Jekyll2025-09-22T18:05:33+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/feed.xmlCloud Observability (Lightstep) Learning PortalCloud Observability (formerly Lightstep) Learning PortalEnd of Life notice for Cloud Observability2025-08-25T00:00:00+00:002025-08-25T00:00:00+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/changelog/eol-noticeCloud Observability / Lightstep will no longer be supported as of your contract term end date or March 1, 2026 (whichever is later). Please take a moment to review the information below.

Here’s what you need to know

As part of our ongoing evolution of ServiceNow’s observability strategy, we have decided to shift our focus away from Cloud Observability / Lightstep.

Our renewed focus is to help customers leverage their existing investments in monitoring and observability by helping teams shift and stay ahead through proactive observability from problem detection to resolution. As a result, our Operations Management teams are focusing on service resilience, the reduction of MTTR, and productivity improvements.

Our shift in focus has already materialized through new product capabilities on the ServiceNow Platform including Service Observability, Service Reliability Management (SRM), Synthetic Monitoring, and Agentic Observability.

Here’s what you can expect

Starting from March 1, 2026, or your subscription term end date (whichever is later), we will end support for Cloud Observability, and it will no longer be accessible for usage.

ServiceNow is not planning to offer an equivalent observability solution to Cloud Observability on the ServiceNow platform. There will not be a direct migration from Cloud Observability to the ServiceNow platform.

There is a ServiceNow preferred partner that would be an optional alternative. The vendor will be able to offer white glove migration and competitive terms. If you are interested, please reach out to your account representative.

Here’s what we need you to do

There is no replacement for this product.

If you are actively using this product, we strongly recommend reviewing your current usage and plan for retirement to avoid disruption.

Questions?

We’re here to help. For technical assistance, please open a case or visit the Customer Support - Contact Us knowledge article for contact information in your region. You can also reach out to your ServiceNow sales representative or a ServiceNow Solution Partner.

Let’s stay in touch

Be sure to keep your company contacts updated to ensure you continue to receive these notifications.

]]>Removed support for OpAmp2025-06-09T00:00:00+00:002025-06-09T00:00:00+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/changelog/remove-OpAmpDue to the removal of support for OpAmp, we’ve removed the associated topics from our site.

The Collector Health page has been removed from the application and the Helm charts used during installation of Collectors no longer add support for OpAmp.

You can continue to use the pre-built Collector Health dashboard.

Contact your Customer Success representative with any questions or concerns.

]]>Expanded RBAC features: Custom roles and log access controls2024-12-12T00:00:00+00:002024-12-12T00:00:00+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/changelog/custom-rolesCloud Observability has new role-based access control (RBAC) features. Custom roles and log access controls can help you secure your log data and better align roles with users and teams.

Custom role example prevents users from accessing logs across an entire organization.

What’s new?

Custom roles

In addition to Cloud Observability’s standard roles, new custom roles let you configure access in ways that fit your workflows. For example, you can customize roles to manage:

  • Log access for different users and teams.
  • Project-specific edit access.
  • Project-specific view access.

Custom roles give you more granular control, helping your teams and users work effectively and securely.

New permission structure

To help you navigate Cloud Observability permissions and create custom roles, we’ve restructured the permission categories. Here’s how they’ve changed:

  • Old permission categories: Permissions were set at the organization, project, and feature levels.
  • New permission categories: Permissions are now organized by:
    • Telemetry data: Allow or restrict access to logs.
    • Project resources: Manage project-specific resources like dashboards and alerts.
    • Administration: Control account-level settings.

Log access control

A new Log data permission lets you manage access to log data. Before this release, Cloud Observability didn’t have a way to limit log access independently. Now, you can help protect sensitive data by defining who has access to logs.

Changes to standard roles

Previous Cloud Observability versions had seven standard roles: Organization Admin, Organization Billing Admin, Organization Editor, Organization Restricted Member, Organization Viewer, Project Editor, and Project Viewer.

With the custom roles release, Project Editor and Project Viewer are no longer standard roles. If anyone had a Project Editor or Project Viewer role, Cloud Observability auto-migrated those roles to custom roles. For example:

Previous standard role New custom role name
Project Editor in demo Project editor in demo
Project Viewer in staging Project viewer in staging

There is an exception for Terraform users. If you previously assigned Project Editor or Project Viewer with Terraform’s lightstep_saml_group_mappings or lightstep_user_role_binding resources, users keep their access, and the roles still appear in Cloud Observability.

Next steps

To learn more about configuring custom roles and managing log access, see the updated documentation:

For more about user and role management in Cloud Observability, see User and role management and Plan your workflow.

]]>Latency threshold queries available in the UQB2024-10-16T00:00:00+00:002024-10-16T00:00:00+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/changelog/latency-filterYou can now use the Unified Query Builder (UQB) to query on a latency duration.

For example, say you want to see latency on the iOS service that’s over 5 seconds and grouped by customer. You would enter the following:

  • Spans with: latency >= 5 second
  • Filter by (and): service == iOS
  • Group by: customer

The rest of the fields work in the same way as for standard span queries.

UQB filled in with the above example for latency

]]>Instrumentation quality email notifications2024-10-10T00:00:00+00:002024-10-10T00:00:00+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/changelog/iq-score-emails-enterpriseWhat’s changing

As of October 10, 2024, only Cloud Observability Enterprise accounts receive periodic email summaries about instrumentation quality. All accounts, including non-enterprise accounts, still have full access to instrumentation quality through the UI.

Why instrumentation quality matters

Instrumentation quality gives you insights into the health and efficiency of your monitoring setup. It can help you identify gaps in coverage and promote accurate alerts and telemetry data. All users can still view and track instrumentation quality in Cloud Observability’s UI.

Why we made this change

This decision helps us give Cloud Observability Enterprise users the information they need to stay on track with their instrumentation.

]]>Scoped template variable support in ServiceNow Cloud Observability Grafana plugin2024-10-07T00:00:00+00:002024-10-07T00:00:00+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/changelog/grafana-plugin-5-0With the 5.0 release of our Grafana plugin, you can now scope Grafana template variables to a particular UQL filter expression. In that filter expression, you can also reference existing defined template variables.  

For example, you want to create a dashboard with two template variables for service and operation. And selecting a service should scope operation values to that service. This is now possible with a UQL filter expression like service == $service.   

You can use any filter expression to limit the values returned. We can limit operation to a particular service and filter to server entrypoints with:  

service == $service && span.kind == server  

Also, with this release the minimum Grafana version supported is 9.5.0. 

Learn how to install the Grafana plugin.

]]>New log transformations2024-09-25T00:00:00+00:002024-09-25T00:00:00+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/changelog/format-setCloud Observability’s log ingestion pipelines have three new transformations: Format, Set, and Regex extract. The new transformations can help you manage, customize, and analyze your logs.

What’s new?

Log ingestion pipelines have the following new transformations:

Format

Aggregate multiple attributes into a single attribute. Format can help you create more meaningful log attributes from existing attributes. For example, combining the source and environment attributes can help you identify a log’s origin in different environments.

Set

Assign specific values to new or existing attributes. Set helps you standardize logs or add context to logs. For example, assign a critical priority to logs matching specific error conditions.

Regex extract

Parse attributes using regular expressions. Use Regex extract to apply a pattern and capture specific information from logs. For example, if logs have error messages with timestamps, error codes, and descriptions, Regex extract can parse and move those details into individual attributes.

Why use the new transformations?

The new transformations give you more control over your log data, helping you with the following:

  • Simplifying data - Aggregate and parse attributes to reduce clutter and make logs easier to analyze.
  • Standardizing information - Use Set to assign consistent values, helping you filter and interpret logs.
  • Improving log clarity - Create more organized and meaningful logs.

Get started

Start using Format, Set, and Regex extract by navigating to Cloud Observability and selecting Settings > Log ingestion pipelines. For instructions and examples, visit the updated documentation.

]]>Gauges are now an available chart type2024-09-19T00:00:00+00:002024-09-19T00:00:00+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/changelog/gaugesGauges are enhanced big number charts that show you how close to a target value the data is. For example, you may want to keep track of memory usage using a gauge chart. You might set four thresholds so that a value under 25% displays as OK, up to 50% displays as fair, up to 75% displays as warning, and anything over 75% displays as critical. Gauge chart shows memory usage of 29.51% as fair and is colored orange

Learn how to use gauges.

]]>View attributes and events on a span in the new Span Explorer side panel2024-09-17T00:00:00+00:002024-09-17T00:00:00+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/changelog/span-explorer-panelDuring an investigation, you can now use the side panel in Span Explorer to view attributes and events associated with the selected span.

The Attributes tab displays all the span and resource attributes associated with the span. You can adjust your query to filter on or group by any attribute on the span.

The events tab shows span events and any associated logs. You can click a log to navigate to the log view for that span.

Side panel shows attributes for the span in Span Explorer

]]>Introducing workflow links for dashboards2024-09-04T00:00:00+00:002024-09-04T00:00:00+00:00https://docs.lightstep.com/changelog/dashboard-linksYou can now add dashboard workflow links to a dashboard or panel that allow you to navigate to another app or another place in Cloud Observability. You can use variables in the link to keep some context of the dashboard when navigating using the value of an attribute currently returned by the query or using the current value(s) of a template variable.

For example, you can create a link that creates a notebook with a query on the given service. Or you can create a link that navigates to the GitHub repository for the given operation.

Cloud Observability provides several templates to get you started or you can create your own links from scratch.

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