Kafka

Overview Copied

Kafka monitoring is a Gateway configuration file that enables monitoring of Kafka Brokers through a set of samplers with customised JMX plug-in settings.

Kafka is a distributed streaming platform that allows you to:

It is important to monitor Kafka because it carries crucial data that many applications rely on. Geneos provides a JMX server sampler configuration to monitor Kafka.

This guide discusses the steps to set up the Kafka integration on a Gateway. Once the integration is set up, the samplers providing the dataviews become available to that Gateway.

Intended audience Copied

This guide is intended for users who are setting up, configuring, troubleshooting and maintaining this integration. This is also intended for users who will be using Active Console to monitor data from Kafka. Once the integration is set up, the samplers providing the dataviews become available to that Gateway.

As a user, you should be familiar with Linux or any other database, and with the administration of the Kafka services.

Prerequisites Copied

The following requirements must be met before the installation and setup of the template:

Java requirements Copied

The Java installation and environment configuration is a common source of errors for users setting up Java-based components and plug-ins. It is recommended to read Configure the Java environment to help you understand your Java installation.

Installation procedure Copied

Ensure that you have read and can follow the system requirements prior to installation and setup of this integration template.

  1. Download the integration package geneos-integration-kafka-<version>.zip from the ITRS Downloads site.

  2. Open Gateway Setup Editor.

  3. In the Navigation panel, click Includes to create a new file.

  4. Enter the location of the file to include in the Location field. In this example, it is the include/KafkaMonitoring.xml.

  5. Update the Priority field. This can be any value except 1. If you input a priority of 1, the Gateway Setup Editor returns an error.

  6. Expand the file location in the Include section.

  7. Select Click to load.

  8. Click Yes to load the new Kafka include file.

  9. Click Managed entities in the Navigation panel.

  10. Add the Kafka-Broker and Kafka-Cluster types to the Managed Entity section that you will use to monitor Kafka.

  11. ClickValidate current document to check your configuration.

  12. ClickSave current document to apply the changes.

Set up the samplers Copied

These are the pre-configured samplers available to use in KafkaMonitoring.xml.

Configure the required fields by referring to the table below:

Samplers
Kafka-HeapMemoryUsage
Kafka-Broker
Kafka-Topics
Kafka-Cluster

Set up the variables Copied

The KafkaMonitoring.xml template provides the variables that are set in the Environments section:

Variable Description
KAFKA_MONITORING_GROUP_NAME Sampler group name.
KAFKA_JMX_HOST Host name (or IP address) of the machine hosting the broker.
KAFKA_JMX_PORT JMX port that has been configured for that broker.

Set up the rules Copied

The KafkaMonitoring-SampleRules.xml template also provides a separate sample rules that you can use to configure the Gateway Setup Editor.

Your configuration rules must be set in the Includes section. In the Navigation panel, click Rules.

The table below shows the included rules in the integration file:

Sample Rules Description
Broker - Kafka Status

Generates a human readable version of the numeric State value of the broker and has the following conditions:

  • Red - the broker State=0: Not Running
  • Amber - the broker State=2, 5, or 6
Cluster - Partition Underreplicated Applies to all cells in a Kafka-Cluster. The rule turns red if the value is > 0.
Broker - Active Controller Applies to all Active Controller Count Cells in the Kafka-Broker. The Active Controller count shows the number of active controllers across the cluster. A value of greater than 1 in this column indicates that there are more than one controllers with alerts.
Broker - Offline Partitions Applies to all offline partitions count in the Kafka-Broker. The offline partitions count shows the total number of under replicated partitions across the cluster. A value of greater than 0 indicates that there are under replicated partitions with alerts.

Metrics and dataviews Copied

Kafka monitoring dataviews Copied

The JMX Server sampler configurations are used to monitor Kafka.

Kafka broker (per broker metrics) Copied

This provides the state of the Kafka broker:

Column Description
ID Topic and matrix names.
Topic Topic name.
Name Matrix name.
Count / EventType / MeanRate / RateUnit Attribute values.

ISR is the set of in-sync replicas. This is the subset of the replicas list that is currently alive and synced with the leader.

Column Name Description
Kafka Row name.
Version Kafka binary version.
State State of the Kafka broker.
Kafka Status Manipulated base of the Kafka state value. The following are available:
  • Broker State = 0: Not Running extends Broker States
  • Broker State = 1: Starting extends Broker States
  • Broker State = 2: Recovering from Unclean Shutdown extends Broker States
  • Broker State = 3: Running as Broker extends Broker States
  • Broker State = 4: Running as Controller extends Broker States
  • Broker State = 5: Pending Controlled Shutdown extends Broker States
  • Broker State = 6: Broker Shutting Down extends Broker States
PartitionCount Total number of partitions for all topics in the broker which is is usually even across all brokers.
LeaderCount Leader Replica Count. The Leader is the node responsible for all reads and writes for the given partition. Each node will be the leader for a randomly selected portion of the partitions.
UnderReplicatedPartitions Number of partitions under replicated per broker. Replicas are the list of nodes that replicate the log for this partition regardless of whether they are the leader or even if they are currently active.
ActiveControllerCount The number of active controllers in the cluster. One of the brokers is elected as the controller for the whole cluster. It will be responsible for:
  • leadership change of a partition (each leader can independently update ISR).
  • new topics.
  • deleted topics.
  • replica reassignment.
OfflinePartitionsCount The number of partitions that do not have an active leader and are hence not writable or readable.
PreferredReplicaImbalanceCount The imbalance count in the preferred replica.
IsrExpand If a broker goes down, the ISR for some partitions will shrink. When that broker is up again, the ISR will be expanded once the replicas are fully caught up. Other than that, the expected value for both the ISR shrink and expansion rates is 0.
IsrShrink When a broker is brought up after a failure, it starts syncing by reading from the leader. Once synced, it gets added back to the ISR.

MBeans for Kafka Broker Copied

Kafka topics (per topic metrics) Copied

This provides all the metrics available for a topic in the broker:

Column Description
ID Topic and matrix names.
Topic Topic name.
Name Matrix name.
Count / EventType / MeanRate / RateUnit Attribute values.

MBeans for Kafka-Topics Copied

Kafka cluster Copied

This shows the number of partitions that do not have an active leader and are hence not writable or readable per topic for the entire cluster.

Column Description
Name Topic name and partition number.
Topic Topic name.
Partition Partition number.
UnderReplicatedPartition Number of under replicated partitions.

MBeans for Kafka-Cluster Metrics Copied

Kafka heap memory usage Copied

Column Description
Committed Amount of memory in bytes that is committed for the Java virtual machine to use.
UsageInit Amount of memory in bytes that the Java virtual machine initially requests from the operating system for memory management.
UsageMax Maximum amount of memory in bytes that can be used for memory management.
UsageUsed Amount of used memory in bytes.
PercentageUsed Percentage of maximum usable memory currently used.

MBeans for Kafka-HeapMemoryUsage Copied

["Geneos"] ["Geneos > Netprobe"] ["User Guide"]

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