cassandra.md

Semantic conventions for Cassandra client operations

Status: Development

• Spans
• Metrics

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

Spans

Status:

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.

Span name SHOULD follow the general database span name convention

Span kind SHOULD be CLIENT.

Span status SHOULD follow the Recording Errors document.

Attributes:

Key	Stability	Requirement Level	Value Type	Description	Example Values
db.collection.name		Conditionally Required [1]	string	The name of the Cassandra table that the operation is acting upon. [2]	public.users; customers
db.namespace		Conditionally Required If available.	string	The keyspace associated with the session. [3]	mykeyspace
db.operation.name		Conditionally Required [4]	string	The name of the operation or command being executed. [5]	findAndModify; HMSET; SELECT
db.response.status_code		Conditionally Required [6]	string	Cassandra protocol error code represented as a string. [7]	102; 40020
error.type		Conditionally Required If and only if the operation failed.	string	Describes a class of error the operation ended with. [8]	timeout; java.net.UnknownHostException; server_certificate_invalid; 500
server.port		Conditionally Required [9]	int	Server port number. [10]	80; 8080; 443
cassandra.consistency.level		Recommended	string	The consistency level of the query. Based on consistency values from CQL.	all; each_quorum; quorum
cassandra.coordinator.dc		Recommended	string	The data center of the coordinating node for a query.	us-west-2
cassandra.coordinator.id		Recommended	string	The ID of the coordinating node for a query.	be13faa2-8574-4d71-926d-27f16cf8a7af
cassandra.page.size		Recommended	int	The fetch size used for paging, i.e. how many rows will be returned at once.	5000
cassandra.query.idempotent		Recommended	boolean	Whether or not the query is idempotent.
cassandra.speculative_execution.count		Recommended	int	The number of times a query was speculatively executed. Not set or 0 if the query was not executed speculatively.	0; 2
db.operation.batch.size		Recommended	int	The number of queries included in a batch operation. [11]	2; 3; 4
db.query.summary		Recommended [12]	string	Low cardinality summary of a database query. [13]	SELECT wuser_table; INSERT shipping_details SELECT orders; get user by id
db.query.text		Recommended [14]	string	The database query being executed. [15]	SELECT * FROM wuser_table where username = ?; SET mykey ?
db.response.returned_rows		Recommended	int	Number of rows returned by the operation. [16]	10; 30; 1000
network.peer.address		Recommended	string	Peer address of the database node where the operation was performed. [17]	10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock
network.peer.port		Recommended if and only if network.peer.address is set.	int	Peer port number of the network connection.	65123
server.address		Recommended	string	Name of the database host. [18]	example.com; 10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock
db.query.parameter.<key>		Opt-In	string	A database query parameter, with <key> being the parameter name, and the attribute value being a string representation of the parameter value. [19]	someval; 55

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

[2] 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.

[3] db.namespace: If a database system has multiple namespace components, they SHOULD be concatenated from the most general to the most specific namespace component, using | as a separator between the components. Any missing components (and their associated separators) SHOULD be omitted. 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: If readily available and if there is a single operation name that describes the database call.

[5] 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 query text with multiple operations in non-batch operations.

If spaces can occur in the operation name, multiple consecutive spaces SHOULD be normalized to a single space.

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.

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

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

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

[10] 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.

[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: if available through instrumentation hooks or if the instrumentation supports generating a query summary.

[13] db.query.summary: The query summary 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.

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

[14] 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.query.parameter.<key>).

[15] 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. Parameterized query text SHOULD NOT be sanitized. 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.

[16] db.response.returned_rows: The number of rows returned by the database operation as observed by the instrumentation at the time the span ends.

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

[18] 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.

[19] db.query.parameter.<key>: If a query parameter has no name and instead is referenced only by index, then <key> SHOULD be the 0-based index.

db.query.parameter.<key> SHOULD match up with the parameterized placeholders present in db.query.text.

It is RECOMMENDED to capture the value as provided by the application without attempting to do any case normalization.

db.query.parameter.<key> SHOULD NOT be captured on batch operations.

Examples:

• For a query SELECT * FROM users where username = %s with the parameter "jdoe", the attribute db.query.parameter.0 SHOULD be set to "jdoe".

• For a query "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = %(userName)s; with parameter userName = "jdoe", the attribute db.query.parameter.userName SHOULD be set to "jdoe".

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".