Hashicorp Vault and New Relic Integration

Input and output integration overview

The Hashicorp Vault plugin for Telegraf allows for the collection of metrics from Hashicorp Vault services, facilitating monitoring and operational insights.

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

Hashicorp Vault

The Hashicorp Vault plugin is designed to collect metrics from Vault agents running within a cluster. It enables Telegraf, an agent for collecting and reporting metrics, to interface with the Vault services, typically listening on a local address such as http://127.0.0.1:8200. This plugin requires a valid token for authorization, ensuring secure access to the Vault API. Users must configure either a token directly or provide a path to a token file, enhancing flexibility in authentication methods. Proper configuration of the timeout and optional TLS settings further relates to the security and responsiveness of the metrics collection process. As Vault is a critical tool in managing secrets and protecting sensitive data, monitoring its performance and health through this plugin is essential for maintaining operational security 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

Hashicorp Vault

[[inputs.vault]]
  ## URL for the Vault agent
  # url = "http://127.0.0.1:8200"

  ## Use Vault token for authorization.
  ## Vault token configuration is mandatory.
  ## If both are empty or both are set, an error is thrown.
  # token_file = "/path/to/auth/token"
  ## OR
  token = "s.CDDrgg5zPv5ssI0Z2P4qxJj2"

  ## Set response_timeout (default 5 seconds)
  # response_timeout = "5s"

  ## Optional TLS Config
  # tls_ca = /path/to/cafile
  # tls_cert = /path/to/certfile
  # tls_key = /path/to/keyfile

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

Hashicorp Vault

1. Centralized Secret Management Monitoring: Utilize the Vault plugin to monitor multiple Vault instances across a distributed system, allowing for a unified view of secret access patterns and system health. This setup can help DevOps teams quickly identify any anomalies in secret access, providing essential insights into security postures across different environments.

2. Audit Logging Integration: Configure this plugin to feed monitoring metrics into an audit logging system, enabling organizations to have a comprehensive view of their Vault interactions. By correlating audit logs with metrics, teams can investigate issues, optimize performance, and ensure compliance with security policies more effectively.

3. Performance Benchmarking During Deployments: During application deployments that interact with Vault, use the plugin to monitor the effects of those deployments on Vault performance. This allows engineering teams to understand how changes impact secret management workflows and to proactively address performance bottlenecks, ensuring smooth deployment processes.

4. Alerting for Threshold Exceedance: Integrate this plugin with alerting mechanisms to notify administrators when metrics exceed predefined thresholds. This proactive monitoring can help teams respond swiftly to potential issues, maintaining system reliability and uptime by allowing them to take action before any serious incidents arise.

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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