Why Migrate — Business Case & Vision
Gen2 → Gen3 Migration Guide
This guide walks through migrating from Dynatrace Classic (Gen2) to the Latest Dynatrace (Gen3) — step by step, phase by phase. Each module explains what changed, how to convert existing settings, and what the new equivalent looks like.
Migration Roadmap
What Needs to Be Migrated
Here's every Gen2 setting that has a Gen3 replacement, and where in this guide it's covered:
What You Have (Gen2) What to Migrate To (Gen3) Guide Module
────────────────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────────────────── ─────────────
Metric expressions (d:, :splitBy) DQL timeseries command Module 05
USQL queries DQL fetch user.events / user.sessions Module 07
Entity selectors DQL fetch dt.entity.* / smartscapeNodes Module 06
Classic dashboards Gen3 dashboards (built-in upgrade button) Module 09
Data Explorer visualizations Notebooks Module 10
Metric events (threshold alerts) Anomaly detectors (built-in transpiler) Module 12
Alerting profiles + notifications Workflows + connectors Module 13
Classic SLOs Platform SLOs Module 14
Management zones Segments + host tags Module 16
Environment-level users/roles Account-level IAM + ABAC policies Module 17
API tokens (for new features) OAuth clients Module 17
Settings API v1 Settings 2.0 Module 18
Terraform/Monaco configs Updated resources + OAuth auth Module 19
Built-in Migration Tools
Many migrations are automated — no need to manually rewrite everything:
Tool What It Does How
────────────────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────────────────────── ──────────────────────
Dashboard Upgrade Button Auto-converts classic dashboard tiles to DQL Dashboards Classic → ⋮ → Upgrade
Anomaly Detection Transpiler Auto-converts metric events to DQL detectors Anomaly Detection → Improve metric events
Problems App Email Personal email alerts without admin setup Problems → bell icon → subscribe
SaaS Upgrade Assistant Auto-imports Managed configs to SaaS Hub → install → upload export
Monaco CLI Exports ALL config as YAML monaco download --url ...
Terraform Provider Declarative config-as-code with state terraform plan → apply
💡 Start with the automated tools. Use the Dashboard upgrade button and the Anomaly Detection transpiler first — they handle the bulk of the work. Then manually convert what they couldn't handle, using the DQL patterns in this guide.
What Changes vs What Stays
Not everything changes. These stay the same:
- OneAgent — same installation, same auto-instrumentation
- ActiveGate — same role for extensions and routing
- Davis AI — same root cause analysis, now with Davis CoPilot (natural language → DQL)
- Extensions 2.0 — same YAML format, same lifecycle
- Kubernetes Operator — same DynaKube CRD (v1beta6 in Operator 1.8.0+)
Timeline
Phase Duration What Happens
────────── ────────── ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
Phase 0 1 week Understand Grail, DQL, new UI — read Modules 00-03
Phase 1 1-2 weeks Learn DQL by converting existing queries — Modules 04-08
Phase 2 1-2 weeks Migrate dashboards (upgrade button + manual) — Modules 09-11
Phase 3 1-2 weeks Migrate alerts, notifications, SLOs — Modules 12-15
Phase 4 1-2 weeks Migrate access control, go live — Modules 16-20
────────── ────────── ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
Total 5-9 weeks Full migration with parallel Gen2/Gen3 validation
Why Migrate
Area Gen2 Pain Gen3 Solution
─────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────────── ──────────────────────────────
Cost Separate stores, index overhead Grail unifies, Datawarping eliminates indexes
Efficiency 9 query tools, manual alerting 1 language (DQL), automated workflows
Scale Management zones don't scale Segments: query-time, no pre-compute
AI Static thresholds, humans fix 3 analyzer models, auto-remediation, CoPilot
Before Starting
Prerequisite How to Check
────────────────────────────────────── ──────────────────────────────────────
Dynatrace SaaS with DPS license Account Management → Subscription
Access to Account Management portal myaccount.dynatrace.com
Admin permissions on the environment Settings → check you can edit
Monaco CLI installed (optional) monaco --version
Terraform installed (optional) terraform --version
🔧 First Step: Export Everything
Before changing anything, create a full backup of the current configuration:
# Option A: Export with Monaco (→ YAML files)
monaco download --url https://ENV-ID.live.dynatrace.com \
--token-name DT_API_TOKEN --output-folder gen2-backup
# Option B: Export with Terraform provider (→ .tf files, ready to apply)
# After terraform init:
cd .terraform/providers/registry.terraform.io/dynatrace-oss/dynatrace/*/linux_amd64/
./terraform-provider-dynatrace -export -ref
💡 This export is the safety net. Even if the built-in upgrade tools handle most of the work, having a full backup means anything can be recreated if needed. Monaco exports YAML, Terraform exports HCL — use whichever fits your workflow.
Official Upgrade Resources
Resource What It Covers
────────────────────────────────────────── ──────────────────────────────────────
docs.dynatrace.com → Upgrade to latest DT Master guide: data access, retention, segments
Upgrade Guide — Segments MZ → Segments with host tag propagation
Upgrade Guide — Dashboards Built-in upgrade button + top-50 strategy
Upgrade Guide — Metric Alerting Transpiler: auto-converts metric events to DQL
Upgrade Guide — Alert Notifications Alerting profiles → Workflows connector mapping
SaaS Upgrade Assistant (Hub app) Auto-imports Managed configs to SaaS
🛠 Try it: Open Ctrl+K and explore the launcher. Type "Smartscape" to see the new dependency graph. Type "Notebooks" to try the collaborative investigation tool. Type "Workflows" to see the automation engine. These are the three biggest additions in latest Dynatrace.