Prometheus Observability tab for Service Observability

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Prometheus Observability tab for Service Observability

    The Prometheus Observability tab, available on the Service Details page within Service Observability (Zurich release), provides comprehensive dashboards and charts that display key performance metrics for services, hosts, and databases. This enables ServiceNow customers to monitor critical service health indicators and infrastructure utilization in real time, leveraging Prometheus data sources and CMDB information.

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    Service KPIs Dashboard

    This dashboard offers performance metrics specific to the selected service, sourced from Prometheus. Key charts include:

    • Request Rate: Aggregate transactions per second.
    • Error %: Percentage of erroneous transactions.
    • Average Response Time: Duration of transactions in seconds.
    • Throughput: Count of successful transactions per second.
    • Active Requests: Current in-flight requests count.
    • 95th Percentile Response Time: High-end response time metric.
    • Average Request and Response Size: Byte size of requests and responses.

    Note that customized dashboards may differ from the default displays.

    Compute Dashboard

    This dashboard focuses on host-level metrics related to the service, sourced primarily from Prometheus and CMDB:

    • CPU, Memory, and Disk Utilization: Percentage use of host resources.
    • All Active Servers and VM Instances: Lists of servers and virtual machines in use, with links to detailed host information.

    Database Dashboards

    Separate dashboards provide detailed metrics for databases used by the service, covering MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. Metrics are mainly sourced from Prometheus, with CMDB providing instance details:

    • MySQL Metrics: Includes thread utilization, query rates, InnoDB memory usage, active connections, aborted connections, uptime, network traffic, and slow query rate.
    • PostgreSQL Metrics: Covers active and idle sessions, committed and failed transactions, deadlocks, locks count, and cache hit ratio.
    • Instance Overview: Both MySQL and PostgreSQL dashboards list all active database instances with links to detailed views.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    By utilizing the Prometheus Observability tab, customers can:

    • Gain real-time visibility into service performance and health through comprehensive KPIs.
    • Monitor infrastructure resource usage at the host and VM level to identify capacity or performance issues.
    • Track critical database performance indicators to ensure database reliability and efficiency.
    • Access detailed server, VM, and database instance information directly from the Service Details page, facilitating faster troubleshooting and operational insight.

    Dashboard and charts on the Prometheus Observability tab of the Service Details page in the SOW.

    Application dashboard

    This dashboard displays performance metrics for the selected service.
    Note:
    If the dashboards have been customized, they might not reflect the information shown on this page.
    Table 1. Service KPIs
    Chart Description Data source
    Request Rate Aggregate rate of transactions through the service, per second. Prometheus
    Error % Percent of transactions that have an error. Prometheus
    Average Response Time Aggregate duration of transactions through the service, in seconds. Prometheus
    Throughput Count of successful transactions, per second. Prometheus
    Active Requests Count of current in-flight requests to the service. Prometheus
    Response Time (95th Percentile) 95th percentile response time for HTTP requests, in seconds. Prometheus
    Average Request Size Average size of requests to the service, in bytes. Prometheus
    Average Response Size Average size of responses from the service, in bytes. Prometheus

    Compute dashboard

    This dashboard displays metrics for hosts related to the service.

    Table 2. Host
    Chart Description Data source
    CPU utilization Percent of the host processing power being consumed. Prometheus
    Memory utilization Percent of memory the host is using. Prometheus
    Disk utilization Percent of the host disk being used. Prometheus
    All Active Servers Information for all servers the service is actively using. Select a host link to view more detailed information. CMDB
    All Active VM Instances Information for all virtual machines the service is actively using. Select a host link to view more detailed information. CMDB

    Database dashboards

    These dashboards display metrics for databases related to the service.

    Table 3. MySQL
    Chart Description Data source
    Thread Utilization % Percent of the database's threads being consumed. Prometheus
    Queries Per Second Number of queries made to the database by the service, per second. Prometheus
    InnoDB Memory % Percent of InnoDB buffer pool being consumed. Prometheus
    Active Connections Number of connections to the database. Prometheus
    Aborted Connections Rate of aborted connections. Prometheus
    Uptime Average number of hours the database has been available. Prometheus
    Inbound Network Traffic Number of bytes per second of inbound traffic to the database. Prometheus
    Outbound Network Traffic Number of bytes per second of outbound traffic to the database. Prometheus
    Slow Queries Rate of slow queries detected by MySQL, per second. Prometheus
    All MySQL Instances Information for all databases the service is actively using. Select a database link to view more detailed information. CMDB
    Table 4. PostgreSQL
    Chart Description Data source
    Active Sessions Count of sessions currently active. Prometheus
    Idle Sessions Count of idle sessions. Prometheus
    Committed Transactions Total committed transactions since server start. Prometheus
    Failed Transactions Total rolled back transactions since server start. Prometheus
    Deadlocks Total deadlocks detected since server start. Prometheus
    Locks Count Current count of locks given out by the database. Prometheus
    Cache Hit Ratio Percentage of database requests that can be served by the cache. Prometheus
    All PostgreSQL Instances Information of all databases the service is actively using. Select a database link to view more detailed information. CMDB