Linking IBM Instana Observability as a source
This source is currently in alpha. The interface and available tables may change.
The IBM Instana Observability connector syncs your events (incidents, issues, and changes), application and service catalogs, monitoring configuration, and infrastructure inventory into the PostHog Data Warehouse, so you can track reliability trends alongside your product data.
Prerequisites
You need an Instana account (SaaS or self-hosted) with permission to create an API token. The token's permission scopes control which tables can be synced, so grant read access for the data you want to import.
Adding a data source
- In PostHog, go to the Sources tab of the data pipeline section.
- Click + New source and click Link next to this source.
- Enter your credentials (see Configuration below) and click Next.
- Select the tables you want to sync, choose a sync method and frequency, then click Import.
Once the syncs are complete, you can start querying this data in PostHog.
When linking Instana, you'll need:
- Base URL – the address you use to open the Instana UI, e.g.
https://unit-tenant.instana.io, or your self-hosted domain. - API token – create one under Settings → Team Settings → API Tokens in Instana.
Sync modes
Each table can be synced in one of several modes, depending on what the source supports:
- Webhook (when available) – the source pushes changes to PostHog in real time. Fastest freshness, lowest ongoing cost, and the only mode that reliably captures updates and deletes.
- Incremental – only new or updated rows are synced on each run, using a cursor field (such as an
updated_attimestamp). Cheaper than a full refresh, but deletes aren't captured. - Append only – new rows are appended using a cursor field; existing rows are never updated. Ideal for immutable, append-only tables like event logs.
- Full refresh – the whole table is reloaded on every sync. Use it when a table has no reliable cursor or when you need deletions reflected.
See sync methods for a full explanation of how each mode works and how to choose between them.
The events table supports incremental sync using the event start timestamp (epoch milliseconds) and only reaches back 30 days on the initial sync, matching Instana's event retention. The other tables are configuration and topology catalogs without an updated-since filter, so they sync as full refresh.
Configuration
| Option | Type | Required |
|---|---|---|
Base URL | text | Yes |
API token | password | Yes |
Supported tables
| Table | Description | Sync method | Incremental field | Primary key |
|---|---|---|---|---|
events | Only syncs the last 30 days on initial sync | Incremental, Full refresh | start | — |
applications | Application perspectives defined in Instana's application monitoring. | Full refresh | — | — |
services | Services discovered by Instana's application monitoring. | Full refresh | — | — |
endpoints | Service endpoints (HTTP paths, RPC methods, queues) discovered by Instana. | Full refresh | — | — |
websites | Websites configured for Instana end-user (website) monitoring. | Full refresh | — | — |
synthetic_tests | Synthetic monitoring tests configured in Instana. | Full refresh | — | — |
alerting_channels | Alert channels (integrations) configured in Instana's alerting settings. | Full refresh | — | — |
alert_configs | Alerting configurations that route triggered events to alert channels. | Full refresh | — | — |
infrastructure_snapshots | Snapshot summaries of infrastructure entities currently monitored by Instana agents. | Full refresh | — | — |
Troubleshooting
- If you see an authentication error, your API token is invalid or has been revoked. Create a new token under Settings → Team Settings → API Tokens, then reconnect.
- If you see a permissions error, the token is missing the permission scopes needed to sync a table. Grant the required scopes on the token, then reconnect.
- Instana rate-limits API usage to 5,000 calls per hour. Syncs back off and retry automatically, but very frequent sync schedules across many tables can exhaust the budget.
If your sync is failing or data looks wrong, see the Data warehouse troubleshooting guide. If that doesn't help, contact support – we're happy to help.