Cassandra

Use this Splunk Observability Cloud integration for the Cassandra monitor. See benefits, install, configuration, and metrics

The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector uses the Smart Agent receiver with the Cassandra monitor type to monitor Cassandra.

This integration is only available on Kubernetes and Linux.

Benefits

After you configure the integration, you can access these features:

View metrics. You can create your own custom dashboards, and most monitors provide built-in dashboards as well. For information about dashboards, see View dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud.
View a data-driven visualization of the physical servers, virtual machines, AWS instances, and other resources in your environment that are visible to Infrastructure Monitoring. For information about navigators, see Use navigators in Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring.
Access the Metric Finder and search for metrics sent by the monitor. For information, see Search the Metric Finder and Metadata Catalog.

Installation

Follow these steps to deploy this integration:

Deploy the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector to your host or container platform:
- Install on Kubernetes
- Install on Linux
Configure the monitor, as described in the Configuration section.
Restart the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector.

Configuration

To use this integration of a Smart Agent monitor with the Collector:

Include the Smart Agent receiver in your configuration file.
Add the monitor type to the Collector configuration, both in the receiver and pipelines sections.
- See how to Use Smart Agent monitors with the Collector.
- See how to set up the Smart Agent receiver.
- For a list of common configuration options, refer to Common configuration settings for monitors.
- Learn more about the Collector at Get started: Understand and use the Collector.

Example

To activate this integration, add the following to your Collector configuration:

receivers:
  smartagent/cassandra:
    type: collectd/cassandra
    ...  # Additional config

Next, add the monitor to the service.pipelines.metrics.receivers section of your configuration file:

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers: [smartagent/cassandra]

Configuration settings

The following table shows the configuration options for this integration:


Option	Required	Type	Description
`host`	yes	`string`	Use this string to specify the host to connect to.
`port`	yes	`integer`	Use this number to specify the JMX connection port (not the RMI port) for the application. This value corresponds to the `com.sun.management.jmxremote.port` Java property that you need to set for the JVM when you run the application.
`name`	no	`string`
`serviceName`	no	`string`	This value appears as the service type in the Splunk Splunk Observability Cloud UI, which lets you retrieve built-in content for the service. For custom JMX integrations, you can set it to any value.
`serviceURL`	no	`string`	Use this value to define the JMX connection string. The system interprets it as a Go template, so you can specify the value using replaceable variables that map to your configuration options. Note: Avoid setting this string directly. Instead, set the `host` and `port` options. (default: `service:jmx:rmi:///jndi/rmi://{{.Host}}:{{.Port}}/jmxrmi`)
`instancePrefix`	no	`string`	The system adds this value as a prefix to the generated plugin instance name. If you specify a second `instancePrefix` in a referenced MBean block, the prefix specified in the Connection block will appear at the beginning of the plugin instance, and the prefix specified in the MBean block will be appended to it.
`username`	no	`string`	Use this value to specify the user name you want to send to the server for authentication.
`password`	no	`string`	Use this value to specify the password for the user name.
`customDimensions`	no	`map of strings`	This object specifies custom dimensions to add at the connection level.
`mBeansToCollect`	no	`list of strings`	This array specifies a list of the MBeans defined in `mBeanDefinitions` that you want to collect. If you don’t provide the array, the monitor collects all defined MBeans.
`mBeansToOmit`	no	`list of strings`	This array specifies a list of the MBeans defined in `mBeanDefinitions` that you want to omit. Use this list when you want to omit only a few MBeans from the default list.
`mBeanDefinitions`	no	`map of objects` (see the following table for details)	This object specifies how to map JMX MBean values to metrics. Cassandra comes pre-loaded with a set of mappings. Any mappings that you add in this option are merged with the pre-loaded ones. To learn more, see the Collectd documentation .

The mBeanDefinitions configuration option has the following fields:


Option	Required	Type	Description
`objectName`	no	`string`	This name sets a pattern that the monitor uses to retrieve MBeans from the MBeanServer. If the server returns more than one MBean, use the `instanceFrom` option to make the MBean identifiers unique.
`instancePrefix`	no	`string`	This value prefixes the generated plugin instance.
`instanceFrom`	no	`list of strings`	This array specifies a list of object names used by JMX to identify MBeans, including properties that are key-value pairs. If the given object name is not unique and the server returns multiple MBeans, the values of these properties usually differ. Use the `instanceFrom` option to build the plugin instance from the appropriate property values. You can have multiple values of this option in your configuration, so you can generate the plugin instance from multiple property values.
`values`	no	`list of objects` (see the following table for details)	This array specifies a list of objects corresponding to blocks in the `values` option. Each block maps the attributes of an MBean to a value list in `collectd`. You need to specify at least one `value` object for each MBean.
`dimensions`	no	`list of strings`

The values configuration option has the following fields:


Option	Required	Type	Description
`type`	no	`string`	Use this value to set the data set used within `collectd` to handle the values of the MBean attribute
`table`	no	`bool`	Set this flag to `true` if the returned attribute is a composite type. If you set it to `true`, the server appends keys within the composite type to the type instance. (default: `false`)
`instancePrefix`	no	`string`	See the definition of `instancePrefix` in the description of `mBeanDefinitions`. This option is similar, but it sets the type instance instead.
`instanceFrom`	no	`list of strings`	See the definition of `instancePrefix` in the description of `mBeanDefinitions`. This option is similar, but it sets the type instance instead.
`attribute`	no	`string`	Use this value to set the name of the attribute from which to read the value. You can access the keys of composite types by using a dot to concatenate the key name to the attribute name. For example, `attrib0.key42` specifies the `key42` attribute in the `attrib0` object. If you set the `table` option to `true`, the path must point to a composite type, otherwise it must point to a numeric type.
`attributes`	no	`list of strings`	Use this option to derive multiple metrics from a single MBean.

Metrics

The following metrics are available for this integration:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/signalfx/splunk-otel-collector/main/internal/signalfx-agent/pkg/monitors/collectd/cassandra/metadata.yaml

Notes

To learn more about the available in Splunk Observability Cloud see Metric types.
In host-based subscription plans, default metrics are those metrics included in host-based subscriptions in Splunk Observability Cloud, such as host, container, or bundled metrics. Custom metrics are not provided by default and might be subject to charges. See Metric categories for more information.
In MTS-based subscription plans, all metrics are custom.
To add additional metrics, see how to configure extraMetrics in Add additional metrics.

Troubleshooting

If you are a Splunk Observability Cloud customer and are not able to see your data in Splunk Observability Cloud, you can get help in the following ways.

Available to Splunk Observability Cloud customers

Submit a case in the Splunk Support Portal.
Contact Splunk Support.

Available to prospective customers and free trial users

Ask a question and get answers through community support at Splunk Answers.
Join the Splunk #observability user group Slack channel to communicate with customers, partners, and Splunk employees worldwide. To join, see Chat groups.

Documentation