Ceph and InfluxDB Integration

Input and output integration overview

The Ceph plugin for Telegraf helps in gathering performance metrics from both MON and OSD nodes in a Ceph storage cluster for effective monitoring and management.

The InfluxDB plugin writes metrics to the InfluxDB HTTP service, allowing for efficient storage and retrieval of time series data.

Integration details

Ceph

The Ceph Storage Telegraf plugin is designed to collect performance metrics from Monitor (MON) and Object Storage Daemon (OSD) nodes within a Ceph storage cluster. Ceph, a highly scalable storage system, integrates its metrics collection through this plugin, facilitating easy monitoring of its components. With the introduction of this plugin in the 13.x Mimic release, users can effectively gather detailed insights into the performance and health of their Ceph infrastructure. It functions by scanning configured socket directories for specific Ceph service socket files, executing commands via the Ceph administrative interface, and parsing the returned JSON data for metrics. The metrics are organized based on top-level keys, allowing for efficient monitoring and analysis of cluster performance. This plugin provides valuable capabilities for managing and maintaining the performance of a Ceph cluster by allowing administrators to understand system behavior and identify potential issues proactively.

InfluxDB

The InfluxDB Telegraf plugin serves to send metrics to the InfluxDB HTTP API, facilitating the storage and query of time series data in a structured manner. Integrating seamlessly with InfluxDB, this plugin provides essential features such as token-based authentication and support for multiple InfluxDB cluster nodes, ensuring reliable and scalable data ingestion. Through its configurability, users can specify options like organization, destination buckets, and HTTP-specific settings, providing flexibility to tailor how data is sent and stored. The plugin also supports secret management for sensitive data, which enhances security in production environments. This plugin is particularly beneficial in modern observability stacks where real-time analytics and storage of time series data are crucial.

Configuration

Ceph

[[inputs.ceph]]
  ## This is the recommended interval to poll. Too frequent and you
  ## will lose data points due to timeouts during rebalancing and recovery
  interval = '1m'

  ## All configuration values are optional, defaults are shown below

  ## location of ceph binary
  ceph_binary = "/usr/bin/ceph"

  ## directory in which to look for socket files
  socket_dir = "/var/run/ceph"

  ## prefix of MON and OSD socket files, used to determine socket type
  mon_prefix = "ceph-mon"
  osd_prefix = "ceph-osd"
  mds_prefix = "ceph-mds"
  rgw_prefix = "ceph-client"

  ## suffix used to identify socket files
  socket_suffix = "asok"

  ## Ceph user to authenticate as, ceph will search for the corresponding
  ## keyring e.g. client.admin.keyring in /etc/ceph, or the explicit path
  ## defined in the client section of ceph.conf for example:
  ##
  ##     [client.telegraf]
  ##         keyring = /etc/ceph/client.telegraf.keyring
  ##
  ## Consult the ceph documentation for more detail on keyring generation.
  ceph_user = "client.admin"

  ## Ceph configuration to use to locate the cluster
  ceph_config = "/etc/ceph/ceph.conf"

  ## Whether to gather statistics via the admin socket
  gather_admin_socket_stats = true

  ## Whether to gather statistics via ceph commands, requires ceph_user
  ## and ceph_config to be specified
  gather_cluster_stats = false

InfluxDB

[[outputs.influxdb]]
  ## The full HTTP or UDP URL for your InfluxDB instance.
  ##
  ## Multiple URLs can be specified for a single cluster, only ONE of the
  ## urls will be written to each interval.
  # urls = ["unix:///var/run/influxdb.sock"]
  # urls = ["udp://127.0.0.1:8089"]
  # urls = ["http://127.0.0.1:8086"]

  ## Local address to bind when connecting to the server
  ## If empty or not set, the local address is automatically chosen.
  # local_address = ""

  ## The target database for metrics; will be created as needed.
  ## For UDP url endpoint database needs to be configured on server side.
  # database = "telegraf"

  ## The value of this tag will be used to determine the database.  If this
  ## tag is not set the 'database' option is used as the default.
  # database_tag = ""

  ## If true, the 'database_tag' will not be included in the written metric.
  # exclude_database_tag = false

  ## If true, no CREATE DATABASE queries will be sent.  Set to true when using
  ## Telegraf with a user without permissions to create databases or when the
  ## database already exists.
  # skip_database_creation = false

  ## Name of existing retention policy to write to.  Empty string writes to
  ## the default retention policy.  Only takes effect when using HTTP.
  # retention_policy = ""

  ## The value of this tag will be used to determine the retention policy.  If this
  ## tag is not set the 'retention_policy' option is used as the default.
  # retention_policy_tag = ""

  ## If true, the 'retention_policy_tag' will not be included in the written metric.
  # exclude_retention_policy_tag = false

  ## Write consistency (clusters only), can be: "any", "one", "quorum", "all".
  ## Only takes effect when using HTTP.
  # write_consistency = "any"

  ## Timeout for HTTP messages.
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## HTTP Basic Auth
  # username = "telegraf"
  # password = "metricsmetricsmetricsmetrics"

  ## HTTP User-Agent
  # user_agent = "telegraf"

  ## UDP payload size is the maximum packet size to send.
  # udp_payload = "512B"

  ## Optional TLS Config for use on HTTP connections.
  # tls_ca = "/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
  ## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

  ## HTTP Proxy override, if unset values the standard proxy environment
  ## variables are consulted to determine which proxy, if any, should be used.
  # http_proxy = "http://corporate.proxy:3128"

  ## Additional HTTP headers
  # http_headers = {"X-Special-Header" = "Special-Value"}

  ## HTTP Content-Encoding for write request body, can be set to "gzip" to
  ## compress body or "identity" to apply no encoding.
  # content_encoding = "gzip"

  ## When true, Telegraf will output unsigned integers as unsigned values,
  ## i.e.: "42u".  You will need a version of InfluxDB supporting unsigned
  ## integer values.  Enabling this option will result in field type errors if
  ## existing data has been written.
  # influx_uint_support = false

  ## When true, Telegraf will omit the timestamp on data to allow InfluxDB
  ## to set the timestamp of the data during ingestion. This is generally NOT
  ## what you want as it can lead to data points captured at different times
  ## getting omitted due to similar data.
  # influx_omit_timestamp = false

Input and output integration examples

Ceph

1. Dynamic Monitoring Dashboard: Utilize the Ceph plugin to create a real-time monitoring dashboard that visually represents the performance metrics of your Ceph cluster. By integrating these metrics into a centralized dashboard, system administrators can gain immediate insights into the health of the storage infrastructure, which aids in quickly identifying and addressing potential issues before they escalate.

2. Automated Alerting System: Implement the Ceph plugin in conjunction with an alerting solution to automatically notify administrators of performance degradation or operational issues within the Ceph cluster. By defining thresholds for key metrics, organizations can ensure prompt response actions, thereby improving overall system reliability and performance.

3. Performance Benchmarking: Use the metrics collected by this plugin to conduct performance benchmarking tests across different configurations or hardware setups of your Ceph storage cluster. This process can assist organizations in identifying optimal configurations that enhance performance and resource utilization, promoting a more efficient storage environment.

4. Capacity Planning and Forecasting: Integrate the metrics gathered from the Ceph storage plugin into broader data analytics and reporting tools to facilitate capacity planning. By analyzing historical metrics, organizations can forecast future utilization trends, enabling informed decisions about scaling storage resources effectively.

InfluxDB

1. Real-Time System Monitoring: Utilize the InfluxDB plugin to capture and store metrics from a range of system components, such as CPU usage, memory consumption, and disk I/O. By pushing these metrics into InfluxDB, you can create a live dashboard that visualizes system performance in real time. This setup not only helps in identifying performance bottlenecks but also assists in proactive capacity planning by analyzing trends over time.

2. Performance Tracking for Web Applications: Automatically gather and push metrics related to web application performance, such as request durations, error rates, and user interactions, to InfluxDB. By employing this plugin in your monitoring stack, you can use the stored metrics to generate reports and analyses that help understand user behavior and application efficiency, thus guiding development and optimization efforts.

3. IoT Data Aggregation: Leverage the InfluxDB Telegraf plugin to collect sensor data from various IoT devices and store it in a centralized InfluxDB instance. This use case enables you to analyze trends and patterns in environmental or machine data over time, facilitating smarter decisions and predictive maintenance strategies. By integrating IoT data into InfluxDB, organizations can harness the power of historical data analysis to drive innovation and operational efficiency.

4. Analyzing Historical Metrics for Forecasting: Set up the InfluxDB plugin to send historical metric data into InfluxDB and use it to drive forecasting models. By analyzing past performance metrics, you can create predictive models that forecast future trends and demands. This application is particularly useful for business intelligence purposes, helping organizations prepare for fluctuations in resource needs based on historical usage patterns.

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.