Amazon ECS and OpenSearch Integration

Input and output integration overview

The Amazon ECS Input Plugin enables Telegraf to gather metrics from AWS ECS containers, providing detailed insights into container performance and resource usage.

The OpenSearch Output Plugin allows users to send metrics directly to an OpenSearch instance using HTTP, thus facilitating effective data management and analytics within the OpenSearch ecosystem.

Integration details

Amazon ECS

The Amazon ECS plugin for Telegraf is designed to collect metrics from ECS (Elastic Container Service) tasks running on AWS Fargate or EC2 instances. By utilizing the ECS metadata and stats API endpoints (v2 and v3), it fetches real-time information about container performance and health within a task. This plugin operates within the same task as the inspected workload, ensuring seamless access to metadata and statistics. Notably, it incorporates ECS-specific features that distinguish it from the Docker input plugin, such as handling unique ECS metadata formats and statistics. Users can include or exclude specific containers and adjust which container states to monitor, along with defining tag options for ECS labels. This flexibility allows for a tailored monitoring experience that aligns with the specific needs of an ECS environment, thereby enhancing observability and control over containerized applications.

OpenSearch

The OpenSearch Telegraf Plugin integrates with the OpenSearch database via HTTP, allowing for the streamlined collection and storage of metrics. As a powerful tool designed specifically for OpenSearch releases from 2.x, the plugin provides robust features while offering compatibility with 1.x through the original Elasticsearch plugin. This plugin facilitates the creation and management of indexes in OpenSearch, automatically managing templates and ensuring that data is structured efficiently for analysis. The plugin supports various configuration options such as index names, authentication, health checks, and value handling, allowing it to be tailored to diverse operational requirements. Its capabilities make it essential for organizations looking to harness the power of OpenSearch for metrics storage and querying.

Configuration

Amazon ECS

[[inputs.ecs]]
  # endpoint_url = ""
  # container_name_include = []
  # container_name_exclude = []
  # container_status_include = []
  # container_status_exclude = []
  ecs_label_include = [ "com.amazonaws.ecs.*" ]
  ecs_label_exclude = []
  # timeout = "5s"

[[inputs.ecs]]
  endpoint_url = "http://169.254.170.2"
  # container_name_include = []
  # container_name_exclude = []
  # container_status_include = []
  # container_status_exclude = []
  ecs_label_include = [ "com.amazonaws.ecs.*" ]
  ecs_label_exclude = []
  # timeout = "5s"

OpenSearch

[[outputs.opensearch]]
  ## URLs
  ## The full HTTP endpoint URL for your OpenSearch instance. Multiple URLs can
  ## be specified as part of the same cluster, but only one URLs is used to
  ## write during each interval.
  urls = ["http://node1.os.example.com:9200"]

  ## Index Name
  ## Target index name for metrics (OpenSearch will create if it not exists).
  ## This is a Golang template (see https://pkg.go.dev/text/template)
  ## You can also specify
  ## metric name (`{{.Name}}`), tag value (`{{.Tag "tag_name"}}`), field value (`{{.Field "field_name"}}`)
  ## If the tag does not exist, the default tag value will be empty string "".
  ## the timestamp (`{{.Time.Format "xxxxxxxxx"}}`).
  ## For example: "telegraf-{{.Time.Format \"2006-01-02\"}}-{{.Tag \"host\"}}" would set it to telegraf-2023-07-27-HostName
  index_name = ""

  ## Timeout
  ## OpenSearch client timeout
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## Sniffer
  ## Set to true to ask OpenSearch a list of all cluster nodes,
  ## thus it is not necessary to list all nodes in the urls config option
  # enable_sniffer = false

  ## GZIP Compression
  ## Set to true to enable gzip compression
  # enable_gzip = false

  ## Health Check Interval
  ## Set the interval to check if the OpenSearch nodes are available
  ## Setting to "0s" will disable the health check (not recommended in production)
  # health_check_interval = "10s"

  ## Set the timeout for periodic health checks.
  # health_check_timeout = "1s"
  ## HTTP basic authentication details.
  # username = ""
  # password = ""
  ## HTTP bearer token authentication details
  # auth_bearer_token = ""

  ## Optional TLS Config
  ## Set to true/false to enforce TLS being enabled/disabled. If not set,
  ## enable TLS only if any of the other options are specified.
  # tls_enable =
  ## Trusted root certificates for server
  # tls_ca = "/path/to/cafile"
  ## Used for TLS client certificate authentication
  # tls_cert = "/path/to/certfile"
  ## Used for TLS client certificate authentication
  # tls_key = "/path/to/keyfile"
  ## Send the specified TLS server name via SNI
  # tls_server_name = "kubernetes.example.com"
  ## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

  ## Template Config
  ## Manage templates
  ## Set to true if you want telegraf to manage its index template.
  ## If enabled it will create a recommended index template for telegraf indexes
  # manage_template = true

  ## Template Name
  ## The template name used for telegraf indexes
  # template_name = "telegraf"

  ## Overwrite Templates
  ## Set to true if you want telegraf to overwrite an existing template
  # overwrite_template = false

  ## Document ID
  ## If set to true a unique ID hash will be sent as
  ## sha256(concat(timestamp,measurement,series-hash)) string. It will enable
  ## data resend and update metric points avoiding duplicated metrics with
  ## different id's
  # force_document_id = false

  ## Value Handling
  ## Specifies the handling of NaN and Inf values.
  ## This option can have the following values:
  ##    none    -- do not modify field-values (default); will produce an error
  ##               if NaNs or infs are encountered
  ##    drop    -- drop fields containing NaNs or infs
  ##    replace -- replace with the value in "float_replacement_value" (default: 0.0)
  ##               NaNs and inf will be replaced with the given number, -inf with the negative of that number
  # float_handling = "none"
  # float_replacement_value = 0.0

  ## Pipeline Config
  ## To use a ingest pipeline, set this to the name of the pipeline you want to use.
  # use_pipeline = "my_pipeline"

  ## Pipeline Name
  ## Additionally, you can specify a tag name using the notation (`{{.Tag "tag_name"}}`)
  ## which will be used as the pipeline name (e.g. "{{.Tag \"os_pipeline\"}}").
  ## If the tag does not exist, the default pipeline will be used as the pipeline.
  ## If no default pipeline is set, no pipeline is used for the metric.
  # default_pipeline = ""

Input and output integration examples

Amazon ECS

1. Dynamic Container Monitoring: Use the Amazon ECS plugin to monitor container health dynamically within an autoscaling ECS architecture. As new containers spin up or down, the plugin will automatically adjust the metrics it collects, ensuring that each container’s performance data is captured efficiently without manual configuration.

2. Custom Resource Allocation Alerts: Implement the ECS plugin to establish thresholds for resource usage per container. By integrating with notification systems, teams can receive alerts when a container’s CPU or memory usage exceeds predefined limits, enabling proactive resource management and maintaining application performance.

3. Cost-Optimization Dashboard: Leverage the metrics gathered from the ECS plugin to create a dashboard that visualizes resource usage and costs associated with each container. This insight allows organizations to identify underutilized resources, optimizing costs associated with their container infrastructure, thus driving financial efficiency in cloud operations.

4. Advanced Container Security Monitoring: Utilize this plugin in conjunction with security tools to monitor ECS container metrics for anomalies. By continuously analyzing usage patterns, any sudden spikes or irregular behaviors can be detected, prompting automated security responses and maintaining system integrity.

OpenSearch

1. Dynamic Indexing for Time-Series Data: Utilize the OpenSearch Telegraf plugin to dynamically create indexes for time-series metrics, ensuring that data is stored in an organized manner conducive to time-based queries. By defining index patterns using Go templates, users can leverage the plugin to create daily or monthly indexes, which can greatly simplify data management and retrieval over time, thus enhancing analytical performance.

2. Centralized Logging for Multi-Tenant Applications: Implement the OpenSearch plugin in a multi-tenant application where each tenant’s logs are sent to separate indexes. This enables targeted analysis and monitoring for each tenant while maintaining data isolation. By utilizing the index name templating feature, users can automatically create tenant-specific indexes, which not only streamlines the process but also enhances security and accessibility for tenant data.

3. Integration with Machine Learning for Anomaly Detection: Leverage the OpenSearch plugin alongside machine learning tools to automatically detect anomalies in metrics data. By configuring the plugin to send real-time metrics to OpenSearch, users can apply machine learning models on the incoming data streams to identify outliers or unusual patterns, facilitating proactive monitoring and swift remedial actions.

4. Enhanced Monitoring Dashboards with OpenSearch: Use the metrics collected from OpenSearch to create real-time dashboards that provide insights into system performance. By feeding metrics into OpenSearch, organizations can utilize OpenSearch Dashboards to visualize key performance indicators, allowing operations teams to quickly assess health and performance, and making data-driven decisions.

Feedback

Thank you for being part of our community! If you have any general feedback or found any bugs on these pages, we welcome and encourage your input. Please submit your feedback in the InfluxDB community Slack.