Observability

A Guide to the Most Important Observability Metrics

Understanding and Implementing Essential Infrastructure Metrics for Effective Monitoring

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Understanding Observability

Noone can argue that observability is crucial for maintaining the health and performance of applications and infrastructure. Observability refers to the ability to measure and understand the state of a system based on the outputs it produces. This is extremely important for identifying, diagnosing, and resolving issues effectively and efficiently. Observability is essential for DevOps and SRE teams as it provides a comprehensive, overall view of the infrastructure’s health, enabling proactive maintenance and quicker incident response. It involves collecting and analyzing a variety of data types, including logs, metrics, and traces, to gain insights into system behavior and it can help discover possible anomalies throughout the whole infrastructure.

The Depth of Observability

Observability spans between two main focus areas. Infrastructure monitoring and Application Performance Monitoring (APM). Each area provides unique insights into different aspects of system and infrastructure performance:

Infrastructure Monitoring

Infrastructure monitoring focuses on the health and performance of servers, networks,IoT devices, K* clusters and other underlying hardware and software components. Key metrics include CPU usage, memory consumption, disk I/O, and network traffic.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM)

APM is concerned with the performance and availability of software applications. It tracks metrics such as response times, error rates, and transaction volumes to ensure applications run smoothly and meet user expectations. While both areas are important, this guide will primarily focus on infrastructure monitoring metrics.

Key Infrastructure Monitoring Metrics

Here are some of the most important metrics to monitor:

CPU Usage Why it matters: High CPU usage can indicate that your server is under heavy load, which could lead to performance degradation or outages. How to monitor with Netdata: Netdata provides real-time CPU usage graphs that help you visualize CPU utilization across different cores.

CPU per Node gauge

Memory Usage Why it matters: Monitoring memory usage helps ensure your system has enough RAM to handle its workload without swapping, which can slow down performance. How to monitor with Netdata: Netdata offers detailed memory usage charts, including total memory, used memory, and available memory.

Memory dashboard
Available RAM for applications

Disk I/O Why it matters: High disk I/O can indicate that your applications are heavily using the disk, which might lead to bottlenecks and slow performance. How to monitor with Netdata: Netdata provides insights into disk read/write operations, helping you identify potential issues with disk performance.

Disk I/O Bandwidth
Amount of discarded data

Network Traffic Why it matters: Monitoring network traffic is crucial for understanding bandwidth usage and detecting potential network issues, such as bottlenecks or unusual activity. How to monitor with Netdata: Netdata’s network monitoring tools show real-time data on incoming and outgoing traffic, packet loss, and error rates.

Network Interfaces

Netdata’s Collectors and Integrations

Netdata offers a vast array of collectors and integrations, making it a versatile tool for monitoring diverse infrastructures. With over 800 integrations available, Netdata can collect metrics from a wide range of sources, providing comprehensive observability for your systems.

Data collection integrations

Choosing the Right Collectors

Selecting the appropriate collectors for your needs is crucial for effective monitoring. Here are some tips to help you choose:

  • Identify Key Metrics: Determine which metrics are most important for your infrastructure. This could include CPU usage, memory consumption, disk I/O, network traffic, application-specific metrics, and more.
  • Check Compatibility: Ensure that the collectors you choose are compatible with your existing infrastructure. Netdata supports a wide range of platforms, including various operating systems, databases, web servers, and cloud services.
  • Review Documentation: Netdata provides extensive documentation for its collectors and integrations. Reviewing this documentation can help you understand the capabilities and configurations of each collector.

Setting Up Collectors in Netdata

Here’s how you can set up collectors in Netdata:

  • Installation: Ensure that Netdata is installed on your system. You can use the following command to install Netdata:
wget -O /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh && sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh --nightly-channel --claim-token 6UrCTrDuRIm3F-sj89JaEZFqChK7vyOUfTcDZuU4jGVSdrx-WyaKv0LZto8bkF1uijFVyFj5D95j8yo_XfH0rgiyStLbNzXwgLtXIM9_kcZaJHqg-hDmpCup3zqomA-7jzkwGm0 --claim-rooms 6bc24910-5158-48ca-9f22-9ae4aeea0afc --claim-url https://app.netdata.cloud
  • Configuration: Navigate to the netdata.conf file to configure your collectors. You can enable or disable specific collectors based on your monitoring needs.
  • Collector Modules: Use Netdata’s collector modules to gather metrics. For example, you can use the python.d module for Python-based collectors, go.d for Go-based collectors, and more.
  • Custom Dashboards: Create custom dashboards to visualize the metrics collected by your chosen collectors. This allows you to monitor all critical metrics in one place.

Here are some examples of popular collectors in Netdata:

  • MySQL: Monitor MySQL database performance, including query times, slow queries, and resource usage.
  • nginx: Track the performance of your nginx web server, including request rates, response times, and error rates.
  • Redis: Monitor Redis key-value store metrics, such as memory usage, hit rates, and command execution times.
  • Docker: Collect metrics from Docker containers, including CPU usage, memory consumption, and network activity.

For a full list of available collectors and integrations, visit the Netdata Integrations page.

Implementing Observability with Netdata

Netdata is a powerful monitoring solution that provides real-time insights into your infrastructure’s performance. Here are some practical steps and examples for using Netdata to monitor your systems:

  • Creating Dashboards Netdata allows you to create custom dashboards to visualize the metrics that matter most to you. For example, you can create a dashboard that shows CPU, memory, disk I/O, and network traffic all in one view.

  • Alerts and Notifications Set up alerts and notifications to be informed about critical issues in real-time. Netdata supports various notification channels, including email, Slack, and PagerDuty.

  • Integrations Netdata integrates with many popular tools and platforms, such as Prometheus, Grafana, and Elasticsearch, allowing you to extend its capabilities and fit it into your existing monitoring stack.

Conclusion

Observability is essential for maintaining the health and performance of your infrastructure. By focusing on key metrics like CPU usage, memory usage, disk I/O, and network traffic, you can gain valuable insights into your system’s behavior. Netdata provides a comprehensive, real-time monitoring solution that helps you keep your infrastructure running smoothly. For more detailed guides and examples, visit the Netdata Learn page.