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Delivering custom application metrics

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Yandex Unified Agent collects metrics in Prometheus format and converts them to Yandex Monitoring format. Using Unified Agent lets you pull metrics from applications that deliver them in the Prometheus format.

To deliver custom application metrics to Yandex Monitoring, use the metrics_pull input that regularly polls an application over HTTP expecting to receive metrics in Prometheus format.

As an example, let's discuss delivery of metrics from a test application written in Python.

Example of delivering custom application metrics

You can also use this method to deliver metrics from any custom applications that use Prometheus client libraries.

  1. Run a test Python application that provides metrics in Prometheus format.

    1. Install the prometheus_client Python library by running the following commands:

      sudo apt install python3-pip
pip3 install prometheus_client

    2. Create a test Python application by writing the following code to the example.py file:

      example.py:

      from prometheus_client import start_http_server, Summary
import random
import time

# Create a metric to track the number of requests and their execution time.
REQUEST_TIME = Summary('request_processing_seconds', 'Time spent processing request')

# Add the metric to the request processing function.
@REQUEST_TIME.time()
def process_request(t):
    """A dummy function that takes some time."""
    time.sleep(t)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    # Start the HTTP server so that the application provides metrics.
    start_http_server(8000)
    # Generate random requests.
    while True:
        process_request(random.random())

    3. Run the test Python application with the command:

      python3 example.py

    4. Check that the application provides metrics by running the curl http://localhost:8000 command. Sample command output:

      curl http://localhost:8000
# HELP python_gc_objects_collected_total Objects collected during gc
# TYPE python_gc_objects_collected_total counter
python_gc_objects_collected_total{generation="0"} 362.0
python_gc_objects_collected_total{generation="1"} 0.0
python_gc_objects_collected_total{generation="2"} 0.0
# HELP python_gc_objects_uncollectable_total Uncollectable object found during GC
# TYPE python_gc_objects_uncollectable_total counter
...

  2. Set up a service account from which metrics will be written to Yandex Monitoring.

    1. Create a service account in the folder you want to write metrics to and assign it the monitoring.editor role.

    2. Link your service account to a virtual machine with Unified Agent installed.

  3. Install and configure Yandex Unified Agent.

    1. Create a file named config.yml in your home folder.

      config.yml:

       status:
   port: "16241"

 storages:
   - name: main
     plugin: fs
     config:
       directory: /var/lib/yandex/unified_agent/main
       max_partition_size: 100mb
       max_segment_size: 10mb

 channels:
   - name: cloud_monitoring
     channel:
       pipe:
         - storage_ref:
             name: main
       output:
         plugin: yc_metrics
         config:
           folder_id: "$FOLDER_ID"
           iam:
             cloud_meta: {}

 routes:
   - input:
       plugin: metrics_pull
       config:
         url: http://localhost:8000
         format:
           prometheus: {}
         namespace: app
     channel:
       channel_ref:
         name: cloud_monitoring

   - input:
       plugin: agent_metrics
       config:
         namespace: ua
     channel:
       pipe:
         - filter:
             plugin: filter_metrics
             config:
               match: "{scope=health}"
       channel_ref:
         name: cloud_monitoring

 import:
   - /etc/yandex/unified_agent/conf.d/*.yml

      Where $FOLDER_ID is the ID of the folder you want to write metrics.

    2. Install Unified Agent on your VM by running the following command in the home folder:

      docker run \
-p 16241:16241 -it --detach --uts=host \
--name=ua \
-v /proc:/ua_proc \
-v `pwd`/config.yml:/etc/yandex/unified_agent/config.yml \
-e PROC_DIRECTORY=/ua_proc \
-e FOLDER_ID=a1bs... \
cr.yandex/yc/unified-agent

      You can find more ways to install the agent in Installing and running Yandex Unified Agent.

  4. Make sure the metrics are delivered to Yandex Monitoring.

    1. On the home page Yandex Monitoring, go to Metric Explorer.

    2. In the query block, select:

    • The folder where metrics are collected.
    • The label value service=custom.
    • The metric name starting with the app prefix.

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