SNMP and Google Cloud Monitoring Integration

Input and output integration overview

The SNMP plugin allows you to collect a variety of metrics from SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) agents. It provides flexibility in how data is retrieved, whether collecting single metrics or entire tables.

The Stackdriver plugin allows users to send metrics directly to a specified project in Google Cloud Monitoring, facilitating robust monitoring capabilities across their cloud resources.

Integration details

SNMP

This plugin uses polling to gather metrics from SNMP agents, supporting retrieval of individual OIDs and complete SNMP tables. It can be configured to handle multiple SNMP versions, authentication, and other features.

Google Cloud Monitoring

This plugin writes metrics to a project in Google Cloud Monitoring, which used to be known as Stackdriver. Authentication is a prerequisite and can be achieved via service accounts or user credentials. The plugin is designed to group metrics by a namespace variable and metric key, facilitating organized data management. However, users are encouraged to use the official naming format for enhanced query efficiency. The plugin supports additional configurations for managing metric representation and allows tags to be treated as resource labels. Notably, it imposes certain restrictions on the data it can accept, such as not allowing string values or points that are out of chronological order.

Configuration

SNMP

[[inputs.snmp]]
  agents = ["udp://127.0.0.1:161"]

  [[inputs.snmp.field]]
    oid = "RFC1213-MIB::sysUpTime.0"
    name = "sysUptime"
    conversion = "float(2)"

  [[inputs.snmp.field]]
    oid = "RFC1213-MIB::sysName.0"
    name = "sysName"
    is_tag = true

  [[inputs.snmp.table]]
    oid = "IF-MIB::ifTable"
    name = "interface"
    inherit_tags = ["sysName"]

    [[inputs.snmp.table.field]]
      oid = "IF-MIB::ifDescr"
      name = "ifDescr"
      is_tag = true

Google Cloud Monitoring

[[outputs.stackdriver]]
  ## GCP Project
  project = "project-id"

  ## Quota Project
  ## Specifies the Google Cloud project that should be billed for metric ingestion.
  ## If omitted, the quota is charged to the service account’s default project.
  ## This is useful when sending metrics to multiple projects using a single service account.
  ## The caller must have the `serviceusage.services.use` permission on the specified project.
  # quota_project = ""

  ## The namespace for the metric descriptor
  ## This is optional and users are encouraged to set the namespace as a
  ## resource label instead. If omitted it is not included in the metric name.
  namespace = "telegraf"

  ## Metric Type Prefix
  ## The DNS name used with the metric type as a prefix.
  # metric_type_prefix = "custom.googleapis.com"

  ## Metric Name Format
  ## Specifies the layout of the metric name, choose from:
  ##  * path: 'metric_type_prefix_namespace_name_key'
  ##  * official: 'metric_type_prefix/namespace_name_key/kind'
  # metric_name_format = "path"

  ## Metric Data Type
  ## By default, telegraf will use whatever type the metric comes in as.
  ## However, for some use cases, forcing int64, may be preferred for values:
  ##   * source: use whatever was passed in
  ##   * double: preferred datatype to allow queries by PromQL.
  # metric_data_type = "source"

  ## Tags as resource labels
  ## Tags defined in this option, when they exist, are added as a resource
  ## label and not included as a metric label. The values from tags override
  ## the values defined under the resource_labels config options.
  # tags_as_resource_label = []

  ## Custom resource type
  # resource_type = "generic_node"

  ## Override metric type by metric name
  ## Metric names matching the values here, globbing supported, will have the
  ## metric type set to the corresponding type.
  # metric_counter = []
  # metric_gauge = []
  # metric_histogram = []

  ## 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

  ## Additional resource labels
  # [outputs.stackdriver.resource_labels]
  #   node_id = "$HOSTNAME"
  #   namespace = "myapp"
  #   location = "eu-north0"

Input and output integration examples

SNMP

1. Basic SNMP Configuration: Collect metrics from a local SNMP agent using typical SNMP community string settings. This setup is ideal for local monitoring of device performance.
2. Advanced SNMPv3 Setup: Securely collect metrics using SNMPv3 with authentication and encryption to enhance security. This configuration is recommended for production environments.
3. Collect Interface Metrics: Configure the plugin to collect interface metrics from the device’s SNMP table. Utilize fields to capture specific data points for traffic analysis.
4. Join Two SNMP Tables: By using translation fields, join data from two SNMP tables for a comprehensive view of correlated performance metrics.

Google Cloud Monitoring

1. Multi-Project Metric Aggregation: Use this plugin to send aggregated metrics from various applications across different projects into a single Google Cloud Monitoring project. This use case helps centralize metrics for teams managing multiple applications, providing a unified view for performance monitoring and enhancing decision-making. By configuring different quota projects for billing, organizations can ensure proper cost management while benefiting from a consolidated monitoring strategy.

2. Anomaly Detection Setup: Integrate the plugin with a machine learning-based analytics tool that identifies anomalies in the collected metrics. Using the historical data provided by the plugin, the tool can learn normal baseline behavior and promptly alert the operations team when unusual patterns arise, enabling proactive troubleshooting and minimizing service disruptions.

3. Dynamic Resource Labeling: Implement dynamic tagging by utilizing the tags_as_resource_label option to adaptively attach resource labels based on runtime conditions. This setup allows metrics to provide context-sensitive information, such as varying environmental parameters or operational states, enhancing the granularity of monitoring and reporting without changing the fundamental metric structure.

4. Custom Metric Visualization Dashboards: Leverage the data collected by the Google Cloud Monitoring output plugin to feed a custom metrics visualization dashboard using a third-party framework. By visualizing metrics in real-time, teams can achieve better situational awareness, notably by correlating different metrics, improving operational decision-making, and streamlining performance management workflows.

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