Amazon CloudWatch and Microsoft SQL Server Integration

Input and output integration overview

This plugin will pull Metric Statistics from Amazon CloudWatch, streamlining the process of monitoring and analyzing AWS resources.

Telegraf’s SQL output plugin facilitates the storage of metrics in SQL databases. When configured for Microsoft SQL Server, it supports the specific DSN format and schema requirements, allowing for seamless integration with SQL Server.

Integration details

Amazon CloudWatch

The Amazon CloudWatch Plugin allows users to pull detailed metric statistics from Amazon’s CloudWatch service. As a monitoring solution, CloudWatch enables users to track various metrics related to AWS resources and applications, facilitating improved operational and performance insights. The plugin uses a structured authentication method that prioritizes security and flexibility through a combination of STS (Security Token Service), shared credentials, environment variables, and EC2 instance profiles, ensuring robust access control to AWS resources. Key features include the ability to define specific metric namespaces, aggregated periods for metrics, and optional inclusion of linked accounts for cross-account monitoring. A significant aspect of this plugin is its capacity to handle both sparse and dense metric formats, allowing for varied output structures depending on user preference. Thus, it supports versatile use cases in cloud monitoring and analytics by providing comprehensive, timely data directly from CloudWatch.

Microsoft SQL Server

The SQL output plugin enables Telegraf to write metrics to an SQL database using a dynamic table-per-metric schema. For Microsoft SQL Server, it utilizes the go-mssqldb driver with a DSN that follows the sqlserver URL format.

Configuration

Amazon CloudWatch

[[inputs.cloudwatch]]
  region = "us-east-1"
  # access_key = ""
  # secret_key = ""
  # token = ""
  # role_arn = ""
  # web_identity_token_file = ""
  # role_session_name = ""
  # profile = ""
  # shared_credential_file = ""
  # include_linked_accounts = false
  # endpoint_url = ""
  # use_system_proxy = false
  # http_proxy_url = "http://localhost:8888"
  period = "5m"
  delay = "5m"
  interval = "5m"
  #recently_active = "PT3H"
  # cache_ttl = "1h"
  namespaces = ["AWS/ELB"]
  # metric_format = "sparse"
  # ratelimit = 25
  # timeout = "5s"
  # batch_size = 500
  # statistic_include = ["average", "sum", "minimum", "maximum", sample_count]
  # statistic_exclude = []
  # [[inputs.cloudwatch.metrics]]
  #  names = ["Latency", "RequestCount"]
  #  [[inputs.cloudwatch.metrics.dimensions]]
  #    name = "LoadBalancerName"
  #    value = "p-example"

Microsoft SQL Server

[[outputs.sql]]
  ## Database driver
  ## Valid options: mssql (Microsoft SQL Server), mysql (MySQL), pgx (Postgres),
  ## sqlite (SQLite3), snowflake (snowflake.com), clickhouse (ClickHouse)
  driver = "mssql"

  ## Data source name
  ## For Microsoft SQL Server, the DSN typically includes the server, port, username, password, and database name.
  ## Example DSN: "sqlserver://username:password@localhost:1433?database=telegraf"
  data_source_name = "sqlserver://username:password@localhost:1433?database=telegraf"

  ## Timestamp column name
  timestamp_column = "timestamp"

  ## Table creation template
  ## Available template variables:
  ##  {TABLE}        - table name as a quoted identifier
  ##  {TABLELITERAL} - table name as a quoted string literal
  ##  {COLUMNS}      - column definitions (list of quoted identifiers and types)
  table_template = "CREATE TABLE {TABLE} ({COLUMNS})"

  ## Table existence check template
  ## Available template variables:
  ##  {TABLE} - table name as a quoted identifier
  table_exists_template = "SELECT 1 FROM {TABLE} LIMIT 1"

  ## Initialization SQL (optional)
  init_sql = ""

  ## Maximum amount of time a connection may be idle. "0s" means connections are never closed due to idle time.
  connection_max_idle_time = "0s"

  ## Maximum amount of time a connection may be reused. "0s" means connections are never closed due to age.
  connection_max_lifetime = "0s"

  ## Maximum number of connections in the idle connection pool. 0 means unlimited.
  connection_max_idle = 2

  ## Maximum number of open connections to the database. 0 means unlimited.
  connection_max_open = 0

  ## Metric type to SQL type conversion
  ## You can customize the mapping if needed.
  #[outputs.sql.convert]
  #  integer       = "INT"
  #  real          = "DOUBLE"
  #  text          = "TEXT"
  #  timestamp     = "TIMESTAMP"
  #  defaultvalue  = "TEXT"
  #  unsigned      = "UNSIGNED"
  #  bool          = "BOOL"

Input and output integration examples

Amazon CloudWatch

1. Cross-Account Monitoring: Utilize this plugin to monitor resources across multiple AWS accounts by enabling the include_linked_accounts option. This scenario allows companies managing multiple AWS accounts to aggregate metrics into a central monitoring dashboard, providing a unified view of all metrics while ensuring secure data access and compliance through proper role management.

2. Dynamic Alerting System: Integrate this plugin with alerting tools to create an automated system that triggers alerts based on defined thresholds for CloudWatch metrics. For instance, if latency metrics exceed specified limits, alerts can be sent to relevant teams, enabling proactive responses to performance issues and reducing downtime.

3. Cost Management Dashboard: Use the metrics gathered from the plugin to build a cost management dashboard that visualizes AWS service usage metrics over time. By correlating these metrics with billing data, organizations can identify high-cost services and take informed actions to optimize their resource usage and spending.

4. Performance Benchmarking for Applications: Leverage the metrics collected from applications running on AWS to perform performance benchmarks. For example, by tracking latency and request count metrics for an ELB, developers can assess the impact of application changes on its performance, making data-driven decisions for optimization.

Microsoft SQL Server

1. Basic MSSQL Setup: Set the driver to ‘mssql’ and configure the DSN with your SQL Server connection details to enable metric storage.
2. Custom Schema Management: Adjust the table creation and existence check templates to define a custom schema that meets your organizational standards.
3. Initialization SQL: Use the init_sql setting to run any necessary SQL commands to prepare your SQL Server environment before metrics ingestion.
4. Connection Tuning: Modify connection pool settings such as connection_max_idle_time and connection_max_open to optimize performance based on your workload.

Feedback

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