17 posts tagged with "monitoring"

Introduction​

A status page forms a key part of your incident communication strategy. When it comes to setting up a status page, you have two options:

• Host your own - using either an open source project or a custom solution.
• Use a managed status page provider.

We will examine the pros and cons of each option along these dimensions:

1. Feature Set
2. Service Related

For 1, if you choose a self-managed, open-source or custom solution, it's in your control. For a managed solution, you are limited by the provider's feature set.

For 2, if you choose a self-managed solution, your team is responsible for the quality of the service. For a managed solution, you are dependent on the provider's service quality.

In most cases, you are better off using a managed solution from a reputed provider, unless you have:

• Specific requirements that are not met by the vendor.
• Budget constraints.

Introduction​

If you manage applications running on cloud platforms, you likely depend on multiple cloud vendors and services. These could be infrastructure providers like AWS, GCP or Azure. A vulnerability in any of these services could potentially impact your applications and your users.

A cloud platform has many moving parts, many of which are dependent on other third-party providers. For example:

• Operating system images for VMs which are maintained by third-party vendors.
• Container images which are hosted on external repositories.
• Software stacks which are maintained by other vendors but available for deployment on the cloud provider.
• Libraries used by the cloud provider's internal software which are maintained by other developers or organizations.
• Control plane software like Kubernetes.
• Hardware, like processors, which are provided by the manufacturer.
• Hypervisors which are developed and maintained by third-party vendors.
• Networking hardware manufactured by other vendors.

Introduction​

This article is part of a series on setting up an end-to-end monitoring and alerting stack using Prometheus.

Continuing our series on setting up Prometheus in a container, this article provides a step-by-step guide for how to configure alerts in Prometheus. We will add alerting rules and deploy Prometheus Alertmanager with Slack integration.

If you follow the steps in this article, you will end up with a containerized setup for:

1. A Prometheus instance with alerting rules.
2. An Alertmanager instance which can send alerts originating from those rules to a Slack channel.

Let's get started.

Introduction​

This article is part of a series on setting up an end-to-end monitoring and alerting stack using Prometheus.

There are different ways you can use to deploy the Prometheus monitoring tool in your environment. One of the fastest ways to get started is to deploy it as a Docker container. This guide shows you how to quickly set up a minimal Prometheus on your laptop. You can then extend that setup to add a monitoring dashboard, alerting, and authentication.

• Introduction
• Deploying Prometheus in a Docker Container
  • Basic Setup
    • Useful Tip
  • Separating the Configuration
  • Making the Data Storage Persistent
  • Further Configuration
• Conclusion
• References

Deploying Prometheus in a Docker Container​

Basic Setup​

Running Prometheus in Docker is very simple using this command

docker run -p 9000:9090 prometheus prom/prometheus:v3.0.0

This will pull and run the latest version (as of this writing) of Prometheus. You can access the Prometheus UI at localhost:9000. Note that the container port 9090 is forwarded to the localhost port 9000.

Introduction​

This article is part of a series on setting up an end-to-end monitoring and alerting stack using Prometheus.

The Prometheus monitoring tool can store its metrics either locally or remotely. You can configure a remote data store using the remote_write configuration. This article describes the various data store options available as well as how to set up a remote store.

Overview of Remote Storage​

By default, Prometheus stores data locally wherever it is installed. The data directory can be configured by using the --storage.tsdb.path command line option when starting Prometheus. In practice you can use a separate disk for higher performance attached to the machine where Prometheus is running.

However, this may not be possible or optimal in all situations as you might want a data store that is more suited for time series data, and has larger storage capabilities for higher data retention. Prometheus would usually run in a standalone VM or a Kubernetes pod or a Docker container, and it would not have access to such data stores by default.

A remote store can add these capabilities to Prometheus. The remote storage option can be set by using the remote_write key in the Prometheus configuration YAML file.

Introduction​

This article is part of a series on setting up an end-to-end monitoring and alerting stack using Prometheus.

Service discovery (SD) is a mechanism by which the Prometheus monitoring tool can discover monitorable targets automatically. Instead of listing down each and every target to be scraped in the Prometheus configuration, service discovery acts as a source of targets that Prometheus can query at runtime.

Service discovery becomes crucial when there are dynamically changing hosts, especially in microservices architectures and environments like Kubernetes. In Prometheus parlance, service discovery is a way of discovering "scrape targets".

For example, pods are created dynamically in Kubernetes as a result of new services being deployed and undeployed, autoscaling events, and errors causing pods to crash and go away. If you are using Prometheus for scraping pods in such an environment, Prometheus has to know which pods are running and scrapable at any given point in time. The Kubernetes service discovery pluging enables this. Similarly, there are SD plugins for other common environments.

You can use service discovery in Prometheus with the predefined plugins, or write your own custom ones using file or HTTP, depending on the situation.

Introduction​

Maintaining transparent communication about service availability is crucial for businesses of all sizes. Status pages are an important part of your communication strategy during times of outages and maintenance events.

You can choose to go with a fully managed status page provider, or host an open-source one yourself.

Open source status page providers offer a cost-effective and customizable solution. However, then can come with their own drawbacks. This guide explores open source status page providers in 2024 to help you choose the right tool for your needs.

• Introduction
• List of Open Source Status Page Providers
  • 1. Cachet
  • 2. Statping-ng
  • 3. Cstate
  • 4. Upptime
  • 5. Staytus
  • 6. Vigil
  • 7. Gatus
  • 8. Statuspal
  • 9. Uptime Kuma
  • 10. OneUptime
  • 11. Kener
  • 12. OpenStatus
• Choosing the Right Open Source Status Page Provider
• Conclusion

List of Open Source Status Page Providers​

1. Cachet​

Cachet is a popular open source status page system built with PHP and Laravel. It offers a clean, minimalist design and a robust feature set.

Introduction​

Downtime is inevitable but what sets successful businesses apart is how they handle it. A key part of incident management is incident communication with both internal and external stakeholders. A status page is a crucial tool for maintaining clear communication with users during outages or service interruptions. There are numerous status page providers available with different features. This article will guide you through best practices for selecting a provider that suits your needs.

The Importance of a Status Page​

An internal status page provider your colleagues and stakeholders in your organization to get a snapshot of of the current status. It can help reduce unnecessary back and forth between teams, and help people to prioritize their work better. It also creates internal transparency and trust between teams.

An external status page is crucial if you say you are committed to open communication with your end users or customers. Whether you are B2B or B2C, a public status page would be the first thing people would check if they face issues. Being open about incidents and your efforts to mitigate them build user trust. They can also decrease support ticket volume during incidents.

You can choose an open source status page provider, or one that is managed. This guide focuses on the factors to look at while evaluating managed providers.

Key Factors to Consider When Choosing a Status Page Provider​

1. Reliability​

Your status page needs to be accessible especially when your main services are down. Your provider should be able to guarantee a reasonable amount of

• Uptime SLA
• Globally distributed infrastructure for high availabilty
• Redundant systems to ensure failover and availability
• Scalability to handle increased traffic during major incidents

Introduction​

Incident updates on the public status pages of your cloud providers are often the first indication that they might have an outage. Providers also post updates about upcoming and ongoing maintenance on their status pages. Thus, monitoring your cloud status pages becomes crucial to your business operations. This article will guide you through the process of effectively monitoring such status pages.

• Introduction
• Identify Your Cloud Providers
• Locate Their Public Status Pages
• Understand the Status Page Structure
• Configure Notifications
  • Notification Challenges
• Best Practices
  • Filtering Your Monitors
  • Do Periodic Reviews
  • Have a Single View Across All Providers
• Include in Your Incident Response Plan
• Use a Monitoring Tool
  • The Benefits of Using a Monitoring Tool
• Conclusion
• FAQ

Identify Your Cloud Providers​

Work with your Dev/Ops/SRE and IT teams to come up with a comprehensive list of your cloud providers. Any service that is not managed by your teams is by definition a cloud service. Although we focus on Cloud providers - i.e. providers that let you deploy your services on their infrastructure - this article is equally applicable to any of your external SaaS vendors.

Introduction​

Modern businesses depend heavily on Software as a Service (SaaS). SaaS is not limited to being used by software development teams.
Almost all aspects of business operations - accounting, HR, payroll, marketing, IT, sales, support - depend on one or more SaaS applications. Given this dependency on SaaS applications, their uptime becomes tightly tied to a business's uptime. Any SaaS downtime can affect both a business's daily operations as well as the user experience.

How to check if a SaaS is experiencing downtime? Follow the steps below:

• Introduction
• Visit the SaaS Provider's Status Page
  • Locate the SaaS provider's Status Page
  • Understanding Status Pages
• Use External Monitoring Services
  • Setting Up a Monitoring Tool
• Check Social Media
• Run Manual Tests
• Incident Communication
• Conclusion
• FAQ
• Popular SaaS Service Statuses

Visit the SaaS Provider's Status Page​

The SaaS provider's status page will have first-hand information about ongoing issues.