User Guide · SkyWalking Ingestion

DataBuff Ingest supports the SkyWalking native gRPC protocol (v3) directly. Java Agents or custom SDKs can submit traces, JVM metrics, and logs to DataBuff without going through a SkyWalking OAP or OpenTelemetry Collector.

Supported Signals

Signal	Protocol	Ingest Port
Trace (Segment)	SkyWalking gRPC TraceSegmentReportService	11800
JVM Metrics	SkyWalking gRPC JVMMetricReportService	11800
Logs	SkyWalking gRPC LogReportService	11800

Prerequisites

DataBuff is deployed and Ingest is reachable:

• Docker Installation
• Kubernetes Installation

Endpoints

Replace <ingest-host> with your Ingest hostname or IP.

Protocol	Endpoint	Notes
SkyWalking gRPC	<ingest-host>:11800	Java Agent backend_service / agent.backend_service

Default Docker install maps 11800:11800 (see deploy/docker/docker-compose.yml:81).
K8s default NodePort is 31180 (see deploy/k8s/manifests/ingest.yaml:27).

Java Agent Configuration

Minimal agent.config

# Point to DataBuff Ingest; replace <ingest-host> with actual address
agent.backend_service=<ingest-host>:11800

# Application name
agent.service_name=my-service

Save the above as agent.config, then start the JVM:

java -javaagent:/path/to/skywalking-agent.jar \
     -Dskywalking_config=/path/to/agent.config \
     -jar my-service.jar

Or override via system properties:

java -javaagent:/path/to/skywalking-agent.jar \
     -Dskywalking.agent.service_name=my-service \
     -Dskywalking.collector.backend_service=<ingest-host>:11800 \
     -jar my-service.jar

Optional Configuration

# Sampling (default: once per 3 seconds; -1 means full sample)
agent.sample_n_per_3_secs=-1

# Ignored trace suffixes (comma-separated)
# agent.ignore_suffix=.do,.action

# Max operation name length
agent.operation_name_threshold=150

# Max correlation header size
agent.correlation_header_max_size=2048

Migration Differences from SkyWalking OAP

Protocol Compatibility

DataBuff Ingest implements three core SkyWalking v3 gRPC services, compatible with the official OAP:

• TraceSegmentReportService — accepts SegmentObject (collect / collectInSync)
• JVMMetricReportService — accepts JVMMetricCollection
• LogReportService — accepts LogData
• ManagementService — registered (NOOP), agent heartbeat is ignored

Source: ai-apm-ingest/src/main/java/com/databuff/apm/ingest/receiver/SkyWalkingGrpcServer.java:46

data.source Field

DataBuff's data.source field identifies the protocol that produced the data:

Source	data.source Value	Notes
SkyWalking native	SkyWalking	Via ingest.skywalking.grpc-port:11800
OTLP	Otel	Via ingest.otlp.grpc-port:4317 or HTTP 4318

Constants defined in ai-apm-ingest/src/main/java/com/databuff/apm/ingest/trace/remote/TraceDataSources.java:18.

Feature Comparison

Feature	SkyWalking OAP	DataBuff Ingest
Trace storage	H2 / ES / BanyanDB	Apache Doris
Metric aggregation	OAP internal streaming	Ingest pipeline → Doris
Alerting	OAP Alarm + Webhook	DataBuff Web alert engine
UI	SkyWalking Rocketbot	DataBuff Web
gRPC port	11800 (default)	11800 (configurable via ingest.skywalking.grpc-port)
Config file	application.yml	ai-apm-ingest/src/main/resources/application.yml:36-38

The following OAP components are not needed:

• OAP server
• H2 / Elasticsearch / BanyanDB
• SkyWalking UI (Rocketbot)

Coexistence with OTLP

DataBuff supports SkyWalking native protocol and OTLP simultaneously, without interference.

Protocol	Port	Toggle
SkyWalking gRPC	11800	ingest.skywalking.enabled=true (enabled by default)
OTLP gRPC	4317	Always on
OTLP HTTP	4318	Always on

Services within the same environment can mix protocols freely. Cross-protocol trace correlation requires manual agreement on TraceId propagation format (SW8 vs W3C traceparent).

Demo App Verification

The DataBuff Demo app supports the SkyWalking protocol. Set environment variables to switch:

export SEED_PROTOCOL=skywalking
export SKYWALKING_GRPC_TARGET=<ingest-host>:11800

Source: ai-apm-demo/src/main/java/com/databuff/apm/demo/DemoOrderSeeder.java:25
Local deployment reference: deploy/local/docker-compose.yml:182-183

Configuration Reference

SkyWalking-related settings in application.yml:

ingest:
  skywalking:
    enabled: true           # Enable SkyWalking gRPC receiver
    grpc-port: 11800        # SkyWalking gRPC listening port

Verification

1. Confirm the Ingest port is reachable:

telnet <ingest-host> 11800

2. Start an application configured with the SkyWalking Agent.
3. Open the DataBuff Web UI and verify the service appears in Application Performance.
4. Check that the Trace detail shows data.source as SkyWalking.

Related Documents

• OpenTelemetry OTLP Ingestion
• Application Performance
• Telemetry Pipeline and Storage