Memcached and New Relic Integration

Input and output integration overview

This plugin gathers statistics data from a Memcached server.

This plugin allows the sending of metrics to New Relic Insights using the Metrics API, enabling effective monitoring and analysis of application performance.

Integration details

Memcached

The Telegraf Memcached plugin is designed to gather statistics data from Memcached servers, allowing users to monitor the performance and health of their caching layer. Memcached, a distributed memory caching system, is commonly used for speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load and storing frequently accessed data in memory for quick retrieval. This plugin collects various metrics such as the number of connections, bytes used, and hits/misses, enabling administrators to analyze cache performance, troubleshoot issues, and optimize resource allocation. The configuration supports multiple Memcached server addresses and offers optional TLS settings, ensuring flexibility and secure data transmission across the network. By leveraging this plugin, organizations can gain insights into their caching strategies and improve application responsiveness and efficiency.

New Relic

This plugin writes metrics to New Relic Insights utilizing the Metrics API, which provides a robust mechanism for sending time series data to the New Relic platform. Users must first obtain an Insights API Key to authenticate and authorize their data submissions. The plugin is designed to facilitate easy integration with New Relic’s monitoring and analytics capabilities, supporting a variety of metric types and allowing for efficient data handling. Core features include the ability to add prefixes to metrics for better identification, customizable timeouts for API requests, and support for proxy settings to enhance connectivity. It is essential for users to configure these options according to their requirements, enabling seamless data flow into New Relic for comprehensive real-time analytics and insights.

Configuration

Memcached

[[inputs.memcached]]
  # An array of address to gather stats about. Specify an ip on hostname
  # with optional port. ie localhost, 10.0.0.1:11211, etc.
  servers = ["localhost:11211"]
  # An array of unix memcached sockets to gather stats about.
  # unix_sockets = ["/var/run/memcached.sock"]

  ## Optional TLS Config
  # enable_tls = false
  # tls_ca = "/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
  ## If false, skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = true

New Relic

[[outputs.newrelic]]
  ## The 'insights_key' parameter requires a NR license key.
  ## New Relic recommends you create one
  ## with a convenient name such as TELEGRAF_INSERT_KEY.
  ## reference: https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/apis/intro-apis/new-relic-api-keys/#ingest-license-key
  # insights_key = "New Relic License Key Here"

  ## Prefix to add to add to metric name for easy identification.
  ## This is very useful if your metric names are ambiguous.
  # metric_prefix = ""

  ## Timeout for writes to the New Relic API.
  # timeout = "15s"

  ## HTTP Proxy override. If unset use values from the standard
  ## proxy environment variables to determine proxy, if any.
  # http_proxy = "http://corporate.proxy:3128"

  ## Metric URL override to enable geographic location endpoints.
  # If not set use values from the standard
  # metric_url = "https://metric-api.newrelic.com/metric/v1"

Input and output integration examples

Memcached

1. Dynamic Cache Performance Monitoring: Use the Memcached plugin to set up a performance monitoring dashboard that displays real-time statistics about cache hit ratios, connection counts, and memory usage. This setup can help developers and system admins quickly identify performance bottlenecks and optimize caching strategies to improve application speed.

2. Alerting on Cache Performance Metrics: Implement an alerting system that triggers notifications whenever certain thresholds are breached, such as a decrease in cache hit rates or an increase in rejected connections. This proactive approach can help teams respond to potential issues before they affect user experience and maintain optimal application performance.

3. Integrating Cache Metrics with Business Analytics: Combine Memcached metrics with business intelligence tools to analyze the impact of caching on user engagement and transaction volumes. By correlating cache performance with key business metrics, teams can derive insights into how caching strategies contribute to overall business objectives and improve decision-making processes.

New Relic

1. Application Performance Monitoring: Use the New Relic Telegraf plugin to send application performance metrics from a web service to New Relic Insights. By integrating this plugin, developers can collect data such as response times, error rates, and throughput, enabling teams to monitor application health in real-time and resolve issues quickly before they impact users. This setup promotes proactive management of application performance and user experience.

2. Infrastructure Metrics Aggregation: Leverage this plugin to aggregate and send system-level metrics (CPU usage, memory consumption, etc.) from various servers to New Relic. This helps system administrators maintain an comprehensive view of infrastructure performance, facilitating capacity planning and identifying potential bottlenecks. By centralizing metrics in New Relic, teams can visualize trends over time and make informed decisions regarding resource allocation.

3. Dynamic Metric Naming for Multi-tenant Applications: Implement dynamic prefixing with the metric_prefix option to differentiate between different tenants in a multi-tenant application. By configuring the plugin to include a unique identifier per tenant in the metric names, teams can analyze usage patterns and performance metrics per tenant. This provides valuable insights into tenant behavior, supporting tailored optimizations and enhancing service quality across different customer segments.

4. Real-time Anomaly Detection: Combine the New Relic plugin with alerting mechanisms to trigger notifications based on unusual metric patterns. By sending metrics such as request counts and response times, teams can set thresholds in New Relic that, when breached, will automatically alert responsible parties. This user-driven approach supports immediate responses to potential issues before they escalate into larger incidents.

Feedback

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