Nearly every business systems today run on the fuel of data analytics. If gathering and analyzation of metrics is everything, companies that fail to do this are doing themselves a major disservice.
To help solve the issue of measuring data sources and the transmission of information is a system called Collectd.
Collectd is a process that, as its name suggests, collects system and application performance metrics. It runs on a server, application, or container and the data generated is delivered over the network to a server that indexes and analyses the information.
The measurements don’t simply happen on their own; you need a tool to actually do the work of collecting and visualizing the metrics. The metrics data sources consist of include:
- A timestamp
- A metric name
- A measurement (a data point)
- Dimensions (that often describe the host, kind of instance or other attributes to filter or sort metrics on)
These four elements help in monitoring the application’s performance such as insights on workload, memory usage, I/O and server storage, over a specific frame of time.
Collectd has four primary advantages:
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- It’s free…
Unlike many other applications, there is no charge to use Collectd and it can be used on multiple devices with a variety of plug-ins.
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- It’s light-weight…
Collectd has a small footprint from a memory and disk standpoint because of its modular architecture.
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- It reduces dependency on software vendors…
Collectd only collects and transmits metrics, and any number of tools can be arranged to receive that data.
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- It provides flexibility in what you collect:
Collectd allows marketers to choose the metrics, parameters, and attributes they want their data to align with.
While these benefits are not without their accompanying challenges, Collectd can be a solid monitoring agent that is reliable, flexible, and extensible. If you are looking for speed and ease of use, then Collectd might be your best bet.
If you want to know more about Collectd and how it can work for your company, click the link below for more information.
