Author: Bipin Chandra, Priyanka Oruganti, Shivangi Mehra
Background
OpenStack is an open-source cloud-computing software platform. It is primarily deployed as an IaaS that can be hosted anywhere. OpenStack has a modular architecture with various code names for its components.
OpenStack Instana sensor provides visibility into your OpenStack environments for components like hypervisors, compute servers, images, flavors, etc. A complete list of supported metrics can be found here.
In this very brief blog, we dive into configurations, architecture and other useful information provided by Instana OpenStack sensor, .
OpenStack Instana sensor configuration
You need to complete the following configuration in the Instana agent configuration file:
#OpenStack
com.instana.plugin.ibmopenstack:
remote: # multiple configurations supported
- host: '' # hostname or IP of OpenStack
port: ''# port number to connect to OpenStack
user: '' # username to access the OpenStack
password: '' # password to access the OpenStack
project: ''# project to access the OpenStack
poll_rate: 15 # Poll rate in seconds. Minimum allowed and default value is 15 seconds.
Then Instana automatically discovers all the components of OpenStack, like regions, hypervisors, compute servers, flavors, images, etc. Then it drills down and provides detailed insight into some of these important components.
Note: The default metrics poll rate is 15 seconds.
OpenStack Instana sensor architecture
OpenStack Instana sensor is a remote sensor. Based on a few configurations, Instana agent discovers and enables the sensor. It then attempts to connect to one or more OpenStack environments.
After the sensor is connected, it starts collecting the performance metrics of the OpenStack environments and its components. These performance metrics are analyzed to identify any performance bottlenecks. Then, notifications are sent through available alert channels for any anomalies that are found.
For full-stack monitoring of OpenStack environments, you can use the OpenStack Instana sensor to monitor the infrastructure of the OpenStack environment, and you can also set up Instana agent on VMs managed by OpenStack to monitor the host and all the applications running on the host.
We hope you found this article informative. If you would like to find out more about the benefits of using OpenStack Instana sensor, please refer to the Instana documentation.