Ceph and Azure Application Insights Integration

Input and output integration overview

The Ceph plugin for Telegraf helps in gathering performance metrics from both MON and OSD nodes in a Ceph storage cluster for effective monitoring and management.

This plugin writes Telegraf metrics to Azure Application Insights, enabling powerful monitoring and diagnostics.

Integration details

Ceph

The Ceph Storage Telegraf plugin is designed to collect performance metrics from Monitor (MON) and Object Storage Daemon (OSD) nodes within a Ceph storage cluster. Ceph, a highly scalable storage system, integrates its metrics collection through this plugin, facilitating easy monitoring of its components. With the introduction of this plugin in the 13.x Mimic release, users can effectively gather detailed insights into the performance and health of their Ceph infrastructure. It functions by scanning configured socket directories for specific Ceph service socket files, executing commands via the Ceph administrative interface, and parsing the returned JSON data for metrics. The metrics are organized based on top-level keys, allowing for efficient monitoring and analysis of cluster performance. This plugin provides valuable capabilities for managing and maintaining the performance of a Ceph cluster by allowing administrators to understand system behavior and identify potential issues proactively.

Azure Application Insights

The Azure Application Insights plugin integrates Telegraf with Azure’s Application Insights service, facilitating the seamless transmission of metrics from various sources to a centralized monitoring platform. This plugin empowers users to harness the capabilities of Azure Application Insights, a powerful application performance management tool, allowing developers and IT operations teams to gain valuable insights into the performance, availability, and usage of their applications. By employing this plugin, users can monitor application telemetry and operational data efficiently, contributing to better diagnostics and improved application performance.

Key features of this plugin include the ability to specify an instrumentation key for the Application Insights resource, configure the endpoint URL for tracking, and enable additional diagnostic logging for a more comprehensive analysis. Furthermore, the plugin provides context tagging capabilities, allowing the addition of specific Application Insights context tags to enhance the contextual information associated with metrics being sent. These features collectively make the Azure Application Insights Output Plugin a vital tool for organizations looking to optimize their monitoring capabilities within Azure.

Configuration

Ceph

[[inputs.ceph]]
  ## This is the recommended interval to poll. Too frequent and you
  ## will lose data points due to timeouts during rebalancing and recovery
  interval = '1m'

  ## All configuration values are optional, defaults are shown below

  ## location of ceph binary
  ceph_binary = "/usr/bin/ceph"

  ## directory in which to look for socket files
  socket_dir = "/var/run/ceph"

  ## prefix of MON and OSD socket files, used to determine socket type
  mon_prefix = "ceph-mon"
  osd_prefix = "ceph-osd"
  mds_prefix = "ceph-mds"
  rgw_prefix = "ceph-client"

  ## suffix used to identify socket files
  socket_suffix = "asok"

  ## Ceph user to authenticate as, ceph will search for the corresponding
  ## keyring e.g. client.admin.keyring in /etc/ceph, or the explicit path
  ## defined in the client section of ceph.conf for example:
  ##
  ##     [client.telegraf]
  ##         keyring = /etc/ceph/client.telegraf.keyring
  ##
  ## Consult the ceph documentation for more detail on keyring generation.
  ceph_user = "client.admin"

  ## Ceph configuration to use to locate the cluster
  ceph_config = "/etc/ceph/ceph.conf"

  ## Whether to gather statistics via the admin socket
  gather_admin_socket_stats = true

  ## Whether to gather statistics via ceph commands, requires ceph_user
  ## and ceph_config to be specified
  gather_cluster_stats = false

Azure Application Insights

[[outputs.application_insights]]
  ## Instrumentation key of the Application Insights resource.
  instrumentation_key = "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx"

  ## Regions that require endpoint modification https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/app/custom-endpoints
  # endpoint_url = "https://dc.services.visualstudio.com/v2/track"

  ## Timeout for closing (default: 5s).
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## Enable additional diagnostic logging.
  # enable_diagnostic_logging = false

  ## NOTE: Due to the way TOML is parsed, tables must be at the END of the
  ## plugin definition, otherwise additional config options are read as part of
  ## the table

  ## Context Tag Sources add Application Insights context tags to a tag value.
  ##
  ## For list of allowed context tag keys see:
  ## https://github.com/microsoft/ApplicationInsights-Go/blob/master/appinsights/contracts/contexttagkeys.go
  # [outputs.application_insights.context_tag_sources]
  #   "ai.cloud.role" = "kubernetes_container_name"
  #   "ai.cloud.roleInstance" = "kubernetes_pod_name"

Input and output integration examples

Ceph

1. Dynamic Monitoring Dashboard: Utilize the Ceph plugin to create a real-time monitoring dashboard that visually represents the performance metrics of your Ceph cluster. By integrating these metrics into a centralized dashboard, system administrators can gain immediate insights into the health of the storage infrastructure, which aids in quickly identifying and addressing potential issues before they escalate.

2. Automated Alerting System: Implement the Ceph plugin in conjunction with an alerting solution to automatically notify administrators of performance degradation or operational issues within the Ceph cluster. By defining thresholds for key metrics, organizations can ensure prompt response actions, thereby improving overall system reliability and performance.

3. Performance Benchmarking: Use the metrics collected by this plugin to conduct performance benchmarking tests across different configurations or hardware setups of your Ceph storage cluster. This process can assist organizations in identifying optimal configurations that enhance performance and resource utilization, promoting a more efficient storage environment.

4. Capacity Planning and Forecasting: Integrate the metrics gathered from the Ceph storage plugin into broader data analytics and reporting tools to facilitate capacity planning. By analyzing historical metrics, organizations can forecast future utilization trends, enabling informed decisions about scaling storage resources effectively.

Azure Application Insights

1. Application Performance Monitoring: Utilize the Azure Application Insights plugin to continuously monitor the performance of your web applications or microservices. By sending Telegraf metrics directly to Application Insights, teams can visualize real-time application performance data, enabling proactive tuning and optimization of application resources. This setup not only enhances the reliability of applications but also ensures user satisfaction through consistent performance monitoring.

2. Integrated Logging and Telemetry: Combine this plugin with centralized logging solutions to provide a comprehensive observability stack. By sending telecom data to Azure Application Insights, teams can correlate performance metrics with log data and gain deeper insights into application behavior, allowing for more efficient troubleshooting and root cause analysis.

3. Contextual Monitoring of Cloud Resources: Use the context tagging feature to enrich your application metrics with specific contextual information related to your cloud environment. This enhanced context can be invaluable for understanding the performance of cloud-native applications, enabling better scaling decisions and resource management based on real usage patterns.

4. Real-time Alerts Setup: Configure Application Insights to trigger alerts based on specific metrics received via this plugin. This allows teams to be notified of performance degradation or anomalies in real-time, enabling immediate action to mitigate issues and maintain high availability of applications.

Feedback

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