Integrate Datadog with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

Overview

Datadog is a cloud monitoring and observability platform that can collect metrics, logs, events, and resource information from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

In this lab, I integrated my OCI tenancy with Datadog using the OCI QuickStart Integration and verified resource discovery, metrics collection, log collection configuration, and dashboard creation.

Why Organizations Choose Datadog Alongside OCI Monitoring

OCI Monitoring and Logging Analytics work well for OCI resources. However, in hybrid or multi-cloud environments (OCI, AWS, Azure, On-Premises), teams often need to manage multiple monitoring dashboards.

Datadog provides a single platform to monitor resources across different environments, making troubleshooting, alerting, and root-cause analysis faster and more efficient.

---

Lab Environment

Component	Value
Monitoring Tool	Datadog
Cloud Provider	Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
Tenancy Name	cloudtenant26
Integration Method	OCI QuickStart Integration
Datadog Account	Personal Lab

---

Architecture

OCI Tenancy
     │
     ├── Metrics
     ├── Logs
     ├── Resources
     │
     ▼
Datadog OCI Integration
     │
     ▼
Datadog Dashboard

---

Step 1 - Login to Datadog

1. Open Datadog.
2. Sign in to your Datadog account.
3. Navigate to:

Integrations

4. Search for:

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

---

Step 2 - Configure OCI Integration

1. Open the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure integration.
2. Click:

Add New Tenancy

3. Configure the OCI QuickStart Integration.
4. Complete the deployment process.
5. Wait until the integration status shows as Installed.

After deployment, Datadog automatically creates the required OCI resources needed for monitoring and resource discovery.

---

Step 3 - Verify OCI Resource Discovery

Navigate to:

Infrastructure

Datadog successfully discovered resources from the OCI tenancy.

Verification:

Cloud resources in cloudtenant26

This confirmed that Datadog was successfully connected to the OCI tenancy.

---

Step 4 - Verify Metrics Collection

Navigate to:

Metrics
→ Explorer

Search:

oci

Several OCI metrics became available.

Example metric:

oci.objectstorage.object_count

Filter used:

tenancy_name:cloudtenant26

---

Step 5 - Validate Object Storage Metrics

Query used:

sum:oci.objectstorage.object_count{tenancy_name:cloudtenant26} by {name}.as_count()

Datadog successfully identified the Object Storage buckets.

Detected Buckets:

compute-capacity-inventory
test-bucket
swiggy-tf-state-bucket

This confirmed that OCI Object Storage metrics were successfully reaching Datadog.

---

Step 6 - Create Dashboard

From Metrics Explorer:

Share
→ Save to Dashboard

Dashboard Name:

OCI Monitoring Dashboard

Added Widget:

oci.objectstorage.object_count

The dashboard successfully displayed OCI Object Storage metrics collected from the tenancy.

---

Step 7 - Verify Log Collection Configuration

Navigate to:

Integrations
→ Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
→ Log Collection

Verification:

Enabled (37)
Disabled (0)

This confirmed that log collection was enabled for OCI services.

---

Datadog Agent vs OCI Integration

Without Datadog Agent

Using only OCI Integration:

OCI
 │
 ▼
Datadog

Available Features:

• Resource Discovery
• Cloud Metrics
• Object Storage Metrics
• OCI Logs
• Dashboards
• Events

No Datadog Agent installation is required.

---

With Datadog Agent

The Datadog Agent is installed directly on an OCI Compute Instance.

OCI Compute Instance
        │
        ▼
Datadog Agent
        │
        ▼
Datadog

Additional Monitoring Features:

• CPU Utilization
• Memory Utilization
• Disk Usage
• Process Monitoring
• Application Logs
• Custom Metrics
• APM Tracing

---

Where is the Datadog Agent Installed?

The Datadog Agent is installed on an OCI Compute Instance.

Example:

Compute Instance
├── Oracle Linux
└── Datadog Agent

A dedicated Agent Server is not required.

Typically, the Agent is installed on:

• Application Servers
• Web Servers
• Database Servers
• Middleware Servers

that require detailed monitoring.

---

Important Observation

During this lab:

• No OCI Compute Instances existed.
• No Load Balancers existed.
• No Datadog Agent was installed.

Even without an Agent, Datadog successfully collected:

• OCI Resource Information
• Object Storage Metrics
• OCI Metadata
• Dashboard Data

This demonstrates that OCI QuickStart Integration can provide monitoring visibility without installing a Datadog Agent.

---

Interview Answer

How did you integrate OCI with Datadog?

I integrated OCI with Datadog using the OCI QuickStart Integration. After the deployment completed successfully, Datadog automatically discovered resources from my OCI tenancy. I verified Object Storage metrics in Metrics Explorer, confirmed log collection configuration, and created an OCI Monitoring Dashboard. I also learned the difference between agent-based and agentless monitoring in Datadog.

---

Conclusion

Successfully integrated Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) with Datadog and verified:

• OCI Resource Discovery
• OCI Metrics Collection
• Object Storage Monitoring
• Dashboard Creation
• Log Collection Configuration
• Agent vs Agentless Monitoring

The integration was validated using OCI tenancy:

cloudtenant26

Datadog successfully detected OCI resources and collected OCI metrics without requiring a Datadog Agent installation.

STEPS

copy and save the datadog application key

now you will be redirected to this console login page

after login automatically you will be redirected to this page

now got an email from oracle

go to datadog site

Bits AI Overview

Bits AI is Datadog's AI-powered assistant that can analyze metrics, logs, dashboards, alerts, and incidents using natural language queries.

In this lab environment, the Bits AI interface was available, but AI Credits were not allocated to the account. Therefore, AI-assisted analysis was not tested.

Common use cases:

• Analyze metrics using natural language
• Investigate alerts
• Correlate logs and metrics
• Generate dashboards and monitoring insights