memory.md

Semantic conventions for memory metrics

Status: Development

• Memory metrics hw.memory.*
  • Metric: hw.errors (Memory)
  • Metric: hw.memory.size
  • Metric: hw.status (Memory)

Memory metrics hw.memory.*

A memory module in a computer system.

hw.type MUST be set to "memory".

All memory metrics may include the below attributes:

Attributes:

Key	Stability	Requirement Level	Value Type	Description	Example Values
hw.id		Required	string	An identifier for the hardware component, unique within the monitored host	win32battery_battery_testsysa33_1
hw.memory.type		Recommended	string	Type of the memory module	DDR4; DDR5; LPDDR5
hw.model		Recommended	string	Descriptive model name of the hardware component	PERC H740P; Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700K; Dell XPS 15 Battery
hw.name		Recommended	string	An easily-recognizable name for the hardware component	eth0
hw.parent		Recommended	string	Unique identifier of the parent component (typically the hw.id attribute of the enclosure, or disk controller)	dellStorage_perc_0
hw.serial_number		Recommended	string	Serial number of the hardware component	CNFCP0123456789
hw.vendor		Recommended	string	Vendor name of the hardware component	Dell; HP; Intel; AMD; LSI; Lenovo

Metric: hw.errors (Memory)

This metric is recommended.

Number of errors encountered on this memory module.

When using this metric, the following attributes MUST be set:

• hw.type MUST be set to "memory" to indicate that the errors are from a memory module.

Name	Instrument Type	Unit (UCUM)	Description	Stability	Entity Associations
hw.errors	Counter	{error}	Number of errors encountered by the component.

Attributes:

Key	Stability	Requirement Level	Value Type	Description	Example Values
hw.id		Required	string	An identifier for the hardware component, unique within the monitored host	win32battery_battery_testsysa33_1
hw.type		Required	string	Type of the component [1]	battery; cpu; disk_controller
error.type		Conditionally Required if and only if an error has occurred	string	The type of error encountered by the component. [2]	uncorrected; zero_buffer_credit; crc; bad_sector
hw.name		Recommended	string	An easily-recognizable name for the hardware component	eth0
hw.parent		Recommended	string	Unique identifier of the parent component (typically the hw.id attribute of the enclosure, or disk controller)	dellStorage_perc_0
network.io.direction		Recommended	string	Direction of network traffic for network errors. [3]	receive; transmit

[1] hw.type: Describes the category of the hardware component for which hw.state is being reported. For example, hw.type=temperature along with hw.state=degraded would indicate that the temperature of the hardware component has been reported as degraded.

[2] error.type: The error.type SHOULD match the error code reported by the component, the canonical name of the error, or another low-cardinality error identifier. Instrumentations SHOULD document the list of errors they report.

[3] network.io.direction: This attribute SHOULD only be used when hw.type is set to "network" to indicate the direction of the error.

---

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.

---

hw.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
battery	Battery
cpu	CPU
disk_controller	Disk controller
enclosure	Enclosure
fan	Fan
gpu	GPU
logical_disk	Logical disk
memory	Memory
network	Network
physical_disk	Physical disk
power_supply	Power supply
tape_drive	Tape drive
temperature	Temperature
voltage	Voltage

---

network.io.direction 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
receive	receive
transmit	transmit

Metric: hw.memory.size

This metric is recommended.

Size of the memory module.

Name	Instrument Type	Unit (UCUM)	Description	Stability	Entity Associations
hw.memory.size	UpDownCounter	By	Size of the memory module.

Attributes:

Key	Stability	Requirement Level	Value Type	Description	Example Values
hw.id		Required	string	An identifier for the hardware component, unique within the monitored host	win32battery_battery_testsysa33_1
hw.memory.type		Recommended	string	Type of the memory module	DDR4; DDR5; LPDDR5
hw.model		Recommended	string	Descriptive model name of the hardware component	PERC H740P; Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700K; Dell XPS 15 Battery
hw.name		Recommended	string	An easily-recognizable name for the hardware component	eth0
hw.parent		Recommended	string	Unique identifier of the parent component (typically the hw.id attribute of the enclosure, or disk controller)	dellStorage_perc_0
hw.serial_number		Recommended	string	Serial number of the hardware component	CNFCP0123456789
hw.vendor		Recommended	string	Vendor name of the hardware component	Dell; HP; Intel; AMD; LSI; Lenovo

Metric: hw.status (Memory)

This metric is recommended.

Operational status: 1 (true) or 0 (false) for each of the possible states.

When using this metric for memory status, the following attributes MUST be set:

• hw.type MUST be set to "memory" to indicate that the status is for a memory module.
• hw.state MUST be set to one of the following values to indicate the memory state:
  • "ok": The memory module is operating normally.
  • "degraded": The memory module is operating with reduced functionality or performance.
  • "failed": The memory module has failed and is not operational.
  • "predicted_failure": The memory module is currently operational but is predicted to fail soon.

Name	Instrument Type	Unit (UCUM)	Description	Stability	Entity Associations
hw.status	UpDownCounter	1	Operational status: 1 (true) or 0 (false) for each of the possible states. [1]

[1]: hw.status is currently specified as an UpDownCounter but would ideally be represented using a StateSet as defined in OpenMetrics. This semantic convention will be updated once StateSet is specified in OpenTelemetry. This planned change is not expected to have any consequence on the way users query their timeseries backend to retrieve the values of hw.status over time.

Attributes:

Key	Stability	Requirement Level	Value Type	Description	Example Values
hw.id		Required	string	An identifier for the hardware component, unique within the monitored host	win32battery_battery_testsysa33_1
hw.state		Required	string	The current state of the component	degraded; failed; needs_cleaning
hw.type		Required	string	Type of the component [1]	battery; cpu; disk_controller
hw.name		Recommended	string	An easily-recognizable name for the hardware component	eth0
hw.parent		Recommended	string	Unique identifier of the parent component (typically the hw.id attribute of the enclosure, or disk controller)	dellStorage_perc_0

[1] hw.type: Describes the category of the hardware component for which hw.state is being reported. For example, hw.type=temperature along with hw.state=degraded would indicate that the temperature of the hardware component has been reported as degraded.

---

hw.state 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
degraded	Degraded
failed	Failed
needs_cleaning	Needs Cleaning
ok	OK
predicted_failure	Predicted Failure

---

hw.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
battery	Battery
cpu	CPU
disk_controller	Disk controller
enclosure	Enclosure
fan	Fan
gpu	GPU
logical_disk	Logical disk
memory	Memory
network	Network
physical_disk	Physical disk
power_supply	Power supply
tape_drive	Tape drive
temperature	Temperature
voltage	Voltage