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Sumo Logic

Streaming Metrics Source

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You can use Sumo’s streaming metrics source with an installed collector to collect metrics from any application that emits metrics over TCP or UDP in the Graphite, Carbon 2.0, or Prometheus plaintext protocols. The streaming metrics source is analogous to a Syslog server, but for receiving metrics rather than logs.

In the procedure below, you configure a streaming metrics source on an installed collector. You can deploy an installed collector with the streaming metrics source on each host from which you want to collect metrics. If you prefer, you can use a single centralized installed collector and source and point the remote hosts to the centralized installed collector, rather than localhost.

The procedure below assumes you will use an installed collector on each host from which you want to collect metrics.

Configure a streaming metrics source

Perform these steps on each host from which you want to collect metrics:

  1. Set up an installed collector. (Skip this step if you have already set up the collector.) 
  2. In Sumo select Manage Data > Collection > Collection.  
  3. Click Add, and then Add Source.
  4. On the Select Source for Collector page, select Streaming Metrics. 
  5. On the source configuration page, supply the following fields:
    1. Name. Enter a name for the source.
    2. Description. (Optional) Enter a description for the source.
    3. Protocol. By default, TCP is selected. If your apps or infrastructure use UDP, use the pull-down to select UDP.
    4. ContentType. By default, Graphite is selected. If your apps or infrastructure emit metrics using the Carbon 2.0 format, use the pull-down to select Carbon2 or Prometheus. 
    5. Source Category. Enter a source category. Once you start ingesting metrics, you can use the _sourceCategory metadata field with this value to search for metrics.  Example source categories: 
      • prod/web/metrics or
      • dev/web/metrics
    6. Click Save.

Specify the network interface for a streaming metrics source 

When configuring a streaming metrics source on a computer that has more than one network interface you can specify which network interface the collector should bind to. This option is set in the collector.properties file in the collector’s config folder.

To specify the network interface

  1. Navigate to collector/config/collector.properties. Open the file in a text editor.
  2. Add the following line to the collector.properties file, where your_host_name identifies the network interface you'd like to use.
    streaming.metrics.hostname=your_host_name
  3. Save and close the file.

Metric formats

The sections below describe the Graphite, Carbon 2.0, and Prometheus formats.

Graphite metric format

The Graphite plaintext protocol follows this format:

metric_path metric_value metric_timestamp

where: 

  • metric_path is a dot-separated string.
  • metric_value is any numeric value.
  • metric_timestamp is a UNIX timestamp.

For example:

cluster-1.node-1.cpu-1.cpu-idle 97.29 1460061337

Carbon 2.0 metric format

Carbon 2.0 format requires collector version 19.216-22 or higher. The Carbon 2.0 plaintext protocol follows this format:

intrinsic_tags  meta_tags value timestamp

where:

  • intrinsic_tags is one or more space-separated intrinsic tags
  • meta_tags is one or more space-separated meta tags
  • value is any numeric value.
  • timestamp is a UNIX timestamp.

For example:

site=mydomain mtype=rate unit=Req/s host=web12  agent=statsdaemon1 234 1234567890

Prometheus metric format

In the Prometheus format, a time series is uniquely identified by its metric name and a set of labels, which are key-value pairs. It's formed like this:

# HELP metric_name metric_description
# TYPE metric_name metric_type
metric_name labels value timestamp
metric_name labels value timestamp

Here is an example of a Prometheus metric exposition for two time series. (The process of making metrics available to Prometheus is called exposition.) 

# HELP http_requests_total The total number of HTTP requests.
# TYPE http_requests_total counter
http_requests_total{method="post",code="200"} 1027 1395066363000
http_requests_total{method="post",code="400"}    3 1395066363000

See the table below for descriptions of the components of a Prometheus metric exposition.

Component  Description
metric_name Specifies the general feature of a system that is measured. For example:

http_requests_total
metric_description An arbitrary description or category for the metric. For example:

requests
metric_type the type of the metric, one of counter, gauge, histogram, summary, or untyped.
labels Zero or more space-separated key-value pairs that identify a particular dimensional instantiation of the metric, for example:

http_requests_total{method="post",code="200"} 1027 1395066363000
http_requests_total{method="post",code="400"}    3 1395066363000
value  Value of the metric.
timestamp The time the metric was collected, in int64 format. 

The Prometheus format does not support metadata in the format itself. You can attach metadata to Prometheus metrics by specifying it the HTTP header when you upload the metrics to Sumo. For more information, see Upload Metrics to an HTTP Source.