cassandra.md

Semantic conventions for Cassandra

Status: Development

• Spans
• Metrics

The Semantic Conventions for Cassandra extend and override the Database Semantic Conventions.

Spans

Spans representing calls to a Cassandra database adhere to the general Semantic Conventions for Database Client Spans.

db.system.name MUST be set to "cassandra" and SHOULD be provided at span creation time.

The following table outlines the span attributes applicable to Cassandra.

Attribute	Type	Description	Examples	Requirement Level	Stability
db.collection.name	string	The name of the Cassandra table that the operation is acting upon. [1]	public.users; customers	Conditionally Required [2]
db.namespace	string	The keyspace associated with the session. [3]	mykeyspace	Conditionally Required If available.
db.operation.name	string	The name of the operation or command being executed. [4]	findAndModify; HMSET; SELECT	Conditionally Required [5]
db.response.status_code	string	Cassandra protocol error code represented as a string. [6]	102; 40020	Conditionally Required [7]
error.type	string	Describes a class of error the operation ended with. [8]	timeout; java.net.UnknownHostException; server_certificate_invalid; 500	Conditionally Required If and only if the operation failed.
server.port	int	Server port number. [9]	80; 8080; 443	Conditionally Required [10]
cassandra.consistency.level	string	The consistency level of the query. Based on consistency values from CQL.	all; each_quorum; quorum	Recommended
cassandra.coordinator.dc	string	The data center of the coordinating node for a query.	us-west-2	Recommended
cassandra.coordinator.id	string	The ID of the coordinating node for a query.	be13faa2-8574-4d71-926d-27f16cf8a7af	Recommended
cassandra.page.size	int	The fetch size used for paging, i.e. how many rows will be returned at once.	5000	Recommended
cassandra.query.idempotent	boolean	Whether or not the query is idempotent.		Recommended
cassandra.speculative_execution.count	int	The number of times a query was speculatively executed. Not set or 0 if the query was not executed speculatively.	0; 2	Recommended
db.operation.batch.size	int	The number of queries included in a batch operation. [11]	2; 3; 4	Recommended
db.query.summary	string	Low cardinality representation of a database query text. [12]	SELECT wuser_table; INSERT shipping_details SELECT orders; get user by id	Recommended [13]
db.query.text	string	The database query being executed. [14]	SELECT * FROM wuser_table where username = ?; SET mykey ?	Recommended [15]
db.response.returned_rows	int	Number of rows returned by the operation.	10; 30; 1000	Recommended
network.peer.address	string	Peer address of the database node where the operation was performed. [16]	10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock	Recommended
network.peer.port	int	Peer port number of the network connection.	65123	Recommended if and only if network.peer.address is set.
server.address	string	Name of the database host. [17]	example.com; 10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock	Recommended
db.operation.parameter.<key>	string	A database operation parameter, with <key> being the parameter name, and the attribute value being a string representation of the parameter value. [18]	someval; 55	Opt-In

[1] db.collection.name: It is RECOMMENDED to capture the value as provided by the application without attempting to do any case normalization.

For batch operations, if the individual operations are known to have the same collection name then that collection name SHOULD be used.

[2] db.collection.name: If readily available and if a database call is performed on a single collection.

[3] db.namespace: If a database system has multiple namespace components, they SHOULD be concatenated (potentially using database system specific conventions) from most general to most specific namespace component, and more specific namespaces SHOULD NOT be captured without the more general namespaces, to ensure that "startswith" queries for the more general namespaces will be valid. Semantic conventions for individual database systems SHOULD document what db.namespace means in the context of that system. It is RECOMMENDED to capture the value as provided by the application without attempting to do any case normalization.

[4] db.operation.name: It is RECOMMENDED to capture the value as provided by the application without attempting to do any case normalization.

The operation name SHOULD NOT be extracted from db.query.text, when the database system supports cross-table queries in non-batch operations.

For batch operations, if the individual operations are known to have the same operation name then that operation name SHOULD be used prepended by BATCH , otherwise db.operation.name SHOULD be BATCH or some other database system specific term if more applicable.

[5] db.operation.name: If readily available and if there is a single operation name that describes the database call.

[6] db.response.status_code: All Cassandra protocol error codes SHOULD be considered errors.

[7] db.response.status_code: If the operation failed and status code is available.

[8] error.type: The error.type SHOULD match the db.response.status_code returned by the database or the client library, or the canonical name of exception that occurred. When using canonical exception type name, instrumentation SHOULD do the best effort to report the most relevant type. For example, if the original exception is wrapped into a generic one, the original exception SHOULD be preferred. Instrumentations SHOULD document how error.type is populated.

[9] server.port: When observed from the client side, and when communicating through an intermediary, server.port SHOULD represent the server port behind any intermediaries, for example proxies, if it's available.

[10] server.port: If using a port other than the default port for this DBMS and if server.address is set.

[11] db.operation.batch.size: Operations are only considered batches when they contain two or more operations, and so db.operation.batch.size SHOULD never be 1.

[12] db.query.summary: db.query.summary provides static summary of the query text. It describes a class of database queries and is useful as a grouping key, especially when analyzing telemetry for database calls involving complex queries. Summary may be available to the instrumentation through instrumentation hooks or other means. If it is not available, instrumentations that support query parsing SHOULD generate a summary following Generating query summary section.

[13] db.query.summary: if readily available or if instrumentation supports query summarization.

[14] db.query.text: For sanitization see Sanitization of db.query.text. For batch operations, if the individual operations are known to have the same query text then that query text SHOULD be used, otherwise all of the individual query texts SHOULD be concatenated with separator ; or some other database system specific separator if more applicable. Even though parameterized query text can potentially have sensitive data, by using a parameterized query the user is giving a strong signal that any sensitive data will be passed as parameter values, and the benefit to observability of capturing the static part of the query text by default outweighs the risk.

[15] db.query.text: Non-parameterized query text SHOULD NOT be collected by default unless there is sanitization that excludes sensitive data, e.g. by redacting all literal values present in the query text. See Sanitization of db.query.text. Parameterized query text SHOULD be collected by default (the query parameter values themselves are opt-in, see db.operation.parameter.<key>).

[16] network.peer.address: If a database operation involved multiple network calls (for example retries), the address of the last contacted node SHOULD be used.

[17] server.address: When observed from the client side, and when communicating through an intermediary, server.address SHOULD represent the server address behind any intermediaries, for example proxies, if it's available.

[18] db.operation.parameter: If a parameter has no name and instead is referenced only by index, then <key> SHOULD be the 0-based index. If db.query.text is also captured, then db.operation.parameter.<key> SHOULD match up with the parameterized placeholders present in db.query.text.

The following attributes can be important for making sampling decisions and SHOULD be provided at span creation time (if provided at all):

• db.collection.name
• db.namespace
• db.operation.name
• db.query.summary
• db.query.text
• server.address
• server.port

---

cassandra.consistency.level has the following list of well-known values. If one of them applies, then the respective value MUST be used; otherwise, a custom value MAY be used.

Value	Description	Stability
all	all
any	any
each_quorum	each_quorum
local_one	local_one
local_quorum	local_quorum
local_serial	local_serial
one	one
quorum	quorum
serial	serial
three	three
two	two

---

error.type has the following list of well-known values. If one of them applies, then the respective value MUST be used; otherwise, a custom value MAY be used.

Value	Description	Stability
_OTHER	A fallback error value to be used when the instrumentation doesn't define a custom value.

Metrics

Cassandra client instrumentations SHOULD collect metrics according to the general Semantic Conventions for Database Client Metrics.

db.system.name MUST be set to "cassandra".