WaterDrop Monitoring and Logging

Each of the producers after the #setup is done, has a custom monitor to which you can subscribe.

producer = WaterDrop::Producer.new

producer.setup do |config|
  config.kafka = { 'bootstrap.servers': 'localhost:9092' }
end

producer.monitor.subscribe('message.produced_async') do |event|
  puts "A message was produced to '#{event[:message][:topic]}' topic!"
end

producer.produce_async(topic: 'events', payload: 'data')

producer.close

See the WaterDrop::Instrumentation::Notifications::EVENTS for the list of all the supported events.

Karafka Web-UI

Karafka Web UI is a user interface for the Karafka framework. The Web UI provides a convenient way for monitor all producers related errors out of the box.

Logger Listener

WaterDrop comes equipped with a LoggerListener, a useful feature designed to facilitate the reporting of WaterDrop's operational details directly into the assigned logger. The LoggerListener provides a convenient way of tracking the events and operations that occur during the usage of WaterDrop, enhancing transparency and making debugging and issue tracking easier.

However, it's important to note that this Logger Listener is not subscribed by default. This means that WaterDrop does not automatically send operation data to your logger out of the box. This design choice has been made to give users greater flexibility and control over their logging configuration.

To use this functionality, you need to manually subscribe the LoggerListener to WaterDrop instrumentation. Below, you will find an example demonstrating how to perform this subscription.

LOGGER = Logger.new($stdout)

producer = WaterDrop::Producer.new do |config|
  config.kafka = { 'bootstrap.servers': 'localhost:9092' }
  config.logger = LOGGER
end

producer.monitor.subscribe(
  WaterDrop::Instrumentation::LoggerListener.new(
    # You can use a different logger than the one assigned to WaterDrop if you want
    producer.config.logger,
    # If this is set to false, the produced messages details will not be sent to logs
    # You may set it to false if you find the level of reporting in the debug too extensive
    log_messages: true
  )
)

producer.produce_sync(topic: 'my.topic', payload: 'my.message')

Usage statistics

WaterDrop is configured to emit internal librdkafka metrics every five seconds. You can change this by setting the kafka statistics.interval.ms configuration property to a value greater of equal 0. Emitted statistics are available after subscribing to the statistics.emitted publisher event. If set to 0, metrics will not be published.

The statistics include all of the metrics from librdkafka (complete list here) as well as the diff of those against the previously emitted values.

In the WaterDrop statistics metrics, specific measurements are denoted in milliseconds, while others are in microseconds. It's imperative to distinguish between these scales, as mistaking one for the other can lead to significant misinterpretations. Always ensure you're referencing the correct unit for each metric to maintain accuracy in your data analysis.

For several attributes like txmsgs, librdkafka publishes only the totals. In order to make it easier to track the progress (for example number of messages sent between statistics emitted events), WaterDrop diffs all the numeric values against previously available numbers. All of those metrics are available under the same key as the metric but with additional _d postfix:

producer = WaterDrop::Producer.new do |config|
  config.kafka = {
    'bootstrap.servers': 'localhost:9092',
    'statistics.interval.ms': 2_000 # emit statistics every 2 seconds
  }
end

producer.monitor.subscribe('statistics.emitted') do |event|
  sum = event[:statistics]['txmsgs']
  diff = event[:statistics]['txmsgs_d']

  p "Sent messages: #{sum}"
  p "Messages sent from last statistics report: #{diff}"
end

sleep(2)

# Sent messages: 0
# Messages sent from last statistics report: 0

20.times { producer.produce_async(topic: 'events', payload: 'data') }

# Sent messages: 20
# Messages sent from last statistics report: 20

sleep(2)

20.times { producer.produce_async(topic: 'events', payload: 'data') }

# Sent messages: 40
# Messages sent from last statistics report: 20

sleep(2)

# Sent messages: 40
# Messages sent from last statistics report: 0

producer.close

The metrics returned may not be completely consistent between brokers, toppars and totals, due to the internal asynchronous nature of librdkafka. E.g., the top level tx total may be less than the sum of the broker tx values which it represents.

Error notifications

WaterDrop allows you to listen to all errors that occur while producing messages and in its internal background threads. Things like reconnecting to Kafka upon network errors and others unrelated to publishing messages are all available under error.occurred notification key. You can subscribe to this event to ensure your setup is healthy and without any problems that would otherwise go unnoticed as long as messages are delivered.

producer = WaterDrop::Producer.new do |config|
  # Note invalid connection port...
  config.kafka = { 'bootstrap.servers': 'localhost:9090' }
end

producer.monitor.subscribe('error.occurred') do |event|
  error = event[:error]

  p "WaterDrop error occurred: #{error}"
end

# Run this code without Kafka cluster
loop do
  producer.produce_async(topic: 'events', payload: 'data')

  sleep(1)
end

# After you stop your Kafka cluster, you will see a lot of those:
#
# WaterDrop error occurred: Local: Broker transport failure (transport)
#
# WaterDrop error occurred: Local: Broker transport failure (transport)

error.occurred will also include any errors originating from librdkafka for synchronous operations, including those that are raised back to the end user.

The error.occurred will not publish purge errors originating from transactions. Such occurrences are standard behavior during an aborted transaction and should not be classified as errors. For a deeper understanding, please consult the transactions documentation.

Acknowledgment notifications

WaterDrop allows you to listen to Kafka messages' acknowledgment events. This will enable you to monitor deliveries of messages from WaterDrop even when using asynchronous dispatch methods.

That way, you can make sure, that dispatched messages are acknowledged by Kafka.

producer = WaterDrop::Producer.new do |config|
  config.kafka = { 'bootstrap.servers': 'localhost:9092' }
end

producer.monitor.subscribe('message.acknowledged') do |event|
  producer_id = event[:producer_id]
  offset = event[:offset]

  p "WaterDrop [#{producer_id}] delivered message with offset: #{offset}"
end

loop do
  producer.produce_async(topic: 'events', payload: 'data')

  sleep(1)
end

# WaterDrop [dd8236fff672] delivered message with offset: 32
# WaterDrop [dd8236fff672] delivered message with offset: 33
# WaterDrop [dd8236fff672] delivered message with offset: 34

Datadog and StatsD integration

WaterDrop comes with (optional) full Datadog and StatsD integration that you can use. To use it:

# require datadog/statsd and the listener as it is not loaded by default
require 'datadog/statsd'
require 'waterdrop/instrumentation/vendors/datadog/metrics_listener'

# initialize your producer with statistics.interval.ms enabled so the metrics are published
producer = WaterDrop::Producer.new do |config|
  config.deliver = true
  config.kafka = {
    'bootstrap.servers': 'localhost:9092',
    'statistics.interval.ms': 1_000
  }
end

# initialize the listener with statsd client
listener = ::WaterDrop::Instrumentation::Vendors::Datadog::MetricsListener.new do |config|
  config.client = Datadog::Statsd.new('localhost', 8125)
  # Publish host as a tag alongside the rest of tags
  config.default_tags = ["host:#{Socket.gethostname}"]
end

# Subscribe with your listener to your producer and you should be ready to go!
producer.monitor.subscribe(listener)

You can also find here a ready to import DataDog dashboard configuration file that you can use to monitor all of your producers.