Upgrading from Application Insights Java 2.x SDK

There are typically no code changes when upgrading to 3.x. The 3.x SDK dependencies are no-op API versions of the 2.x SDK dependencies. However, when used with the 3.x Java agent, the 3.x Java agent provides the implementation for them. As a result, your custom instrumentation is correlated with all the new autoinstrumentation provided by the 3.x Java agent.

Step 1: Update dependencies

2.x dependency	Action	Remarks
applicationinsights-core	Update the version to 3.4.3 or later
applicationinsights-web	Update the version to 3.4.3 or later, and remove the Application Insights web filter your web.xml file.
applicationinsights-web-auto	Replace with 3.4.3 or later of applicationinsights-web
applicationinsights-logging-log4j1_2	Remove the dependency and remove the Application Insights appender from your Log4j configuration.	No longer needed since Log4j 1.2 is autoinstrumented in the 3.x Java agent.
applicationinsights-logging-log4j2	Remove the dependency and remove the Application Insights appender from your Log4j configuration.	No longer needed since Log4j 2 is autoinstrumented in the 3.x Java agent.
applicationinsights-logging-logback	Remove the dependency and remove the Application Insights appender from your Logback configuration.	No longer needed since Logback is autoinstrumented in the 3.x Java agent.
applicationinsights-spring-boot-starter	Replace with 3.4.3 or later of applicationinsights-web	The cloud role name no longer defaults to spring.application.name. To learn how to configure the cloud role name, see the 3.x configuration docs.

Step 2: Add the 3.x Java agent

Add the 3.x Java agent to your Java Virtual Machine (JVM) command-line args, for example:

-javaagent:path/to/applicationinsights-agent-.jar

If you're using the Application Insights 2.x Java agent, just replace your existing -javaagent:... with the previous example.

Note

If you were using the spring-boot-starter and if you prefer, there is an alternative to using the Java agent. See 3.x Spring Boot.

Step 3: Configure your Application Insights connection string

See configuring the connection string.

Other notes

The rest of this document describes limitations and changes that you might encounter when upgrading from 2.x to 3.x, and some workarounds that you might find helpful.

TelemetryInitializers

2.x SDK TelemetryInitializers don't run when using the 3.x agent. Many of the use cases that previously required writing a TelemetryInitializer can be solved in Application Insights Java 3.x by configuring custom dimensions. Or using inherited attributes.

TelemetryProcessors

2.x SDK TelemetryProcessors don't run when using the 3.x agent. Many of the use cases that previously required writing a TelemetryProcessor can be solved in Application Insights Java 3.x by configuring sampling overrides.

Multiple applications in a single JVM

This use case is supported in Application Insights Java 3.x using Cloud role name overrides (preview) and/or Connection string overrides (preview).

Operation names

In the Application Insights Java 2.x SDK, in some cases, the operation names contained the full path, for example:

Operation names in Application Insights Java 3.x changed to generally provide a better aggregated view in the Application Insights Portal U/X, for example:

However, for some applications, you might still prefer the aggregated view in the U/X that was provided by the previous operation names. In this case, you can use the telemetry processors (preview) feature in 3.x to replicate the previous behavior.

The following snippet configures three telemetry processors that combine to replicate the previous behavior. The telemetry processors perform the following actions (in order):

1. The first telemetry processor is an attribute processor (has type attribute), which means it applies to all telemetry that has attributes (currently requests and dependencies, but soon also traces).

   It matches any telemetry that has attributes named http.request.method and url.path.

   Then it extracts url.path attribute into a new attribute named tempName.

2. The second telemetry processor is a span processor (has type span), which means it applies to requests and dependencies.

   It matches any span that has an attribute named tempPath.

   Then it updates the span name from the attribute tempPath.

3. The last telemetry processor is an attribute processor, same type as the first telemetry processor.

   It matches any telemetry that has an attribute named tempPath.

   Then it deletes the attribute named tempPath, and the attribute appears as a custom dimension.

{
  "preview": {
    "processors": [
      {
        "type": "attribute",
        "include": {
          "matchType": "strict",
          "attributes": [
            { "key": "http.request.method" },
            { "key": "url.path" }
          ]
        },
        "actions": [
          {
            "key": "url.path",
            "pattern": "https?://[^/]+(?<tempPath>/[^?]*)",
            "action": "extract"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "type": "span",
        "include": {
          "matchType": "strict",
          "attributes": [
            { "key": "tempPath" }
          ]
        },
        "name": {
          "fromAttributes": [ "http.request.method", "tempPath" ],
          "separator": " "
        }
      },
      {
        "type": "attribute",
        "include": {
          "matchType": "strict",
          "attributes": [
            { "key": "tempPath" }
          ]
        },
        "actions": [
          { "key": "tempPath", "action": "delete" }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Project example

This Java 2.x SDK project is migrated to a new project using the 3.x Java agent.