Google Cloud Stackdriver and M3DB 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.

This plugin allows Telegraf to stream metrics to M3DB using the Prometheus Remote Write protocol, enabling scalable ingestion through the M3 Coordinator.

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.

M3DB

This configuration uses Telegraf’s HTTP output plugin with prometheusremotewrite format to send metrics directly to M3DB through the M3 Coordinator. M3DB is a distributed time series database designed for scalable, high-throughput metric storage. It supports ingestion of Prometheus remote write data via its Coordinator component, which manages translation and routing into the M3DB cluster. This approach enables organizations to collect metrics from systems that aren’t natively instrumented for Prometheus (e.g., Windows, SNMP, legacy systems) and ingest them efficiently into M3’s long-term, high-performance storage engine. The setup is ideal for high-scale observability stacks with Prometheus compatibility requirements.

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>

M3DB

# Configuration for sending metrics to M3
[outputs.http]
  ## URL is the address to send metrics to
  url = "https://M3_HOST:M3_PORT/api/v1/prom/remote/write"

  ## HTTP Basic Auth credentials
  username = "admin"
  password = "password"

  ## Data format to output.
  data_format = "prometheusremotewrite"

  ## Outgoing HTTP headers
  [outputs.http.headers]
    Content-Type = "application/x-protobuf"
    Content-Encoding = "snappy"
    X-Prometheus-Remote-Write-Version = "0.1.0"

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.

M3DB

1. Large-Scale Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring: Deploy Telegraf agents across thousands of virtual machines and containers to collect metrics and stream them into M3DB through the M3 Coordinator. This provides reliable, long-term visibility with minimal storage overhead and high availability.

2. Legacy System Metrics Ingestion: Use Telegraf to gather metrics from older systems that lack native Prometheus exporters (e.g., Windows servers, SNMP devices) and forward them to M3DB via remote write. This bridges modern observability workflows with legacy infrastructure.

3. Centralized App Telemetry Aggregation: Collect application-specific telemetry using Telegraf’s plugin ecosystem (e.g., exec, http, jolokia) and push it into M3DB for centralized storage and query via PromQL. This enables unified analytics across diverse data sources.

4. Hybrid Cloud Observability: Install Telegraf agents on-prem and in the cloud to collect and remote-write metrics into a centralized M3DB cluster. This ensures consistent visibility across environments while avoiding the complexity of running Prometheus federation layers.

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