Semantic Conventions for Database Client Calls

Status: Experimental

Warning Existing database instrumentations that are using v1.24.0 of this document (or prior) SHOULD NOT change the version of the database conventions that they emit until a transition plan to the (future) stable semantic conventions has been published. Conventions include, but are not limited to, attributes, metric and span names, and unit of measure.

Warning Existing Database instrumentations that are using v1.20.0 of this document (or prior):

• SHOULD NOT change the version of the networking conventions that they emit until the HTTP semantic conventions are marked stable (HTTP stabilization will include stabilization of a core set of networking conventions which are also used in Database instrumentations). Conventions include, but are not limited to, attributes, metric and span names, and unit of measure.
• SHOULD introduce an environment variable OTEL_SEMCONV_STABILITY_OPT_IN in the existing major version which is a comma-separated list of values. The only values defined so far are:
  • http - emit the new, stable networking conventions, and stop emitting the old experimental networking conventions that the instrumentation emitted previously.
  • http/dup - emit both the old and the stable networking conventions, allowing for a seamless transition.
  • The default behavior (in the absence of one of these values) is to continue emitting whatever version of the old experimental networking conventions the instrumentation was emitting previously.
  • Note: http/dup has higher precedence than http in case both values are present
• SHOULD maintain (security patching at a minimum) the existing major version for at least six months after it starts emitting both sets of conventions.
• SHOULD drop the environment variable in the next major version.

Span kind: MUST always be CLIENT.

The span name SHOULD be set to a low cardinality value representing the statement executed on the database. It MAY be a stored procedure name (without arguments), DB statement without variable arguments, operation name, etc. Since SQL statements may have very high cardinality even without arguments, SQL spans SHOULD be named the following way, unless the statement is known to be of low cardinality: <db.operation> <db.name>.<db.sql.table>, provided that db.operation and db.sql.table are available. If db.sql.table is not available due to its semantics, the span SHOULD be named <db.operation> <db.name>. It is not recommended to attempt any client-side parsing of db.statement just to get these properties, they should only be used if the library being instrumented already provides them. When it’s otherwise impossible to get any meaningful span name, db.name or the tech-specific database name MAY be used.

Span that describes database call SHOULD cover the duration of the corresponding call as if it was observed by the caller (such as client application). For example, if a transient issue happened and was retried within this database call, the corresponding span should cover the duration of the logical operation with all retries.

Common attributes

These attributes will usually be the same for all operations performed over the same database connection. Some database systems may allow a connection to switch to a different db.user, for example, and other database systems may not even have the concept of a connection at all.

Attribute	Type	Description	Examples	Requirement Level	Stability
db.system	string	An identifier for the database management system (DBMS) product being used. See below for a list of well-known identifiers.	other_sql	Required
db.name	string	This attribute is used to report the name of the database being accessed. For commands that switch the database, this should be set to the target database (even if the command fails). [1]	customers; main	Conditionally Required If applicable.
db.operation	string	The name of the operation being executed, e.g. the MongoDB command name such as findAndModify, or the SQL keyword. [2]	findAndModify; HMSET; SELECT	Conditionally Required If db.statement is not applicable.
server.port	int	Server port number. [3]	80; 8080; 443	Conditionally Required [4]
db.instance.id	string	An identifier (address, unique name, or any other identifier) of the database instance that is executing queries or mutations on the current connection. This is useful in cases where the database is running in a clustered environment and the instrumentation is able to record the node executing the query. The client may obtain this value in databases like MySQL using queries like select @@hostname.	mysql-e26b99z.example.com	Recommended If different from the server.address
db.statement	string	The database statement being executed.	SELECT * FROM wuser_table; SET mykey "WuValue"	Recommended [5]
db.user	string	Username for accessing the database.	readonly_user; reporting_user	Recommended
network.peer.address	string	Peer address of the database node where the operation was performed. [6]	10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock	Recommended If applicable for this database system.
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. [7]	example.com; 10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock	Recommended

[1]: In some SQL databases, the database name to be used is called “schema name”. In case there are multiple layers that could be considered for database name (e.g. Oracle instance name and schema name), the database name to be used is the more specific layer (e.g. Oracle schema name).

[2]: When setting this to an SQL keyword, it is not recommended to attempt any client-side parsing of db.statement just to get this property, but it should be set if the operation name is provided by the library being instrumented. If the SQL statement has an ambiguous operation, or performs more than one operation, this value may be omitted.

[3]: 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.

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

[5]: Should be collected by default only if there is sanitization that excludes sensitive information.

[6]: Semantic conventions for individual database systems SHOULD document whether network.peer.* attributes are applicable. Network peer address and port are useful when the application interacts with individual database nodes directly. If a database operation involved multiple network calls (for example retries), the address of the last contacted node SHOULD be used.

[7]: 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.

db.system 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_sql	Some other SQL database. Fallback only. See notes.
mssql	Microsoft SQL Server
mssqlcompact	Microsoft SQL Server Compact
mysql	MySQL
oracle	Oracle Database
db2	IBM Db2
postgresql	PostgreSQL
redshift	Amazon Redshift
hive	Apache Hive
cloudscape	Cloudscape
hsqldb	HyperSQL DataBase
progress	Progress Database
maxdb	SAP MaxDB
hanadb	SAP HANA
ingres	Ingres
firstsql	FirstSQL
edb	EnterpriseDB
cache	InterSystems Caché
adabas	Adabas (Adaptable Database System)
firebird	Firebird
derby	Apache Derby
filemaker	FileMaker
informix	Informix
instantdb	InstantDB
interbase	InterBase
mariadb	MariaDB
netezza	Netezza
pervasive	Pervasive PSQL
pointbase	PointBase
sqlite	SQLite
sybase	Sybase
teradata	Teradata
vertica	Vertica
h2	H2
coldfusion	ColdFusion IMQ
cassandra	Apache Cassandra
hbase	Apache HBase
mongodb	MongoDB
redis	Redis
couchbase	Couchbase
couchdb	CouchDB
cosmosdb	Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
dynamodb	Amazon DynamoDB
neo4j	Neo4j
geode	Apache Geode
elasticsearch	Elasticsearch
memcached	Memcached
cockroachdb	CockroachDB
opensearch	OpenSearch
clickhouse	ClickHouse
spanner	Cloud Spanner
trino	Trino

Notes and well-known identifiers for db.system

The list above is a non-exhaustive list of well-known identifiers to be specified for db.system.

If a value defined in this list applies to the DBMS to which the request is sent, this value MUST be used. If no value defined in this list is suitable, a custom value MUST be provided. This custom value MUST be the name of the DBMS in lowercase and without a version number to stay consistent with existing identifiers.

It is encouraged to open a PR towards this specification to add missing values to the list, especially when instrumentations for those missing databases are written. This allows multiple instrumentations for the same database to be aligned and eases analyzing for backends.

The value other_sql is intended as a fallback and MUST only be used if the DBMS is known to be SQL-compliant but the concrete product is not known to the instrumentation. If the concrete DBMS is known to the instrumentation, its specific identifier MUST be used.

Back ends could, for example, use the provided identifier to determine the appropriate SQL dialect for parsing the db.statement.

When additional attributes are added that only apply to a specific DBMS, its identifier SHOULD be used as a namespace in the attribute key as for the attributes in the sections below.

Semantic Conventions for specific database technologies

More specific Semantic Conventions are defined for the following database technologies:

• AWS DynamoDB: Semantic Conventions for AWS DynamoDB.
• Cassandra: Semantic Conventions for Cassandra.
• Cosmos DB: Semantic Conventions for Microsoft Cosmos DB.
• CouchDB: Semantic Conventions for CouchDB.
• Elasticsearch: Semantic Conventions for Elasticsearch.
• HBase: Semantic Conventions for HBase.
• MongoDB: Semantic Conventions for MongoDB.
• MSSQL: Semantic Conventions for MSSQL.
• Redis: Semantic Conventions for Redis.
• SQL: Semantic Conventions for SQL databases.