Collector for Redis

Install an OpenTelemetry distribution

You will need to install OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib Distro. If you're using another distribution, confirm that your chosen distribution has the following components:

• Redis receiver
• OTLP exporter
• Attribute processor
• Resource processor
• Resource detection processor

Configure the OpenTelemetry collector

Update or create a new file called config.yaml. Insert the following snippet into your new file:

receivers:
  redis:
    endpoint: "<YOUR_REDIS_HOSTNAME>:<REDIS_PORT>"
    metrics:
      # Enable redis.maxmemory optional metric
      redis.maxmemory:
        enabled: true

processors:
  # This is needed since redis receiver is not currently adding any means to understand to which redis server the metrics are referring to 
  attributes/redis_metrics:
    include:
      match_type: regexp
      metric_names:
        # Notice that if with single or without quotes just one backslash is needed 'redis\..*'
        - "redis\\..*"
    actions:
      - action: upsert
        key: server.address
        value: "<YOUR_REDIS_HOSTNAME>"
      - action: upsert
        key: server.port
        value: "<REDIS_PORT>"
  # resource and resource-detection processors allow decorating the metrics with host attributes
  resource:
    attributes:
      - key: host.id
        from_attribute: host.name
        action: insert
  resourcedetection:
    detectors: ["env", "system"]
  resourcedetection/cloud:
    detectors: ["gcp", "ec2", "azure"]
    timeout: 2s
    override: false

exporters:
  otlp:
    endpoint: https://otlp.nr-data.net:443
    headers:
      api-key: <NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY>

service:
  telemetry:
    logs:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers: [redis]
      processors:
        - resourcedetection
        - resourcedetection/cloud
        - resource
        - attributes/redis_metrics
      exporters: [otlp]

• Replace the NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY in the file with your own values. For more info, see the New Relic License key.
• Since no identificator is attached by the OTel receiver to redis metrics, an attribute processor is needed to decorate metrics with server.address and server.port metadata. The attributes server.address and server.port are needed to be able to query and facet data differentiating between Redis servers and to create New Relic entities.
• Moreover, separate pipelines with different instances of resource/redis_metrics are needed in case multiple Redis servers are monitored from a single otel collector to decorate each instance with the corresponding metadata.

To look at other configuration options, see:

• Redis receiver documentation
• Opentelemetry Collector documentation
• Batch processor

Run the collector

Run the OpenTelemetry collector (the way to run it may vary depending on the chosen installation method). Example:

/usr/bin/otelcol-contrib --config ./config.yaml

Explore your data

Telemetry data originating from the OpenTelemetry Redis receiver, if properly decorated, generates redis entities. Entities are anything that reports data to New Relic and is identified by an unique entity ID.

Your monitored entities are the drivers of features like Entity Explorer, Workloads, and Lookout. Check this document for more information on how to get benefited from these experiences.

Query your data with metrics explorer

You may use the metrics explorer to check the metrics being ingested. All metrics reported by the redis receiver start by the "redis." prefix.

The following NRQL queries show examples to help you query the metrics you received:

• Listing number of metric updates ingested by metric name:

  SELECT count(*) FROM Metric WHERE metricName LIKE 'redis.%' and instrumentation.provider='opentelemetry' facet metricName LIMIT max

  Copy

• Querying a specific metric faceted by host:

  SELECT average(redis.commands.processed) FROM Metric WHERE instrumentation.provider='opentelemetry' FACET host.name TIMESERIES

  Copy

• Listing dimensions available for a given metric:

  SELECT keyset() FROM Metric WHERE metricName = 'redis.commands.processed'

  Copy

For a list of all the supported metrics, please refer to the redis receiver metrics reference.