Monitor NCache using Grafana

Note

This feature is only available in NCache Enterprise Edition

NCache supports integration with Grafana application that collects and displays metrics data from your NCache cluster. It uses Prometheus server as its data source from where all metrics are pulled.

Configure Grafana for NCache Monitoring

Follow these steps to configure Grafana application to monitor NCache metrics on a feature-rich metrics dashboard:

Prerequisites

  • To use Grafana, you need to configure monitoring of NCache using Prometheus as Grafana collects the metrics published on the Prometheus server. To know how to enable monitoring using Prometheus, refer to Monitor NCache using Prometheus.
  • NCache service must be running.
  • The caches you want to monitor should be configured and running.

Set Up Grafana Application

Note

Grafana version 6.5.2 has been used in this setup.

  • Install Grafana application on the machine from where you want to monitor your NCache servers. Refer to Grafana Getting Started guide to find the steps required to set up Grafana on your machine.

  • Once setup, you need to configure Prometheus server as Grafana's data source. Follow the add data source guide to add Prometheus as default data source.

Create Dashboard for NCache Monitoring

After you have configured your Prometheus server as data source, you can go ahead and start creating monitoring dashboards. There are two ways through which you can create a dashboard with multiple panels showing NCache counters. You can use an NCache plugin that includes pre-configured dashboards or you can create your custom dashboard and populate it with NCache metrics.

Use NCache Plugin to Create Dashboard

NCache provides three major dashboard plugins as JSON files:

  1. Cache dashboard for cache server counters.
  2. Client dashboard for client cache counters.
  3. Bridge dashboard for bridge and bridge cache counters.

Follow the steps provided below to configure NCache plugin in your Grafana application:

  • Download NCache Grafana plugin, unzip the downloaded file and place the NCache folder (found inside the extracted ncache-grafana folder) on this path %Grafana-Installation-Directory%\data\plugins.

  • Restart the Grafana service.

  • Open Grafana.

  • Go to Configuration -> Plugins.

  • On the search bar, search for NCache.

  • Click on Enable to add the NCache plugin.

Tip

Go to Dashboards tab of Plugins/NCache to view all dashboards shipped with this plugin. You can delete/re-import these dashboards from here.

Enabling the NCache plugin will preload the following dashboards in your application:

Cache dashboard includes panels to monitor cache servers.

NCache Cache Dashboard Grafana

Client dashboard includes panels to monitor cache clients.

NCache Client Dashboard Grafana

Bridge dashboard includes panels to monitor bridge and bridge caches.

NCache Bridge Dashboard Grafana

Create Custom Dashboard

After you have configured your Prometheus server as data source, you can go ahead and start creating monitoring dashboards.

  • To create a new monitoring dashboard, go to Create -> Dashboard -> Add New Panel.

  • Under Metrics, select ncache. This will show you the list of all metrics collected from Prometheus server.

Create New Grafana Dashboard

  • From the list, select the metric you want to monitor in that panel. You can customize this panel as well. Follow Grafana's guide on Dashboards to know how you can play around with this panel.

  • Click on Apply to apply these configurations to your dashboard.

  • Save the dashboard by assigning a name to it.

Note

Click on the Add panel Add Panel Button in Grafana button and follow the same steps to add more monitoring panels to your custom dashboard.

NCache Counters on Grafana Dashboard

See Also

Monitor NCache using Web Monitor
Monitor NCache using PerfMon Tool
Monitor NCache using Prometheus
Monitor NCache using SNMP Counters