Migrate to Observability Analytics

If you are using sinks to export trace data to BigQuery, then this document applies to you. The usage of sinks to export trace data is no longer recommended. Instead, we recommend that you use Observability Analytics, which supports the same SQL query language as BigQuery. This document describes how to migrate from a sink-based solution to one that uses Observability Analytics. It also includes information about how to query your trace data by using BigQuery services.

BigQuery provides services that let you copy tables or export data. You can copy and export your trace data using these services after creating a linked BigQuery dataset, an optional step detailed in this document. For more information, see Manage tables and Introduction to data export.

To get started with Observability Analytics, see Query and analyze traces.

Before you begin

  1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

  2. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

    Roles required to select or create a project

    • Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
    • Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains the resourcemanager.projects.create permission. Learn how to grant roles.

    Go to project selector

  3. Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

  4. Enable the Observability API.

    Roles required to enable APIs

    To enable APIs, you need the serviceusage.services.enable permission. If you created the project, then you likely already have this permission through the Owner role (roles/owner). Otherwise, you can get this permission through the Service Usage Admin role (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin). Learn how to grant roles.

    Enable the API

  5. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

    Roles required to select or create a project

    • Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
    • Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains the resourcemanager.projects.create permission. Learn how to grant roles.

    Go to project selector