Google Compute Engine Autoscaler Metrics via Telegraf

Google Compute Engine Autoscaler is a powerful feature within Google Cloud that automatically adjusts the number of Compute Engine instances based on real-time demand. It allows organizations to efficiently scale their infrastructure to meet fluctuating workload requirements, ensuring optimal performance and cost efficiency.

• Begin by heading over to the 'Project Selector' and select the specific project from which you wish to send metrics.
• Progress to the 'Service Account Details' screen. Here, assign a distinct name to your service account and opt for 'Create and Continue'.
• In the 'Grant This Service Account Access to Project' screen, ensure the following roles: 'Compute Viewer', 'Monitoring Viewer', and 'Cloud Asset Viewer'.
• Upon completion of the above, click 'Done'.
• Now find and select your project in the 'Service Accounts for Project' list.
• Move to the 'KEYS' section.
• Navigate through Keys > Add Key > Create New Key, and specify 'JSON' as the key type.
• Lastly, click on 'Create', and make sure to save your new key.

Now add the environment variable for the key

On the machine run:

export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=<your-gcp-key>

This integration allows you to configure a Telegraf agent to send your metrics, in multiple formats, to Logit.io.

Telegraf is a flexible server agent equipped with plug-in support, useful for sending metrics and events from data sources like web servers, APIs, application logs, and cloud services.

To ship your metrics to Logit.io, we will integrate the relevant input and outputs.http plug-in into your Telegraf configuration file.

Choose the install for your operating system below to get started:

Windows

wget https://dl.influxdata.com/telegraf/releases/telegraf-1.19.2_windows_amd64.zip

Download and extract to: C:\Program Files\Logitio\telegraf\

Configuration file: C:\Program Files\Logitio\telegraf\

MacOS

brew install telegraf

Configuration file x86_64 Intel: /usr/local/etc/telegraf.conf Configuration file ARM (Apple Silicon): /opt/homebrew/etc/telegraf.conf

Ubuntu/Debian

wget -q https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdata-archive_compat.key
echo '393e8779c89ac8d958f81f942f9ad7fb82a25e133faddaf92e15b16e6ac9ce4c influxdata-archive_compat.key' | sha256sum -c && cat influxdata-archive_compat.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/influxdata-archive_compat.gpg > /dev/null
echo 'deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/influxdata-archive_compat.gpg] https://repos.influxdata.com/debian stable main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/influxdata.list

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install telegraf

Configuration file: /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

RedHat and CentOS

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/influxdata.repo
[influxdata]
name = InfluxData Repository - Stable
baseurl = https://repos.influxdata.com/stable/\$basearch/main
enabled = 1
gpgcheck = 1
gpgkey = https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdata-archive_compat.key
EOF

sudo yum install telegraf

Configuration file: /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

SLES & openSUSE

zypper ar -f obs://devel:languages:go/ go
zypper in telegraf

Configuration file: /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

FreeBSD/PC-BSD

sudo pkg install telegraf

Configuration file: /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

Read more about how to configure data scraping and configuration options for Telegraf

First you need to set up the input plug-in to enable Telegraf to scrape the GCP data from your hosts. This can be accomplished by incorporating the following code into your configuration file:

# Gather timeseries from Google Cloud Platform v3 monitoring API
[[inputs.stackdriver]]
  ## GCP Project
  project = "<your-project-name>"

  ## Include timeseries that start with the given metric type.
  metric_type_prefix_include = [
    "autoscaler.googleapis.com",
  ]

  ## Most metrics are updated no more than once per minute; it is recommended
  ## to override the agent level interval with a value of 1m or greater.
  interval = "1m"

Read more about how to configure data scraping and configuration options for Stackdriver

Once you have generated the configuration file, you need to set up the output plug-in to allow Telegraf to transmit your data to Logit.io in Prometheus format. This can be accomplished by incorporating the following code into your configuration file:

[[outputs.http]]
  
  url = "https://<your-metrics-username>:<your-metrics-password>@<your-metrics-stack-id>-vm.logit.io:0/api/v1/write"
  data_format = "prometheusremotewrite"

  [outputs.http.headers]
    Content-Type = "application/x-protobuf"
    Content-Encoding = "snappy"

Windows

telegraf.exe --service start

MacOS

telegraf --config telegraf.conf

Linux

sudo service telegraf start

for systemd installations

systemctl start telegraf

Data should now have been sent to your Stack.

View my data

If you don't see metrics take a look at How to diagnose no data in Stack below for how to diagnose common issues.

If you don't see data appearing in your Stack after following the steps, visit the Help Centre guide for steps to diagnose no data appearing in your Stack or Chat to support now.

To effectively monitor and analyze the performance of Google Compute Engine Autoscaler, implementing a robust metrics management solution is crucial. Telegraf, an open-source server agent, is widely recognized for its ability to collect and report metrics from various sources, including Autoscaler instances, scaling events, and resource utilization.

Telegraf provides a comprehensive range of input plugins that enable users to collect diverse metrics, such as instance counts, CPU utilization, network traffic, and scaling activities. These metrics are vital for understanding the scaling behavior and efficiency of Google Compute Engine Autoscaler.

For storing and analyzing these metrics, organizations can leverage Prometheus, an open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit known for its flexible query language and powerful data visualization capabilities. The process of transmitting Google Compute Engine Autoscaler metrics from Telegraf to Prometheus involves configuring Telegraf to present metrics in Prometheus's format and instructing Prometheus to scrape these metrics from the Telegraf server.

Once the metrics are successfully integrated into Prometheus, organizations can perform comprehensive analysis and visualization using Grafana. Grafana, a leading open-source platform for monitoring and observability, seamlessly integrates with Prometheus. It empowers users to create dynamic and interactive dashboards for a detailed exploration of the metrics data, enabling organizations to gain valuable insights into Autoscaler performance, scaling patterns, and potential optimization opportunities.

If you need any further assistance with shipping your log data to Logit.io we're here to help you get started. Feel free to get in contact with our support team by sending us a message via live chat & we'll be happy to assist.