New Relic

Intro to Blue Medora Developers

The story

A new platform

New Relic specializes in Application Monitoring, mainly focused on web applications,
 

...but not exclusively by any means

How do we develop for it?

• Use Existing ExUno Data Providers
• Send (Filtered) Data to Plugin - write a yaml
  • Most time spent deciding what to send
  • Pairs well with the MP generator KPIs list
• Send (Unfiltered) Data to Insights
• Do Custom Post Processing (only if we really need to)
  • Custom licensing too
    • (only if it's a really weird licensing scheme)

You may be thinking...

Don't worry!

We made it easy!

What do we have on it?

• 21 Solutions
  • Initially Developed by Katherine, Corbin, and Joe K.
    • Plugins was a big focus
    • Insights got added on later
  • Each capable of producing 2 separate products
  • New Relic Plugin & New Relic Insights
• Soon to be many, many more...
  • Dan J, Corbin, Joe K. and I rewrote core
    • To be more of an even split (Plugin/Insights)
    • To be more dev friendly
    • To include Relationships and Events

Plugin

• A place to send Numeric data
• Analytics on data - think: dynamic thresholds 
• Widgets on Dashboards
• A good amount of filtering on Ex Uno Collection Results often needs to be done

Insights

• Capable of handling String, Boolean, and Numeric data
• Populates Tables/Rows 
  • Database-ish, JSON-ish
• Can use a query language called "NRQL" to retrieve sets of information
  • Pronounced like "Urkel"
  • Sort of SQL
    • somewhat limited - no JOINs
• More graph types!

The filter

Part 1

---
:data_collector_classes:
  default: com.bluemedora.mysql.MySQLDataCollector
:guid: com.bluemedora.mysql
:insights_notification_prefix: mysql
:version:
  :major: 1
  :minor: 0
  :patch: 0
:static_args:
  order_queries_by: calls
  monitor_tables: true
  query_history_interval: 24
  query_count: 10
:licensable_resources:
  default: mysql_database

The filter

(cont'd)

:key_definitions:
  default:
    mysql_database:
    - :metric_type: resource_name
      :label: Database
    ...
:counter_metric_definitions:
  default:
    mysql_instance:
    - :metric_type: os_data_reads
      :time_unit: SECONDS
    ...
:unit_renamings:
  default:
    mysql_instance:
      os_data_reads: reads
      os_data_writes: writes
      ...
:metric_white_list:
  default:
    mysql_replication: 
    mysql_instance:
      total_allocated:
      os_data_reads:
      os_data_writes:
      lock_deadlocks:

Knobs & Levers

{
  "polling_interval_seconds": 60,
  "agents": [
    {
      "instance_name": "Dev Test",
      "username": "myCoolUsername",
      "password": "superSecretPassword",
      "port": 3306,
      "host": "mysql-host-name",
      "database": "sports-db",
      "send_to_plugin": {
        "mysql_instance": true,
        "mysql_tablespace": true,
        "mysql_table": true,
        "mysql_database": true,
        "mysql_index": true,
        "mysql_query": true
      },
      "send_to_insights": {
        "mysql_instance": true,
        "mysql_tablespace": true,
        "mysql_table": true,
        "mysql_database": true,
        "mysql_index": true,
        "mysql_query": true,
        "relationships": true,
        "notifications": true
      }
    }
}

Using the data

Plugins:

• Search for a single metric
  • Over several objects
  • ../res_kind/*/metric[units]
• Search for similarly named metrics
  • "<read/write/del>_ops"
  • *_ops

Using the Data

Insights:

// Some examples...

SELECT some_metric FROM <resource_kind>_collection
SELECT count(some_metric) FROM <resource_kind>_collection
SELECT metric1, metric2 FROM <resource_kind1>_collection, <resource_kind2>_collection
SELECT count(some_metric) FROM <resource_kind>_collection SINCE 1 week ago TIMESERIES
SELECT count(some_metric) FROM <resource_kind>_collection FACET resource_name

Different Query Recipes

Yield Different Graph-types

Tooling

Relationships

• New Relic is not inherently hierarchical
• Parent-Child relationships 
• Customers can now dig through related resources, just like vR Ops

Notifications

• Bring Events from the underlying API to New Relic

How can I help?

• Be mindful of non-standard units
• Remember Numeric metrics
• Follow Ex Uno Tenets
  • resource_resource_naming_conventions
  • ["lists", "are", "bad"]
  • "false" != false
• Use the MP Generator
  • KPI lists reduce the time spent deciding what to send

Overview

• Data Provider to Functioning NR product
  • Standing up a project can take 10 minutes
  • Standing up as in running
• You get lots of things for free (including CI!)
• You can speed things up by being responsible

Questions?

(Huge thanks to Katherine, Corbin, Joe K, Cam, and Dan J)