Platform metrics for IBM Cloud Metrics Routing

You can use the IBM Cloud® Monitoring service to monitor platform metrics that are exposed by IBM Cloud Metrics Routing. For example, you can use it to monitor how IBM Cloud Metrics Routing is routing metrics in each region where you operate.

Platform metrics are metrics that are exposed by enabled-monitoring services and the platform in IBM Cloud. You can use them to find and take action on configuration problems and possible outages.

IBM Cloud Monitoring is a cloud-native, and container-intelligence management system that you can include as part of your IBM Cloud architecture. You can use it to gain operational visibility into the performance and health of your applications, services, and platforms. It offers administrators, DevOps teams, and developers full stack telemetry with advanced features to monitor and troubleshoot, define alerts, and design custom dashboards. For more information, see Getting started with Monitoring.

Collecting platform metrics

The IBM Cloud Metrics Routing generates metrics automatically in the IBM Cloud account.

To collect platform metrics in an IBM Cloud account, choose 1 of the following options:

Configure the Monitoring service in the IBM Cloud account

You can use Monitoring, an IAM enabled service, to collect metrics through instances that you provision in each IBM Cloud region where you operate and that you enable to collect platform metrics. For more information on how to enable platform metrics, see Enabling platform metrics.

You can configure 1 instance only of the IBM Cloud Monitoring service per region to collect platform metrics in that location. For more information about supported locations, see Locations supported by the Monitoring service.

In a region, before you configure a Monitoring instance to collect platform metrics, check with the account or service administrator if another Monitoring instance has already been configured. You may not have permissions to see all Monitoring instances in the region.
Configure IBM Cloud Metrics Routing in the IBM Cloud account

You can use IBM Cloud Metrics Routing, a platform service, to collect and route metrics at the account-level by configuring targets and routes that define where and how metrics are routed in the account. Supported targets are Monitoring instances.

IBM Cloud Metrics Routing routes metrics based on filtering conditions that are defined by 1 or more of the following values from the incoming service data. Presently, we allow the following operands: location, service name, service instance ID, resource type, and resource.

You can define a target, the resource where metrics are routed to, in any IBM Cloud Metrics Routing supported region. However, the target resource can be located in any region where that type of target is supported, in the same account or in a different account. You can define rules to determine where metrics are to be routed by configuring 1 or more routes in the account. For more information about how to configure IBM Cloud Metrics Routing, see Getting started with IBM Cloud Metrics Routing.

IBM Cloud Metrics Routing can only route metrics that are generated in supported regions. Other regions, where IBM Cloud Metrics Routing is not available, continue to collect and manage metrics by using the Monitoring service.

You can collect metrics that are generated by IBM Cloud Metrics Routing by using any of the following methods:

Table 1. Methods to manage metrics in an IBM Cloud account.
Method	Supported
Configuring IBM Cloud Metrics Routing
Configuring the Monitoring service

Locations of service metrics

IBM Cloud Metrics Routing automatically generates metrics in all of the supported regions so that you can track activity of the service in the account.

The following tables list the locations where the automatic collection of IBM Cloud Metrics Routing service metrics is enabled.

Table 2. The automatic collection of IBM Cloud Metrics Routing metrics in Americas locations
Locations in Americas	Service metrics available
`Dallas (us-south)`
`Washington DC (us-east)`

Table 3. The automatic collection of IBM Cloud Metrics Routing metrics in Asia Pacific locations
Locations in Asia Pacific	Service metrics available
`Sydney (au-syd)`

Table 4. The automatic collection of IBM Cloud Metrics Routing metrics in Europe locations
Locations in Europe	Service metrics available
`Frankfurt (eu-de)`
`London (eu-gb)`

Monitoring IBM Cloud Metrics Routing

You monitor the health and status of IBM Cloud Metrics Routing by monitoring metrics through the Monitoring web UI.

If you collect metrics through the Monitoring service, you must launch the Monitoring UI for the instance that is either enabled for platform metrics in the same region as your service instance or is configured as a Metrics Router target.
If you collect and route metrics to 1 or more Monitoring instances by configuring IBM Cloud Metrics Routing in the account, you must launch the Monitoring UI for each instance that is configured and included in a routing rule.

In Monitoring, use the IBM Cloud Metrics Routing Overview predefined dashboard template to monitor IBM Cloud Metrics Routing in IBM Cloud.

To open the predefined IBM Cloud Metrics Routing template, complete the following steps from the Monitoring UI:

In the Monitoring UI, go to Dashboards > Dashboard templates > IBM.
Select IBM Cloud Metrics Routing Overview.

You cannot modify a dashboard template. However, you can copy the template and create a custom dashboard that you can then configure.

Next, choose any of the following tasks to learn more about how to manage and work with platform metrics:

Table 5. More information about Monitoring tasks
Task	For more information
Working with platform metrics	link
Controlling what data is visible	link
Monitoring metrics using dashboards	link
Configuring an alert for a platform metric	link
Controlling access by using teams	link

Metrics

IBM Cloud Metrics Routing exposes the following metrics:

Successful data points
Target mode

Total number of data points successfully sent to the storage target

Total number of data points that IBM Cloud Metrics Routing sent successfully to the destination target.

Table 1. Total number of metrics successfully sent to the storage target
Metadata	Description
`Metric Name`	`ibm_metrics_router_successful_data_points`
`Metric Type`	`gauge`
`Value Type`	`none`
`Segment By`	`ibm_ctype`,`ibm_location`, `ibm_scope`, `ibm_service_name`, `ibm_resource_type`, `ibm_resource_name`, `ibm_resource`, `ibm_metrics_router_source_region`, `ibm_metrics_router_target_type`
`Frequency`	`60 seconds`

The current target mode

The current mode for IBM Cloud Metrics Routing targets. There are two possible values for the metric:

1 is for valid targets.
0 is for misconfigured targets.

It is your responsibility to resolve misconfigured targets, at least one of the following needs to be fixed:

You must have the correct service-to-service authorizations, see Managing authorizations to grant access between services.
Your target destination must be a CRN for a Cloud instance that still exists.

Table 2. The current target mode
Metadata	Description
`Metric Name`	`ibm_metrics_router_target_mode`
`Metric Type`	`gauge`
`Value Type`	`none`
`Segment By`	`ibm_ctype`,`ibm_location`, `ibm_scope`, `ibm_service_name`, `ibm_resource_type`, `ibm_resource_name`, `ibm_resource`, `ibm_metrics_router_target_type`
`Frequency`	`60 seconds`

Global Attributes

The following attributes are available for all metrics.

Table 3. Global attributes
Attribute	Attribute Name	Attribute Description	Valid values
`Cloud Type`	`ibm_ctype`	The cloud type can be `public`, `dedicated`, or `local`.	Valid value is `public`.
`Location`	`ibm_location`	The location of the monitored resource, which can be a region, data center, or global.	Valid regions.
`Resource`	`ibm_resource`	The resource that is measured by the service, which is typically an identifying name or GUID.
`Resource Name`	`ibm_resource_name`	The name of the resource that is measured by the service.
`Resource Type`	`ibm_resource_type`	The type of the resource that is measured by the service.	Valid value is `target`.
`Scope`	`ibm_scope`	The scope is the account where the metric is generated.
`Service name`	`ibm_service_name`	The name of the service that is generating this metric.	Valid value is `metrics-router`.

More attributes

The following attributes are available for one or more attributes described in the previous tables. See the individual metrics for options.

Table 4. Other attributes
Attribute	Attribute Name	Attribute Description	Valid values
`Target Type`	`ibm_metrics_router_target_type`	The type of target.	Valid value is `sysdig-monitor`.
`Source Region`	`ibm_metrics_router_source_region`	The region that sent the data points.	Valid value is any region from Locations.

Dashboards templates

The following table lists the pre-defined dashboard templates that are available to monitor IBM Cloud Metrics Routing:

Table 5. Pre-defined dashboard templates
Dashboard Name	Dashboard description
`Metrics Routing - Overview`	Use this dashboard to monitor IBM Cloud Metrics Routing data point processing and target modes.