Getting Started in Datadog: The 5 Fundamentals Every Read-Only User Should Know (Part 1)
So, you just got access to Datadog. You log in, and… wow, there’s a lot going on. Dashboards, metrics, traces, logs — it can feel overwhelming if you don’t know where to start.
The good news? You don’t need to learn everything at once. With just a few fundamentals, you can already start using Datadog to answer real questions about your systems — the same way you’d query Snowflake for data, you can query Datadog for insights.
In this post, we’ll cover five things every beginner should know: Metrics, Infrastructure, APM, Logs, and Monitors. Once you’re comfortable with these, you’ll already be productive as a read-only user. (In Part 2 we’ll go further into SLOs and Real User Monitoring.)
1. Metrics: the foundation of everything
Metrics are at the heart of Datadog. A metric is just a number measured over time — like CPU usage — with extra labels (called tags) to give it context. Tags can include environment (env:prod), service name (service:checkout), host, container ID, and more.
Where to explore metrics in Datadog:
- Metrics Explorer (Metrics > Explorer) – search and graph any metric.
- Integration pages – see which metrics come from each integration.
- Metric Summary (Metrics > Summary) – discover what tags are available for each metric.
👉 Why it matters: when you look at a chart in Datadog, you’re almost always looking at a metric that’s been aggregated in some way. Aggregation happens in two ways:
- Time aggregation – what value do you see if you zoom out (average, max, sum)?
- Space aggregation – what value do you see when you look at a cluster instead of a single host?
Understanding these basics will help you make sense of why a number changes when you zoom or switch views.
📖 Read more details about this in another article here.
2. Infrastructure: seeing the bigger picture
If metrics are the raw data, infrastructure views are where you see the big picture.
Where to start:
- Host Map (Infrastructure > Host Map) – health of all hosts at a glance.
- Container Map (Infrastructure > Containers) – for containerized environments.
- Dashboards > Infrastructure – prebuilt dashboards from your integrations.
👉 A practical way to start: pick one service or host you care about.
- Open the host map and click into it.
- Check CPU, memory, and disk usage.
- Pivot to see which containers or processes are consuming resources.
📺 See this explained in our YouTube infrastructure series here.
3. APM: following the traces
Metrics tell you how much, but traces tell you what happened.
Datadog APM (Application Performance Monitoring) shows you how requests flow across your services.
Where to start:
- APM > Services – entry point for exploring your applications.
- Click into a service and look at:
- Root span – the very start of a request.
- Entry span – where the service picks it up.
- Service spans – the work done inside each service.
Important to know:
- Metrics are based on 100% of traffic.
- Traces are sampled — not every request is captured, but enough are kept to show patterns.
👉 Try using Trace Search & Analytics to filter down to interesting requests. Example: “Show me all checkout traces where latency > 1s.”
📺 Our APM beginner video is here.
4. Logs: context in every detail
Logs give you the gritty details. In Datadog, logs are structured as JSON objects — which makes filtering and searching very powerful.
Where to start:
- Logs > Live Tail – see logs in real time.
- Logs Explorer – search across all logs.
Tips for beginners:
- Click on attributes in a log (e.g., service:checkout) to filter instantly.
- Use the built-in shortcuts to pivot:
- From a log → to a related trace.
- From a log → to the host or container.
👉 Example: “Show me all error logs for service:payments in the last 15 minutes.”
📺 Check out our YouTube guide to logs here.
5. Monitors: what your team already cares about
Even if you can’t create monitors as a read-only user, you can still learn a lot from them. Monitors are alerts set up by your team — they highlight what’s considered important.
Where to start:
- Monitors > Manage Monitors – search and browse by service or team.
- Check status: is everything green, or are there alerts firing?
- Look at the conditions: what thresholds are being used?
👉 This is often the fastest way to get context: “What’s important for this team, and is it currently healthy?”
📺 Watch our walkthrough on Monitors here.
Wrap-Up
That’s it — five things that will help you get real value out of Datadog from day one:
- Learn how metrics work.
- Explore infrastructure maps and dashboards.
- Understand traces in APM.
- Filter logs like a pro.
- Read existing monitors for instant context.
With just these fundamentals, you’ll already be able to answer meaningful questions instead of feeling lost in dashboards.
In Part 2, we’ll go further: exploring SLOs and Real User Monitoring (RUM) — features that build on these basics to give you even more visibility into your systems.
Until then, log into Datadog, pick a service you care about, and start exploring!
