Apache SkyWalking — Questions

Open and answered questions about Apache SkyWalking.

Open Questions

• What is the production-ready BanyanDB cluster sizing guidance for 100B+ data points? → Community reports needed
• How does BanyanDB handle cross-datacenter replication? → Check BanyanDB roadmap
• What is the GraalVM Distro coverage for all OAP modules? → Currently BanyanDB-only scope
• How does the v10.4.0 LAL breaking change (slowSql {} removal) affect existing deployments? → observability/skywalking/operations#v10.4.0 Migration Notes
• What is the practical throughput ceiling for Rover eBPF agent vs Coroot's node-agent? → Benchmark comparison needed

Answered Questions

• What storage backend should I use? → BanyanDB (recommended), uses 5x less RAM and 30% less disk than Elasticsearch. See observability/skywalking/benchmarks.
• How fast does GraalVM native image start? → ~5ms vs ~635ms JVM. See observability/skywalking/benchmarks#GraalVM Distro Benchmarks.
• Does SkyWalking support OpenTelemetry? → Yes, OTLP receiver in OAP. Native agents preferred for Java.
• How many threads does OAP use? → ~150+ (JVM V1), ~72 (V2 with virtual threads on JDK 25+). See observability/skywalking/benchmarks#Thread Reduction.
• Can SkyWalking integrate with Grafana? → Yes, via PromQL plugin for metrics visualization.