Metrics periodically log a variety of attributes about your server that can be used by ApisCP to support decision making. This system forms the distributed analytics portion of DAPHNIE: the Distributed Analytics and Predictive Hot, Naive Isostatic Economizer that performs transient server optimizations to help you squeeze the most out of your server.

Enabling metrics

Metrics are enabled by default beginning in v3.1.40. Enable [telemetry] => enabled using cp.config Scope.

cpcmd scope:set cp.config telemetry enabled true

Metrics will begin collecting every cron cycle ([cron] => resolution) with the first collection occuring immediately. Data is stored in PostgreSQL using TimescaleDB (opens new window) in an efficient format. Data is periodically collapsed as it ages to reduce storage requirements.

Two metric types are logged: value and monotonic. Value can be any integer value. Monotonic must always be increasing or decreasing but not both. Uptime and network traffic are excellent examples of monotonic sequences.

Querying

A few API commands are exposed to fetch metrics.

telemetry:metrics(): list all known metrics by attribute.

telemetry:get(string|array $attr, ?int $siteid): get the last recorded value for a metric. The metric must have been logged within the last 12 hours.

telemetry:range(string|array $attr, int $beginTs, ?int $endTs, ?int $siteid, bool $sum = true): fetches all recorded values between $beginTS and $endTS. Specifying 0 for $beginTS will fetch all records since recording began. $sum controls whether records are rolled up into a sum/average (montonic/value).

Storage

Metrics older than 1 week are periodically compressed. Each metric type is compressed differently:

Monotonic: when collapsed, the most recent value is used.
Value: when collapsed, the value is averaged over the collapse window.

WARNING

Using the most recent value for monotonic series causes the oldest timestamp to shift on collapse.

Compression chunk intervals are determined by [telemetry] => compression_chunk. Larger intervals require less storage but lose details. By default, 1 hour intervals are chosen for data older than 1 week, which reduces metric storage requirements by 10x. Once compressed, all data points in that window is replaced by a single data point.

Additionally, archival compression may be enabled for data older than 48 hours via [telemetry] => archival_compression. Archival compression formats data as a contiguous segments in PostgreSQL that may not be altered (INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE) without first decompressing all data. Data may be removed while in archival compression. telemetry:decompress_all() synchronously inflates all archived chunks. Once updated, enable compression once again using telemetry:reinitialize_compression().

# Show metric storage usage
cpcmd telemetry:db-usage
# Show metric archival compression usage
cpcmd telemetry:db-compression-usage

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Archival compression is useful when hosting hundreds of sites, but also requires decompression before a site may be safely removed. This can add several seconds to a DeleteDomain task, which is unacceptable overhead when invoked manually. If enabling archival compression, be sure to configure periodic account removals via opcenter.account-cleanup Scope that automatically removes suspended accounts in batch suspended more than n days ago.

Adding metrics

Use config/custom/boot.php to add anonymous metrics on the fly. First, ApisCP needs to be made aware of the metric namespace through preloading.

<?php declare(strict_types=1);
    // config/custom/boot.php
    apnscpFunctionInterceptor::register(
        Mymetric::class,
        '@custom/Mymetric.php'
    );
    \Daphnie\MetricBroker::register(Mymetric::class, 'mymetric');

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@custom is a path alias to config/custom/

WARNING

Metric attributes are named automatically from the class. 'mymetrics' may be safely omitted from this example as it is the implied name. If you intend on using a different attribute name, this metric must be explicitly referenced.

<?php declare(strict_types=1);
	// config/custom/Mymetric.php
    class Mymetric extends \Daphnie\Metric
    {
        public function getLabel(): string
        {
            return 'Accumulated time';
        }

        public function getType(): string
        {
            return \Daphnie\Metric::TYPE_MONOTONIC;
        }
        
        public function metricAsAttribute(): string {
            // if metric attr were named anything other than 'mymetric'
            // this would need to return that name
            return parent::metricAsAttribute();
        }
    }

"mymetric" is now a registered metric, but it needs to collect data to be useful. Two approaches exist to log data, explicitly or implicitly.

Explicit metric logging

Let's say we have a custom surrogate module. Create a new API method called logit(), being mindful to add module permissions in the $exportedFunctions property.

public function logit(): void
{
    if (!TELEMETRY_ENABLED) {
        return;
    }

    $attr = (new Mymetric())->metricAsAttribute();
    $collector = new \Daphnie\Collector(PostgreSQL::pdo());
    // add parameters: attribute name, optional site ID, integer value
    $collector->add($attr, null, time());
}

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Placing collection inside _cron() allows it to periodically collect data (see [cron] => resolution Tuneable).

cpcmd mymodule:logit
# Now get the last recorded metric value
cpcmd telemetry:get mymetric
# Add a 10 second wait...
sleep 10
cpcmd mymodule:logit
# Get accumulated time in seconds, ~10
cpcmd telemetry:range mymetric 0

Implicit metric logging

The AnonymousLogging interface can be bolted onto the metric to run whenever telemetry::_cron() runs. This provides a less invasive means of logging data. Let's adapt the previous examples by altering boot.php and Mymetric:

// config/custom/boot.php
\Daphnie\Collector::registerCollection(Mymetric::class, 'mymetric');

<?php declare(strict_types=1);
	// config/custom/Mymetric.php
	class Mymetric extends \Daphnie\Metric implements \Daphnie\Contracts\AnonymousLogging
	{
		public function getLabel(): string
		{
			return 'Accumulated time';
		}

		public function getType(): string
		{
			return \Daphnie\Metric::TYPE_MONOTONIC;
		}

		public function metricAsAttribute(): string
		{
			// if metric attr were named anything other than 'mymetric'
			// this would need to return that name
			return parent::metricAsAttribute();
		}

		public function log(\Daphnie\Collector $collector): bool
		{
			$collector->add($this->metricAsAttribute(), null, time());

			return $collector->sync();
		}
	}

Check back after 10 minutes and the sum will change,

cpcmd telemetry:range mymetric 0