Use retention policies, ingestion usage notifications, and sampling to manage trace availability and volume. Confirm the active settings for your client before production rollout.

Retention

Trace retention supports periods of 7, 15, or 30 days, with a configured default of 15 days. Available values and defaults can vary by deployment; confirm the policy for your client with the OpsRamp administrator. Data outside the retention window is no longer available after expiry cleanup.

Creating a retention policy requires Administration permission. Reading a policy requires Trace View, while deletion requires Trace Manage. The current observability UI does not expose a trace-retention editor, so availability of the administrative workflow depends on the deployed management surface.

Ingestion limits

Trace ingestion limits are expressed in millions of spans for a selected period. Supported values range from 1 through 32,767. The Trace Limits settings expose daily and monthly periods.

OpsRamp monitors usage and sends warning or critical notifications. Reaching the configured value does not reject trace traffic. Use sampling and Collector or trace-proxy settings to control actual forwarded volume.

Confirm notification thresholds, recipients, and escalation procedures with your client administrator.

Search within the relevant time range

Select a time range that includes the request and narrow large result sets using service, operation, trace ID, or attribute filters. The displayed result limits can vary by workflow and release. If a search does not show an expected trace, check export status, sampling, and retention before expanding the search.

Planning guidance

Estimate span volume from request rate multiplied by average spans per trace, then account for sampling rate and traffic growth. Review attribute cardinality, because unbounded service names, operations, or custom attributes increase storage and query cost even when span count is stable.