V9 upgrade

Starting from v9, SkyWalking introduces the new core concept Layer. A layer represents an abstract framework in computer science, such as Operating System(OS_LINUX layer), Kubernetes(k8s layer). This kind of layer would be catalogs on the new booster UI of various services/instances detected by different technologies. The query-protocol metadata-v2 has been used. The compatibility with previous releases is as below.

Query compatibility from previous version

  1. The query-protocol metadata-v1 is provided on the top of the v2 implementation.
  2. All metrics are compatible with the previous data format, so you wouldn’t lose metrics.

Notice Incompatibility (1), the UI template configuration protocol is incompatible.

Incompatibility

  1. The UI configuration protocol has been changed by following the design of new booster UI. So, the RocketBot UI can’t work with the v9 backend. You need to remove ui_template index/template/table in your chosen storage, and reboot OAP in default or init mode.
  2. MAL: metric level function add an required argument Layer. Previous MAL expressions should add this argument.
  3. LAL: Extractor add function layer. If don’t set it manual, the default layer is GENERAL and the logs from ALS the default layer is mesh.
  4. Storage：Add service_id， short_name and layer columns to table ServiceTraffic， add layer column to table InstanceTraffic. These data would be incompatible with previous versions. Make sure to remove the older ServiceTraffic and InstanceTraffic tables before OAP(v9) starts. OAP would generate the new table in the start procedure, and recreate all existing services and instances when traffic comes.
  5. UI-template: Re-design for V9. Make sure to remove the older ui_template table before OAP(v9) starts.