Unified Catalog¶
Unified Catalog (Unified Service and Resource Catalog) is the asset management center of TrueWatch, used to centrally store and manage enterprise system services, cloud resources, and infrastructure entities. Through automated asset collection, flexible type extension, and visualized relationship topology, it helps users build a complete asset lifecycle management system, achieving deep integration between assets and observable data.
Core Capabilities¶
1. Multi-channel Asset Access
Supports four data sources: automatic discovery, DataKit reporting, cloud asset collection, and YAML declaration, covering multiple types of entities such as services, hosts, databases, and cloud resources.
1. Flexible Type Extension
The system presets five standard entity types: system, service, host, database, and cloud resources, and supports custom extensions to adapt to enterprise-specific asset management needs.
1. Dynamic Asset Management
The entity list supports dynamic rendering of column definitions based on type, custom display fields, one-click CSV export, and provides entity count statistics and quick addition capabilities.
1. Relationship Topology Analysis
Constructs entity topology based on call chains and dependency relationships, supporting dual-perspective analysis with dependency view (showing calls and containment relationships) and hierarchy view (showing ownership relationships), as well as visual presentation of the overall architecture topology.
1. Asset and Observation Integration
The entity detail page automatically associates observable data such as logs, traces, events, and metrics, enabling quick navigation from asset information to runtime data and fault localization.
Data Sources¶
The Unified Catalog supports four types of entity data sources, covering both automated collection and manual entry scenarios:
| Source Method | Collection Mechanism | Use Cases |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic Discovery | Automatically derives Service and call relationships from APM trace spans | Service discovery in microservice architectures |
| DataKit Reporting | Directly collected and reported by DataKit Agent deployed on hosts or K8s | Infrastructure management |
| Cloud Asset Collection | Periodically synchronizes metadata (e.g., RDS, S3, ECS) from cloud provider APIs such as AWS, Alibaba Cloud | Unified management of multi-cloud resources |
| YAML Declaration | Declared via catalog-info.yaml files in code repositories (GitOps) |
Integrated asset management in development workflows |
Features¶
The Unified Catalog includes the following features, supporting end-to-end management from asset ingestion to relationship analysis:
| Module | Description |
|---|---|
| Entity List | Main asset list, supports dynamic column display, custom display items, CSV export, entity CRUD, and quick addition |
| Entity Type Management | Manage preset and custom types, configure associated views (built-in views and explorers), and icon display |
| Topology View | Automatically generate a panoramic architecture diagram of entities in the workspace, supports filtering, grouping, search highlighting, and view saving |
| Entity Details | Side-sheet display of entity metadata, contact information, external links, relationship topology (dependency/hierarchy), and associated observable data |
Core Concepts¶
Entity¶
The smallest management unit in the Unified Catalog, representing a specific system, service, host, database, or cloud resource instance. Each entity has a unique type identifier and name. Through the details page, you can view complete metadata, relationship graphs, and associated observable data.
Entities support two types of associations:
-
Call relationship: indicates service-to-service call dependency, where the upstream entity calls the downstream entity
-
Containment relationship: indicates hierarchical ownership, where child entities belong to the parent entity
Entity Type¶
A definition template for classifying entities, determining the attribute fields and display mode of entities. The system presets standard types such as system, service, host, and database, and supports user-defined extensions. Each type can be configured with unified associated views, including built-in views and explorers for logs, traces, and events.