Datadog · Application performance monitoring
Application performance monitoring (APM) with Datadog, set up and supported in Saudi Arabia
Application performance monitoring (APM) follows each request through the services, databases and external calls that handle it, and shows where the time went and where an error started. Datadog APM does this with distributed tracing, linked to logs, real user monitoring, synthetic tests and code-level profiling. Interkey, an official Datadog partner, sells Datadog licences in Saudi Arabia, instruments your applications, designs what is kept and for how long, and provides technical support after go-live.
Published 5 min read
In short
- What APM answers: which service, endpoint or database call made a request slow or made it fail.
- How traces are collected: Single Step Instrumentation, the Datadog SDKs, or OpenTelemetry.
- What you can search: every ingested span for the last 15 minutes; spans kept by retention filters for 15 days.
- Code level: Continuous Profiler shows CPU, memory and I/O hot spots by method and line.
- How it is billed: per APM host, with allowances for ingested and indexed spans included.
- What Interkey does: licences, instrumentation, tagging, sampling and retention design, personal-data masking, dashboards, alerts and support.
What application performance monitoring shows
A dashboard that says "the API is slow" starts an argument. A trace that shows most of the request's time spent in one database query ends it. That is the job of APM.
| Question | What APM provides | Where in Datadog |
|---|---|---|
| Which service is slow or failing? | Latency, errors and request rates per service and endpoint, compared between versions during a deployment | Service page |
| Where in the request did the time go? | The full trace across services, queues and external calls | Distributed tracing, Trace Explorer |
| Is it our code? | CPU, memory and I/O use broken down by method, class and line | Continuous Profiler, linked to traces |
| Is it the database? | Traces linked to the queries behind them | Database Monitoring correlation |
| What did the user see? | The user's session linked to the backend trace | Real User Monitoring correlation |
| What did the logs say? | The log lines written during that request | Log correlation |
Three ways to instrument an application
- Single Step Instrumentation. Installs the Datadog Agent and loads the Datadog SDK into supported processes, without code changes. Datadog provides it for Linux hosts, Docker, Kubernetes and Windows; check the compatibility list for your languages first. It switches itself off where custom instrumentation is detected.
- Datadog SDKs. Custom instrumentation adds spans and tags for the operations the business cares about, such as a payment authorisation or an application submission.
- OpenTelemetry. Datadog ingests OpenTelemetry traces, metrics and logs, and recommends its Agent with the embedded Datadog Distribution of OpenTelemetry (DDOT) Collector. Which Datadog features you get depends on the set-up you choose.
Read more
Whichever path you take, use the same three tags everywhere: env, service and version. Datadog calls this unified service tagging, and it is what ties traces, metrics and logs together across Datadog. In Interkey's reference design, service names are lowercase and hyphenated, environments come from a fixed list (dev, test, uat, staging, prod), and the version is injected by the CI/CD pipeline, never hard-coded.
What APM data is kept, and for how long
| Data | How long it can be searched |
|---|---|
| All ingested spans, unsampled (Live Search) | The last 15 minutes, rolling |
| Spans indexed by your retention filters | 15 days |
| Intelligent retention filter: a diverse sample biased to errors and high latency, plus a 1% flat sample | 30 days, not counted against indexed-span usage |
Ingestion controls set sampling rates per service and resource. Sampling is a design decision, not a default to accept. Datadog calculates its request, error and latency metrics from all traces, so sampling does not distort them; Interkey's OpenTelemetry reference design keeps this by computing the same statistics before sampling. In that design, production keeps every error and every slow trace plus a 10–20% baseline, and very high-volume services sample further.
APM data and personal data
Spans carry URLs, query parameters, SQL statements and exception messages. Any of these can contain a national ID, a mobile number or an email address. As of November 2026, Datadog lists no site in the Middle East, so trace data is stored outside the Kingdom. Personal data has to be kept out of it or masked before it is sent.
Read more
- Don't collect it. Keep personal data out of span attributes and log messages; use pseudonymised identifiers.
- Mask it inside your network. Apply masking rules in a processing tier you run, such as an OpenTelemetry Collector, before data is sent.
- Know what the cloud scanner does. Datadog's Sensitive Data Scanner, when it scans in the cloud, redacts after the data has left your environment.
Interkey offers a telemetry PII masking review: we test your masking rules against Saudi formats, such as mobile and national ID numbers, and against values that only look similar. Our Datadog data residency guide covers what reaches Datadog and where it is stored.
RelatedDatadog data residency guide
How Datadog APM is billed
Datadog bills APM per APM host, per month. Each APM host includes 150 GB of ingested spans and 1 million indexed spans a month. APM Pro adds Data Streams Monitoring; APM Enterprise adds Data Streams Monitoring and Continuous Profiler. Containers on serverless platforms and serverless functions have their own units. List prices, and how the units add up across a whole estate, are on our Datadog pricing guide.
How Interkey sets up Datadog APM
-
Choose the services.
Start with the services the business notices within minutes when they degrade.
-
Quote the licences.
APM hosts and tier, alongside the infrastructure and logs you already run or plan.
-
Instrument.
Single Step Instrumentation where it fits, the SDKs or OpenTelemetry where it does not, with one tagging standard.
-
Design sampling and retention.
Ingestion controls and retention filters per environment, sized against the span allowances.
-
Mask personal data.
Masking rules written and tested before production traffic is traced.
-
Build dashboards and alerts.
Service-level dashboards for the teams that own each service. Each alert names the affected service, the likely cause and the first thing to check.
-
Operate or hand over.
Interkey operates the platform from Riyadh, Sunday to Thursday, or hands it over with documentation and stays on as technical support.
Questions buyers ask
Do we have to change our code?
Not to start. Single Step Instrumentation traces supported services without code changes. Custom spans for business operations need a few lines of code.
Can we use OpenTelemetry instead of the Datadog Agent?
Yes. Datadog ingests OpenTelemetry data. Some Datadog features depend on the path you choose, so we agree the path per service before rollout.
How long are traces kept?
All ingested spans can be searched for 15 minutes. Spans kept by your retention filters stay searchable for 15 days, and Datadog's intelligent retention sample for 30 days.
Does APM replace log management?
No. Traces show where time went; logs show what the code said. Linked, they take you from a slow request to the exact log lines behind it.
Can you supply the Datadog licences?
Yes. Interkey sells Datadog licences in Saudi Arabia and quotes them together with implementation and technical support.
Is APM data stored in Saudi Arabia?
No. As of November 2026, Datadog lists no Middle East site. Mask personal data before it is sent, and choose your Datadog site deliberately.
Next
Read next
Next step
Plan an APM rollout
Tell us which applications you want to trace, what they run on, and whether Datadog already runs in your estate. We can quote the APM licences, the set-up and technical support together.
Or directly
+966-11-2180999 [email protected]Tawuniya Towers, North Tower, 7th Floor, King Fahad Highway, Olaya, P.O. Box 56835, Riyadh 11564, Saudi Arabia