The following page may contain information related to upcoming products, features and functionality. It is important to note that the information presented is for informational purposes only, so please do not rely on the information for purchasing or planning purposes. Just like with all projects, the items mentioned on the page are subject to change or delay, and the development, release, and timing of any products, features or functionality remain at the sole discretion of GitLab Inc.
The Monitor stage offerings for both Product Analytics and Observability will require separate infrastructure from what GitLab runs on today. This is due to the need to leverage technologies like ClickHouse, Snowplow, Cube.dev, and others. We have different requirements than the Rails monolith with respect to qualities such as data ingestion, and horizontal scalability as part of providing a data management platform. We are exploring this as part of an internal working group. We will provide multiple different deployment options for this for GitLab.com, GitLab Dedicated, and self-managed deployments of GitLab.
One deployment option is for allowing Bring-Your-Own-Cluster or BYOC. In this deployment option, users will need to configure, run, and connect all of their own infrastructure to GitLab. This can work for GitLab.com, Dedicated, and self-managed. It lets users maintain full control over all their data and infrastructure at the expense of having to manage, scale, and support it themselves.
The other deployment option is to allow GitLab Inc to manage the required infrastructure. In this deployment option, users will be given URLs and API tokens that they can use to connect to pre-configured infrastructure. This means they can use it directly and not have to worry about scaling or managing it themselves. This will work on GitLab.com since we will connect a cluster directly to it. It will also work for GitLab Dedicated and self-managed customers by leveraging our cloud connector functionality.
Today, both Observability and Product Analytics can be used on GitLab.com with the managed infrastructure approach. For Observability, only the cloud connector approach is available to Dedicated and self-managed users and in a beta state. In contrast, only the BYOC approach is available for Product Analytics for Dedicated and self-managed users.
Customers will choose one to use but it does not mean they are mutually exclusive from GitLab's perspective in terms of which to implement. Our ideal state is that both approaches are available for customers to choose from. Primarily it is a sequencing decision on which we will develop first and which second.
We will first focus on enabling the BYOC deployment option for Observability. We will then work on enabling the cloud connector approach for Product Analytics. This approach will let us create a BYOC option that can be released in a GA capacity more quickly than doing it in the opposite order. Providing a managed version via cloud connector requires additional operational support and maintenance after the initial release that will take longer for us to be in a position to provide. In contrast, we can create a BYOC version of observability, modeled after the BYOC of Product Analytics, in a shorter time.
To simplify our current and deployement planned deployment options, the table below summarizes this:
| Deployment Method | Available on GitLab.com | Available on GitLab Dedicated | Available on self-managed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bring your own cluster | Planned | Planned | Planned |
| Cloud connector | N/A | Planned | Planned |
| GitLab managed | Beta | Planned | Planned |
| Deployment Method | Available on GitLab.com | Available on GitLab Dedicated | Available on self-managed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bring your own cluster | GA | GA | GA |
| Cloud connector | N/A | Planned | Planned |
| GitLab managed | Beta | Planned | Planned |