Google Cloud Stackdriver and Librato Integration

Input and output integration overview

This plugin enables the collection of monitoring data from Google Cloud services through the Stackdriver Monitoring API. It is designed to help users monitor their cloud infrastructure’s performance and health by gathering relevant metrics.

The Librato plugin for Telegraf is designed to facilitate seamless integration with the Librato Metrics API, allowing for efficient metric reporting and monitoring.

Integration details

Google Cloud Stackdriver

The Stackdriver Telegraf plugin allows users to query timeseries data from Google Cloud Monitoring using the Cloud Monitoring API v3. With this plugin, users can easily integrate Google Cloud monitoring metrics into their monitoring stacks. This API provides a wealth of insights about resources and applications running in Google Cloud, including performance, uptime, and operational metrics. The plugin supports various configuration options to filter and refine the data retrieved, enabling users to customize their monitoring setup according to their specific needs. This integration facilitates a smoother experience in maintaining the health and performance of cloud resources and assists teams in making data-driven decisions based on historical and current performance statistics.

Librato

The Librato plugin enables Telegraf to send metrics to the Librato Metrics API. To authenticate, users must provide an api_user and api_token, which can be acquired from the Librato account settings. This integration allows for efficient monitoring and reporting of custom metrics within the Librato platform. The plugin also utilizes a source_tag option that can enrich the metrics with contextual information from Point Tags; however, it does not currently support sending associated Point Tags. It is essential to note that any point value sent that cannot be converted to a float64 type will be skipped, ensuring that only valid metrics are processed and sent to Librato. The plugin also supports secret-store options for managing sensitive authentication credentials securely, facilitating best practices in credential management.

Configuration

Google Cloud Stackdriver

[[inputs.stackdriver]]
  ## GCP Project
  project = "erudite-bloom-151019"

  ## Include timeseries that start with the given metric type.
  metric_type_prefix_include = [
    "compute.googleapis.com/",
  ]

  ## Exclude timeseries that start with the given metric type.
  # metric_type_prefix_exclude = []

  ## Most metrics are updated no more than once per minute; it is recommended
  ## to override the agent level interval with a value of 1m or greater.
  interval = "1m"

  ## Maximum number of API calls to make per second.  The quota for accounts
  ## varies, it can be viewed on the API dashboard:
  ##   https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/quotas#quotas_and_limits
  # rate_limit = 14

  ## The delay and window options control the number of points selected on
  ## each gather.  When set, metrics are gathered between:
  ##   start: now() - delay - window
  ##   end:   now() - delay
  #
  ## Collection delay; if set too low metrics may not yet be available.
  # delay = "5m"
  #
  ## If unset, the window will start at 1m and be updated dynamically to span
  ## the time between calls (approximately the length of the plugin interval).
  # window = "1m"

  ## TTL for cached list of metric types.  This is the maximum amount of time
  ## it may take to discover new metrics.
  # cache_ttl = "1h"

  ## If true, raw bucket counts are collected for distribution value types.
  ## For a more lightweight collection, you may wish to disable and use
  ## distribution_aggregation_aligners instead.
  # gather_raw_distribution_buckets = true

  ## Aggregate functions to be used for metrics whose value type is
  ## distribution.  These aggregate values are recorded in in addition to raw
  ## bucket counts; if they are enabled.
  ##
  ## For a list of aligner strings see:
  ##   https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/api/ref_v3/rpc/google.monitoring.v3#aligner
  # distribution_aggregation_aligners = [
  #  "ALIGN_PERCENTILE_99",
  #  "ALIGN_PERCENTILE_95",
  #  "ALIGN_PERCENTILE_50",
  # ]

  ## Filters can be added to reduce the number of time series matched.  All
  ## functions are supported: starts_with, ends_with, has_substring, and
  ## one_of.  Only the '=' operator is supported.
  ##
  ## The logical operators when combining filters are defined statically using
  ## the following values:
  ##   filter ::=  {AND  AND  AND }
  ##   resource_labels ::=  {OR }
  ##   metric_labels ::=  {OR }
  ##   user_labels ::=  {OR }
  ##   system_labels ::=  {OR }
  ##
  ## For more details, see https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/api/v3/filters
  #
  ## Resource labels refine the time series selection with the following expression:
  ##   resource.labels. = 
  # [[inputs.stackdriver.filter.resource_labels]]
  #   key = "instance_name"
  #   value = 'starts_with("localhost")'
  #
  ## Metric labels refine the time series selection with the following expression:
  ##   metric.labels. = 
  #  [[inputs.stackdriver.filter.metric_labels]]
  #    key = "device_name"
  #    value = 'one_of("sda", "sdb")'
  #
  ## User labels refine the time series selection with the following expression:
  ##   metadata.user_labels."" = 
  #  [[inputs.stackdriver.filter.user_labels]]
  #    key = "environment"
  #    value = 'one_of("prod", "staging")'
  #
  ## System labels refine the time series selection with the following expression:
  ##   metadata.system_labels."" = 
  #  [[inputs.stackdriver.filter.system_labels]]
  #    key = "machine_type"
  #    value = 'starts_with("e2-")'
</code></pre>

Librato

[[outputs.librato]]
  ## Librato API Docs
  ## http://dev.librato.com/v1/metrics-authentication
  ## Librato API user
  api_user = "[email protected]" # required.
  ## Librato API token
  api_token = "my-secret-token" # required.
  ## Debug
  # debug = false
  ## Connection timeout.
  # timeout = "5s"
  ## Output source Template (same as graphite buckets)
  ## see https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/blob/master/docs/DATA_FORMATS_OUTPUT.md#graphite
  ## This template is used in librato's source (not metric's name)
  template = "host"

Input and output integration examples

Google Cloud Stackdriver

1. Integrating Cloud Metrics into Custom Dashboards: With this plugin, teams can funnel metrics from Google Cloud into personalized dashboards, allowing for real-time monitoring of application performance and resource utilization. By customizing the visual representation of cloud metrics, operations teams can easily identify trends and anomalies, enabling proactive management before issues escalate.

2. Automated Alerts and Analysis: Users can set up automated alerting mechanisms leveraging the plugin’s metrics to track resource thresholds. This capability allows teams to act swiftly in response to performance degradation or outages by providing immediate notifications, thus reducing the mean time to recovery and ensuring continued operational efficiency.

3. Cross-Platform Resource Comparison: The plugin can be used to draw metrics from various Google Cloud services and compare them with on-premise resources. This cross-platform visibility helps organizations make informed decisions about resource allocation and scaling strategies, as well as optimize cloud spending versus on-premise infrastructure.

4. Historical Data Analysis for Capacity Planning: By collecting historical metrics over time, the plugin empowers teams to conduct thorough capacity planning. Understanding past performance trends facilitates accurate forecasting for resource needs, leading to better budgeting and investment strategies.

Librato

1. Real-time Application Monitoring: Utilize Librato to collect performance metrics from a web application in real-time. This setup involves sending response times, error rates, and user interactions to Librato, allowing developers to monitor the application’s health and performance metrics closely. By analyzing these metrics, teams can quickly identify and address performance bottlenecks or application failures before they impact end users.

2. Infrastructure Metrics Aggregation: Leverage this plugin to gather and send metrics from various infrastructure components, such as servers or containers, to Librato for centralized monitoring. Configuring the plugin to send CPU, memory usage, and disk I/O metrics enables system administrators to have a comprehensive view of infrastructure performance, assisting in capacity planning and resource optimization strategies.

3. Custom Metrics for Business Operations: Feed business-specific metrics, such as sales transactions or user sign-ups, to the Librato service using this plugin. By tracking these custom metrics, businesses can gain insights into their operational performance and make data-driven decisions to enhance their strategies, marketing efforts, or product development initiatives.

4. Anomaly Detection in Metrics: Implement monitoring tools that utilize machine learning for anomaly detection. By continuously sending real-time metrics to Librato, teams can analyze trends and automatically flag unusual behavior, such as sudden spikes in latency or unusual traffic patterns, enabling timely intervention and troubleshooting.

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