cloud-functions-metrics-service

This project uses IBM Cloud Monitoring to save metrics from IBM Cloud Functions.

Metrics collected by the openwhisk-metrics library are forwarded into the external monitoring service.

usage

Metrics can be forwarded into IBM Cloud Monitoring in real-time or sent in batches using a background process.

• Real-time ingestion ensures metrics appear immediately in the monitoring service. Metrics forwarded using the batch ingestion won't be available until the next background task execution.
• Batch ingestion does not add any delay to action invocations. Real-time ingestion saves invocation metrics each time the action handler is called. This adds a (small) delay to each invocation, where the library calls the external metrics service.

real-time ingestion

• Install OpenWhisk metrics and IBM Cloud Monitoring service libraries

  $ npm install openwhisk-metrics cloud-functions-metrics-service

• Wrap action handlers using external libraries

  const metrics = require('openwhisk-metrics')
  const service = require('cloud-functions-metrics-service')
  
  metrics.service = service.client({  
    host: 'metrics.ng.bluemix.net',
    scope: '...',
    api_key: '...'
  })
  
  const main = params => {
    return { message: "Hello World" }
  }
  
  exports.main = metrics(main)

Configuration options for the openwhisk-metrics library are available in the project repository.

Configuration options for the IBM Cloud Monitoring service are available in the project repository.

Metrics forwarded using external real-time ingestion will not be logged to the console. If you want to enable this for debugging or testing, use this code snippet.

const client = service.client({  
  host: 'metrics.ng.bluemix.net',
  scope: '...',
  api_key: '...'
})

const log = metrics.service

metrics.service = values => {
  log.save(values)
  return client.save(values)
}

batch ingestion

set up metric collectors

• Set up action handlers with openwhisk-metrics

  const metrics = require('openwhisk-metrics')
  
  const main = params => {
    return { message: "Hello World" }
  }
  
  module.exports.main = metrics(main) 

All actions you want to collect metrics for should use the library as above. Use the action names in the configuration below for the background task.

create metric forwarder action

• Download project repository

  $ git clone https://github.com/jthomas/cloud-functions-metrics-service
  $ cd cloud-functions-metrics-service

• Create action deployment package.

  $ npm install
  $ zip -r action.zip index.js package.json lib node_modules

• Fill in authentication parameters in action configuration file (config.json).

  {
    "actions": ["action_names_to_monitor"],
    "service": {
      "host": "metrics.ng.bluemix.net",
      "scope": "...",
      "api_key": "..."          
    }
  }

  Configuration options for the IBM Cloud Monitoring service are available in the project repository.

• Create new OpenWhisk action from deployment package and configuration file.

  $ wsk action create metric-forwarder --kind nodejs:8 action.zip --param-file config.json

• Create trigger feed for alarm package to run metric-forwarder on periodic schedule.

  $ wsk trigger create interval \
    --feed /whisk.system/alarms/interval \
    --param minutes 10 \

• Bind trigger to action using rule.

  $ wsk rule create forward-metrics-on-interval interval metric-forwarder