Apache SkyWalking

intermediate

Application performance monitoring and observability for distributed systems.

Overview

Apache SkyWalking OAP (Observability Analysis Platform) is the core backend component of the Apache SkyWalking APM system, designed to collect, analyze, and store observability data from distributed applications. Originally developed by Huawei and donated to the Apache Foundation in 2017, SkyWalking provides comprehensive application performance monitoring through distributed tracing, metrics collection, and topology analysis. The OAP server processes telemetry data from various language agents and presents it through advanced analytics and alerting capabilities. This stack combines the SkyWalking OAP server with Elasticsearch for scalable data storage and the SkyWalking UI for visualization. Elasticsearch handles the high-volume ingestion of trace data, metrics, and logs, while the OAP server performs real-time analysis including service topology discovery, performance metric calculation, and alarm detection. The UI component provides interactive dashboards for exploring service maps, analyzing trace details, and monitoring application health across your entire distributed system. Development teams managing microservices architectures, DevOps engineers implementing observability strategies, and operations teams troubleshooting performance issues will find this stack invaluable. Unlike simple logging solutions, SkyWalking provides automatic service dependency mapping, code-level performance insights, and correlation between infrastructure metrics and application behavior, making it particularly powerful for Java-heavy environments and complex distributed systems.

Key Features

Automatic service topology discovery and visualization without manual configuration
Distributed tracing with context propagation across microservices boundaries
Real-time performance metrics aggregation and statistical analysis
Code-level profiling with method-level performance breakdown
Multi-dimensional alarm system with customizable threshold rules
Support for multiple programming languages through native agents
Service mesh observability with Istio and Envoy integration
Database performance monitoring with slow query detection

Common Use Cases

1Microservices performance monitoring in Spring Boot and Spring Cloud applications
2Root cause analysis for latency spikes in distributed e-commerce platforms
3Service dependency mapping during legacy system modernization projects
4API gateway performance optimization and bottleneck identification
5Database query performance analysis in multi-tenant SaaS applications
6Cross-team collaboration on service reliability in enterprise environments
7Compliance monitoring for SLA adherence in financial services applications

Prerequisites

Minimum 4GB RAM available (2GB for Elasticsearch, 1GB for OAP server)
Ports 8080, 11800, and 12800 available on the host system
Understanding of distributed tracing concepts and APM terminology
Knowledge of your application's technology stack for agent installation
Basic familiarity with Elasticsearch concepts for advanced configuration
Access to application source code or deployment pipeline for agent integration

For development & testing. Review security settings, change default credentials, and test thoroughly before production use. See Terms

docker-compose.yml

1services: 
2  elasticsearch: 
3    image: elasticsearch:7.17.9
4    container_name: skywalking-es
5    environment: 
6      discovery.type: single-node
7      ES_JAVA_OPTS: "-Xms512m -Xmx512m"
8    volumes: 
9      - es_data:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
10    networks: 
11      - skywalking-network
12
13  skywalking-oap: 
14    image: apache/skywalking-oap-server:latest
15    container_name: skywalking-oap
16    restart: unless-stopped
17    environment: 
18      SW_STORAGE: elasticsearch
19      SW_STORAGE_ES_CLUSTER_NODES: elasticsearch:9200
20    ports: 
21      - "11800:11800"
22      - "12800:12800"
23    depends_on: 
24      - elasticsearch
25    networks: 
26      - skywalking-network
27
28  skywalking-ui: 
29    image: apache/skywalking-ui:latest
30    container_name: skywalking-ui
31    restart: unless-stopped
32    environment: 
33      SW_OAP_ADDRESS: http://skywalking-oap:12800
34    ports: 
35      - "8080:8080"
36    depends_on: 
37      - skywalking-oap
38    networks: 
39      - skywalking-network
40
41volumes: 
42  es_data: 
43
44networks: 
45  skywalking-network: 
46    driver: bridge

.env Template

.env

1# SkyWalking configuration

Usage Notes

1Docs: https://skywalking.apache.org/docs/
2Dashboard at http://localhost:8080 - topology, traces, metrics
3Agent gRPC endpoint on port 11800 for language agents
4REST API on port 12800 for queries and integrations
5Install Java agent: -javaagent:skywalking-agent.jar
6Agents available for Java, .NET, Node.js, Python, Go, and more

Individual Services(3 services)

Copy individual services to mix and match with your existing compose files.

elasticsearch

elasticsearch:
  image: elasticsearch:7.17.9
  container_name: skywalking-es
  environment:
    discovery.type: single-node
    ES_JAVA_OPTS: "-Xms512m -Xmx512m"
  volumes:
    - es_data:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
  networks:
    - skywalking-network

skywalking-oap

skywalking-oap:
  image: apache/skywalking-oap-server:latest
  container_name: skywalking-oap
  restart: unless-stopped
  environment:
    SW_STORAGE: elasticsearch
    SW_STORAGE_ES_CLUSTER_NODES: elasticsearch:9200
  ports:
    - "11800:11800"
    - "12800:12800"
  depends_on:
    - elasticsearch
  networks:
    - skywalking-network

skywalking-ui

skywalking-ui:
  image: apache/skywalking-ui:latest
  container_name: skywalking-ui
  restart: unless-stopped
  environment:
    SW_OAP_ADDRESS: http://skywalking-oap:12800
  ports:
    - "8080:8080"
  depends_on:
    - skywalking-oap
  networks:
    - skywalking-network

Quick Start

terminal

1# 1. Create the compose file
2cat > docker-compose.yml << 'EOF'
3services:
4  elasticsearch:
5    image: elasticsearch:7.17.9
6    container_name: skywalking-es
7    environment:
8      discovery.type: single-node
9      ES_JAVA_OPTS: "-Xms512m -Xmx512m"
10    volumes:
11      - es_data:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
12    networks:
13      - skywalking-network
14
15  skywalking-oap:
16    image: apache/skywalking-oap-server:latest
17    container_name: skywalking-oap
18    restart: unless-stopped
19    environment:
20      SW_STORAGE: elasticsearch
21      SW_STORAGE_ES_CLUSTER_NODES: elasticsearch:9200
22    ports:
23      - "11800:11800"
24      - "12800:12800"
25    depends_on:
26      - elasticsearch
27    networks:
28      - skywalking-network
29
30  skywalking-ui:
31    image: apache/skywalking-ui:latest
32    container_name: skywalking-ui
33    restart: unless-stopped
34    environment:
35      SW_OAP_ADDRESS: http://skywalking-oap:12800
36    ports:
37      - "8080:8080"
38    depends_on:
39      - skywalking-oap
40    networks:
41      - skywalking-network
42
43volumes:
44  es_data:
45
46networks:
47  skywalking-network:
48    driver: bridge
49EOF
50
51# 2. Create the .env file
52cat > .env << 'EOF'
53# SkyWalking configuration
54EOF
55
56# 3. Start the services
57docker compose up -d
58
59# 4. View logs
60docker compose logs -f

One-Liner

Run this command to download and set up the recipe in one step:

terminal

1curl -fsSL https://docker.recipes/api/recipes/skywalking/run | bash

Troubleshooting

OAP server fails to connect to Elasticsearch: Ensure Elasticsearch is fully started before OAP initialization and check network connectivity between containers
No trace data appearing in UI: Verify application agents are properly configured with correct OAP server address (skywalking-oap:11800) and service names
High memory usage in Elasticsearch: Adjust ES_JAVA_OPTS heap size settings and implement index lifecycle policies for data retention
UI shows 'OAP server connection failed': Check that OAP server port 12800 is accessible and SW_OAP_ADDRESS environment variable is correctly set
Agent connection refused errors: Ensure port 11800 is properly exposed and no firewall rules are blocking gRPC communication
Missing service topology connections: Verify that trace context headers are properly propagated between services and agents support your communication protocols

Community Notes

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Includes docker-compose.yml, .env template, README, and license

Components

skywalking-oapskywalking-uielasticsearch

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