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Alibaba Cloud Marketplace Activation of TrueWatch Exclusive Plan

This article introduces the activation and usage operations for purchasing the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan on the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace.

Step 1: Purchase TrueWatch Exclusive Plan

  1. Log in to Alibaba Cloud and navigate to the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace TrueWatch Exclusive Plan, then click Activate Now.

  1. You will be prompted to Activate Pay-As-You-Go Service. After agreeing to the terms, click Activate.

  1. After activation, proceed to the console.

Step 2: Direct Login to TrueWatch

After confirming the activation request, you will be redirected to the list of purchased services on Alibaba Cloud to view the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan instance.

Click Direct Login on the right side of the instance. In the pop-up dialog, click Confirm.

On the TrueWatch side, if the current Alibaba Cloud account ID is not bound to a TrueWatch Billing Center account, there are two scenarios:

No Billing Center Account: You need to register a TrueWatch account and a Billing Center account, then bind the cloud account for billing.

Existing Billing Center Account: You can directly bind the Billing Center account for cloud account billing.

What is a Billing Center Account?

The Billing Center account is an independent account within the TrueWatch Billing Center platform used to manage Commercial Plan billing. It allows a single account to associate multiple workspaces for unified billing management.

The overall process is as follows:

Register TrueWatch Commercial Plan

If you do not have a Billing Center account, click Next to automatically redirect to the registration page. After completing the registration process, you will obtain a TrueWatch account and a Billing Center account.

  1. Fill in basic information.
  2. Fill in enterprise information.
  3. Select activation method: Enter the workspace name, choose the workspace language, and input the Account ID and Product Instance ID.
  4. Click Confirm.
  5. Review and agree to the TrueWatch Platform User Service Agreement, then click Next.

Warning
  • The TrueWatch and SLS joint solution only supports "China Region - Hangzhou" and "China Region - Zhangjiakou" sites. Once the SLS data storage solution is selected, it cannot be changed.
  • The Username entered will also be used to register the TrueWatch Billing Center account. The Billing Center username checks for uniqueness and cannot be modified once registered.

Bind Alibaba Cloud Account

On the Bind Alibaba Cloud Account page, TrueWatch provides two authorization methods to ensure your data security: RAM Account Authorization and Third-party Quick Authorization.

RAM Account Authorization

Select RAM Account Authorization, download the SLS authorization file, and create an Alibaba Cloud RAM account in the Alibaba Cloud Console to obtain the AccessKey ID and AccessKey Secret.

For specific operations on using the SLS authorization file to authorize a RAM account, refer to RAM Account Authorization.

Fill in the AccessKey ID and AccessKey Secret for verification. If the verification is successful, proceed to the next step.

Third-party Quick Authorization

Select Third-party Quick Authorization, click Go to Authorize Now. You will be redirected to Alibaba Cloud for login and authorization.

Click Agree to Authorize, and a Service Provider UID Verification window will pop up. You can view the UID by clicking Service Provider Permission Description Page.

After entering the UID, click Confirm, and you will be automatically redirected to Alibaba Cloud Marketplace > Purchased Services, where the authorization is completed.

Return to the TrueWatch Bind Alibaba Cloud Account page, click Verify. Once verified, click Confirm Activation.

Some issues you may encounter

  • The TrueWatch Exclusive Plan uses SLS storage. If your cloud account has not activated Alibaba Cloud Log Service SLS, you will not be able to use the log storage service normally.

  • Cross-account role authorization operations require the use of the Alibaba Cloud Master Account or a sub-account authorized with RAM access control permissions such as GetRole, GetPolicy, CreatePolicy, CreatePolicyVersion, CreateRole, UpdateRole, AttachPolicyToRole.

  • During the verification process, if a sub-account is being verified, it will automatically locate the master account to which the sub-account belongs and pull the project and Logstore under the master account.

  • If verification fails, please check if the cloud resource access authorization has been completed. You can go to Alibaba Cloud RAM Console > RAM Access Control > Roles/Authorizations to view.

Step 4: Successful Activation

After successful verification, click Confirm Activation, and you will be prompted that the TrueWatch Commercial Plan has been successfully activated.

Bind TrueWatch Workspace

If you already have a TrueWatch account, you can click Existing Billing Center Account, Go to Bind, and you will be prompted on How to Quickly Bind Alibaba Cloud Account for Billing.

Click Got it, and start binding the TrueWatch workspace. Before binding the workspace, you need to bind the TrueWatch Billing Center account.

Bind TrueWatch Billing Center Account

  • Site: Supports selecting the site for subsequent workspace creation.
  • Username: If you already have a TrueWatch Billing Center account, you can directly enter the Username of the TrueWatch Billing Center account and bind it via email verification.
  • Register: If you do not have a TrueWatch Billing Center account, you can register first.

Bind TrueWatch Workspace

If you have a bindable workspace under this TrueWatch Billing Center account, click Bind directly and confirm the binding in the pop-up dialog.

Note: The listed workspaces are all SLS storage spaces. If your account has not created an SLS storage workspace, you can choose to create a workspace.

You will be redirected to the Bind TrueWatch Workspace page, and a successful binding will be prompted.

Click Confirm, and the successful activation will be displayed.

If you have registered a TrueWatch account but have not created a workspace, click Create Workspace first.

Enter the workspace name, select the workspace language, and input the email used to register the TrueWatch account for email verification.

Note: The workspace is the collaborative space for data insights in TrueWatch. The workspace language option affects the templates for events, alerts, SMS, etc. within the workspace. If English is selected, the corresponding templates will default to English. Once created, the template language of this workspace cannot be modified. Please choose carefully.

After the workspace is successfully created, you need to bind the Alibaba Cloud account. You can download the SLS authorization file to create AK/AKS in the Alibaba Cloud Console and authorize it, then fill in the AK/AKS information in the following dialog for verification.

After successful verification of AK/AKS information and confirmation of activation, you will be automatically redirected to the Bind TrueWatch Workspace page, and a successful binding will be prompted.

Click Confirm, and you will be redirected to the Successfully Bound the Following TrueWatch Workspace page.

If you have not used TrueWatch services before, please register a TrueWatch account and create a workspace first.

Click Register TrueWatch Account, input the relevant information, and complete the registration via email verification.

Note: The workspace is the collaborative space for data insights in TrueWatch. The workspace language option affects the templates for events, alerts, SMS, etc. within the workspace. If English is selected, the corresponding templates will default to English. Once created, the template language of this workspace cannot be modified. Please choose carefully.

Start Using TrueWatch

After registration, you can start using the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan.

Sync SLS Data

TrueWatch supports syncing and viewing other SLS data under your Alibaba Cloud account by binding log indexes.

How to Get Account ID

Alibaba Cloud Master Account

Log in to Alibaba Cloud with the master account, enter the Alibaba Cloud Console, and click the account avatar in the upper right corner to find the Account ID.

How to Get Product Instance ID

After confirming the activation request for TrueWatch on Alibaba Cloud Marketplace, you will be redirected to the list of purchased services on Alibaba Cloud. Under the purchased TrueWatch service, you can find the Instance ID of the product. Copy this Instance ID and fill it into the Product Instance ID field in the change billing method dialog.

FAQ

Version

Can a workspace that has already activated the TrueWatch Commercial Plan also activate the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan?

Yes, by activating through the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace > TrueWatch Exclusive Plan product entry and creating a new SLS workspace.

Can a workspace that has already activated the TrueWatch Commercial Plan be switched to the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan?

No, the main difference between the Commercial Plan and the SLS Exclusive Plan is the location of the backend data storage. Once a workspace is activated, the index storage location cannot be changed. Therefore, regardless of the previous billing method of the Commercial Plan, it cannot be converted to an SLS Exclusive Plan workspace.

Can a Free Plan workspace created during registration be upgraded to the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan?

No, currently only the SLS Exclusive Plan workspace can be activated through the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace - TrueWatch Exclusive Plan product entry. The normal upgrade process does not support activating the SLS Exclusive Plan workspace.

Data Viewing

Why are there logs in SLS but not displayed in TrueWatch?

The Default index must have logs, i.e., logs collected by TrueWatch DataKit, for TrueWatch log viewer to display SLS logs.

Why is the content empty after SLS log input and reporting?

Since the SLS content field is content, and TrueWatch uses message, this needs to be resolved through field mapping.

How to determine whether the data in the SLS console is user's own or TrueWatch's access data?

You can judge by the project name. If the project name is in the format guance-wksp-WorkspaceID, it can be considered as the resource and data index created during the activation of TrueWatch SLS Exclusive Plan. If you need to view it, you can obtain the Workspace ID from the Workspace > Management > Basic Settings page and find the corresponding data in the SLS console.

Can user's own SLS storage data be viewed using TrueWatch?

User's own SLS storage data can be viewed and analyzed in the TrueWatch workspace. Currently, only the bound index data can be viewed and analyzed, and it does not support correlation analysis with other feature module data.

For how to bind indexes, refer to Bind Index.

Data Storage

How does TrueWatch Exclusive Plan store data?

The TrueWatch Exclusive Plan stores Metrics, Logs, Backup Logs, Synthetic Tests, CI, Incidents, etc., in SLS. Apart from the above data, infrastructure, APM, RUM data are currently stored in TrueWatch's ES cluster.

  • Metrics: SLS Metricstore.
  • Logs, Synthetic Tests, CI Visualization, Incidents: SLS Standard type Logstore.
  • Backup Logs: SLS Query type Logstore.

Note: Since SLS data expiration policy only supports TTL automatic cleanup, TrueWatch's approach of adjusting the data retention policy of Measurements to reduce the number of time series does not take effect in the SLS Exclusive Plan workspace.

Can the data storage region of TrueWatch Exclusive Plan be changed?

No, TrueWatch will synchronously create Project and Metricstore and Logstore data indexes in the same Region as the selected site's Region in SLS. Unless a new SLS Exclusive Plan workspace is created, the data storage Region cannot be changed. Currently, TrueWatch Exclusive Plan only supports "China Region 1 (Hangzhou)" and "China Region 3 (Zhangjiakou)" sites.

  • If the SLS Exclusive Plan is activated in China Region 1 (Hangzhou), the data will be stored in the SLS "cn-hangzhou" Region.
  • If the SLS Exclusive Plan is activated in China Region 3 (Zhangjiakou), the data will be stored in the SLS "cn-zhangjiakou" Region.

Billing

After activating the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan, how is the log data collected by TrueWatch collector DataKit billed?

The log data collected by DataKit is billed according to the TrueWatch log billing method.

How is the log data in SLS billed when viewed, searched, and filtered in the TrueWatch console through the binding log index function provided by TrueWatch?

The SLS log data obtained through Index Binding is still billed according to SLS.

If you perform data processing, delivery, or stream read operations from external network access points, Log Service will charge for processing, data delivery, and external network read traffic.

For more details, refer to Billing Items.

Can the prepaid card in the Billing Center be used to pay for the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan bill? How is the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan billed?

Yes, the premise of the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan is to use the Alibaba Cloud account for billing. For cloud account billing, the order of TrueWatch pay-as-you-go bill deduction is: Ordinary Coupons, Full Reduction Coupons, Prepaid Cards, Cloud Account Cash Balance. SMS and Synthetic Tests pay-as-you-go consumption can only be paid with Prepaid Cards and Cloud Account Cash Balance.

Function Queries

Why are some query functions unavailable?

SLS storage uses promql, and some functions are not available.

For more information on SLS functions, refer to DQL Functions.

Show function tag related

show_tag_key, show_tag_value, show_tag_key_cardinality, show_tag_value_cardinality these four functions only support querying data from the last 5 minutes, i.e., if there is no data in the last 5 minutes, the result of these show functions is 0. Currently, the following scenarios in the TrueWatch workspace use show tag functions:

  • View variables use show_tag_key, show_tag_value, etc.
  • The tag data displayed in the side slide details page of the Metrics Management page.
  • All chart configuration Metrics data queries, group by dropdown list, or filter condition addition.

Does SLS Metrics query support querying multiple Metrics data in one DQL query?

No, and it does not support querying *.

Why might there be incomplete data display if there are oversized logs in the log data?

Currently, only the complete message can be guaranteed based on docid and the default list page query. Other complex filter conditions may truncate the message, which is determined by the internal implementation of SLS.

Field Filtering

Why is field filtering unavailable after activating the TrueWatch Exclusive Plan?

TrueWatch automatically creates field indexes for log data containing the same fields for field filtering. However, if the data volume is small, it will not trigger automatic creation. In this case, you cannot query data through field filtering in TrueWatch. You can resolve this by reporting more log data containing the same fields.

Note: If the time interval between the data reported before the field index is created and the data reported after the field index is created is too long, the data reported before the field index is created may not be queried through field filtering. For example, if 2 pieces of data with the same fields were reported yesterday and the field index was not created, and 100 pieces of data with the same fields as yesterday were reported today and the field index was automatically created, the 2 pieces of data reported yesterday may not be found during field filtering.

Exclusive Plan vs. Commercial Plan

Why is there no highlight display in SLS Exclusive Plan log search?

Because the SLS log search highlight function is temporarily not open to the public and only supports SLS console use, currently TrueWatch does not have a highlight effect when searching for certain keywords in logs.

Does the SLS Exclusive Plan workspace support deleting a single Measurement?

No, currently only supports deleting all Measurements.

Why can't the newly reported field data in the SLS Exclusive Plan workspace support filtering and sorting?

Currently, SLS field indexes have a 1-minute delay. For example, new fields cut out through Pipeline can only be searched after 1 minute, and the data within that 1-minute delay still cannot be filtered or searched. ES can search new fields immediately. This issue also affects the use of "Generate Metrics" and other chart query functions.

Does the SLS Exclusive Plan workspace support index merging?

No, the SLS Exclusive Plan workspace enables multi-index by default. The Commercial Plan workspace enables index merging by default to reduce index generation.

For multi-index, refer to Log Index.

Why is the log time order in the SLS Exclusive Plan workspace out of order?

Since the SLS date field is accurate to the second level, and the log data time in TrueWatch is to the millisecond level, the log sorting in the SLS workspace may appear abnormal in ascending or descending order. By default, only the data within a single page can be guaranteed to be ordered, and the global order across pages cannot be guaranteed.

Why is there duplicate writing of SLS time series data?

SLS time series data will be written repeatedly at the same timestamp, which is caused by the characteristics of SLS.