What monitoring tools are included?
In 2026, OCI provides a multi-layered monitoring and observability suite. Most core infrastructure monitoring is included at no additional cost, while advanced deep-dive tools are billed based on the amount of data (telemetry) they ingest.
Here are the tools included in your rental:
This is the default "dashboard" for your infrastructure.
Cost: Included/Free for all OCI service metrics (e.g., CPU, Memory, Disk I/O). You only pay if you ingest "Custom Metrics" from your own apps.
Alarms: You can set triggers (e.g., "Email me if CPU > 85% for 5 minutes").
Metrics Explorer: A built-in tool to create charts and visualize the health of your servers, databases, and network in real-time.
Logging provides a central view of every event happening "under the hood."
Service Logs: Automatically captures events from the API Gateway, Load Balancers, and VCN Flow Logs.
Audit Logs: Always-on and Free. It records every single action taken in your OCI account (who did what and when), which is essential for security compliance.
Agent-Based Logging: You can install a small agent on your rented servers to "stream" your application logs (like Apache or error logs) directly into the OCI console.
These are the "glue" that allows your infrastructure to talk to you.
Events: A rule engine that watches for state changes (e.g., "A backup finished" or "A server was terminated").
Notifications: The delivery system. It can send messages via Email, SMS, Slack, PagerDuty, or even trigger an OCI Function to automatically fix a problem (e.g., restarting a service).
For 2026, if you need more than just basic charts, OCI offers these professional-grade tools:
Stack Monitoring: Provides a "full-stack" view. It doesn't just see a server; it understands that the server is running a WebLogic app connected to an Oracle Database, and shows you the health of that entire relationship.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM): For developers. It traces individual user transactions as they move through your code to find exactly which line of code is causing a delay.
Logging Analytics: Uses AI to scan millions of log lines to find patterns, anomalies, or the "needle in the haystack" root cause of a crash.
| Tool | Focus | Included? |
| Monitoring | Performance (CPU, RAM, Disk) | Yes (Standard Metrics) |
| Audit Logs | Security & Compliance | Yes (Always Free) |
| Health Checks | External Availability (Ping/URL) | Yes |
| Notifications | Alerts (Email, Slack, SMS) | Yes (Generous Free Tier) |
| Log Analytics | AI-driven Troubleshooting | Paid (per GB) |
Don't want to use OCI's tools? You can use the Service Connector Hub (also included) to automatically "pipe" your OCI metrics and logs into third-party tools like Splunk, Datadog, or Grafana in near real-time.