icon next to that event.

Configuring Visualizations 

The displayed data visualizations depend on Honeycomb dataset fields being mapped to source fields in your sent data. You can manually map these fields in Dataset Definitions:

  1. From the left sidebar, select Data Settings.
  2. Select the name of your target dataset to access its settings.
  3. Select the Definitions view.
  4. Locate the appropriate Honeycomb Dataset Field, then select the source field in your data that you want to map it to.
  5. Select Update.

Dataset Fields 

You can map the following dataset fields for a selected dataset:

Tip
To allow Honeycomb to detect and map dataset fields automatically, name the data field you send to Honeycomb the value listed in the Source Field Name column.
Dataset Field Description Allowed Type(s) Source Field Name Can Group By?
Error Value that indicates an error occurred. Used to identify errors when calculating the “Total Error Events” visualizations. boolean, string, derived column error Yes
HTTP Status Code Code that indicates the success, failure, or other status of a request. string, integer, derived column response.status_code Yes
Name Name of the function or method in which the span was created. string, integer, derived column name Yes
Duration Length of time the span took in milliseconds (ms). Used to calculate the “95th Percentile Latency” visualizations. float, integer duration_ms or durationMs No
Route HTTP URL or equivalent route processed by the request. string, derived column Not automatically mapped Yes
User User making the request in the system. string, integer, derived column Not automatically mapped Yes

Troubleshooting 

To explore common issues when working with Honeycomb Home visualizations, visit Common Issues with Visualization: Home.