openstack-manuals/doc/admin-guide-cloud/telemetry/section_telemetry-data-collection.xml
Ildiko Vancsa 95a077a0ff Add content and ToC to Telemetry Admin guide
Add content to the section System architecture and Data collection
and add table of contents to Retrieving data and Alarming.

Implements: blueprint add-ceilometer-admin-guide-to-openstack-manuals
Change-Id: I56065c21d62e3477900981a4f37af0cc95fe64b9
2014-08-23 21:43:54 +02:00

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
version="5.0"
xml:id="section_telemetry-data-collection">
<title>Data collection</title>
<para>The main responsibility of Telemetry in OpenStack is to collect
information about the system that can be used by billing systems or any
kinds of analytic tools for instance. The original focus, regarding to
the collected data, was on the counters that can be used for billing,
but the range is getting wider continuously.</para>
<para>Collected data can be stored in the form of samples or events in the
supported databases, listed in
<xref linkend="section_telemetry-supported-dbs"/>.</para>
<para>Samples can have various sources regarding to the needs
and configuration of Telemetry, which requires multiple methods to
collect data.</para>
<para>The available data collection mechanisms are:</para>
<para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Notifications</term>
<listitem>
<para>Processing notifications from other OpenStack services, by
consuming messages from the configured message queue system.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Polling</term>
<listitem>
<para>Retrieve information directly from the hypervisor or from the host
machine using SNMP, or by using the APIs of other OpenStack services.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>RESTful API</term>
<listitem>
<para>Pushing samples via the RESTful API of Telemetry.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-notifications">
<title>Notifications</title>
<para>All the services send notifications about the executed operations or system
state in OpenStack. Several notifications carry information that can be metered,
like when a new VM instance was created by OpenStack Compute service.</para>
<para>The Telemetry module has a separate agent that is responsible for consuming
notifications, namely the notification agent. This component is responsible for
consuming from the message bus and transforming notifications into new samples.
</para>
<para>The different OpenStack services emit several notifications about the various
types of events that happen in the system during normal operation. Not all these
notifications are consumed by the Telemetry module, as the intention is only to
capture the billable events and all those notifications that can be used for
monitoring or profiling purposes. The notification agent filters by the event
type, that is contained by each notification message. The following table
contains the event types by each OpenStack service that are transformed to samples
by Telemetry.</para>
<table rules="all">
<caption>Consumed event types from OpenStack services</caption>
<col width="33%"/>
<col width="33%"/>
<col width="33%"/>
<thead>
<tr>
<td>OpenStack service</td>
<td>Event types</td>
<td>Note</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>OpenStack Compute</td>
<td><para>scheduler.run_instance.scheduled</para>
<para>compute.instance.*</para></td>
<td>For a more detailed list of Compute notifications please check the
<link xlink:href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/SystemUsageData">
System Usage Data wiki page</link>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Bare metal module for OpenStack</td>
<td>hardware.ipmi.*</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>OpenStack Image Service</td>
<td><para>image.update</para>
<para>image.upload</para>
<para>image.delete</para>
<para>image.send</para></td>
<td>The required configuration for Image service can be found in the
<link xlink:href=
"http://docs.openstack.org/trunk/install-guide/install/apt/content/ceilometer-install-glance.html">
Configure the Image Service for Telemetry section</link> section
in the <citetitle>OpenStack Installation Guide</citetitle>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>OpenStack Networking</td>
<td><para>floatingip.create.end</para>
<para>floatingip.update.*</para>
<para>floatingip.exists</para>
<para>network.create.end</para>
<para>network.update.*</para>
<para>network.exists</para>
<para>port.create.end</para>
<para>port.update.*</para>
<para>port.exists</para>
<para>router.create.end</para>
<para>router.update.*</para>
<para>router.exists</para>
<para>subnet.create.end</para>
<para>subnet.update.*</para>
<para>subnet.exists</para>
<para>l3.meter</para></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Orchestration module</td>
<td><para>orchestration.stack.create.end</para>
<para>orchestration.stack.update.end</para>
<para>orchestration.stack.delete.end</para>
<para>orchestration.stack.resume.end</para>
<para>orchestration.stack.suspend.end</para></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>OpenStack Block Storage</td>
<td><para>volume.exists</para>
<para>volume.create.*</para>
<para>volume.delete.*</para>
<para>volume.resize.*</para>
<para>snapshot.exists</para>
<para>snapshot.create.*</para>
<para>snapshot.delete.*</para>
<para>snapshot.resize.*</para></td>
<td>The required configuration for Block Storage service can be found in the
<link xlink:href=
"http://docs.openstack.org/trunk/install-guide/install/apt/content/ceilometer-install-cinder.html">
Add the Block Storage service agent for Telemetry section</link>
section in the <citetitle>OpenStack Installation Guide</citetitle>.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<note>
<para>Some services require additional configuration to emit the notifications
using the correct control exchange on the message queue and so forth. These
configuration needs are referred in the above table for each OpenStack service
that needs it.</para>
</note>
<note>
<para>When the <literal>store_events</literal> option is set to True in
<filename>ceilometer.conf</filename>, the notification agent needs database access
in order to work properly.</para>
</note>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-objectstore-middleware">
<title>Middleware for OpenStack Object Storage service</title>
<para>A subset of Object Store statistics requires an additional middleware to be installed
behind the proxy of Object Store. This additional component emits notifications containing
the data-flow-oriented meters, namely the storage.objects.(incoming|outgoing).bytes values.
The list of these meters are listed in the <link xlink:href=
"http://docs.openstack.org/developer/ceilometer/measurements.html#object-storage-swift">
Swift</link> table section in the <citetitle>Telemetry Measurements Reference</citetitle>,
marked with <literal>notification</literal> as origin.</para>
<para>The instructions on how to install this middleware can be found in <link xlink:href=
"http://docs.openstack.org/trunk/install-guide/install/apt/content/ceilometer-install-swift.html">
Configure the Object Storage service for Telemetry</link>
section in the <citetitle>OpenStack Installation Guide</citetitle>.
</para>
</section>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-middleware">
<title>Telemetry middleware</title>
<para>Telemetry provides the capability of counting the HTTP requests and responses
for each API endpoint in OpenStack. This is achieved by storing a sample for each
event marked as <literal>http.request</literal> or <literal>http.response</literal>.</para>
<para>Telemetry can consume these events if the services are configured to emit
notifications with these two event types.</para>
</section>
</section>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-polling">
<title>Polling</title>
<para>The Telemetry module is intended to store a complex picture of the
infrastructure. This goal requires additional information than what is
provided by the events and notifications published by each service.
Some information is not emitted directly, like resource usage of the VM
instances.</para>
<para>Therefore Telemetry uses another method to gather this data by polling
the infrastructure including the APIs of the different OpenStack services and
other assets, like hypervisors. The latter case requires closer interaction with
the compute hosts. To solve this issue, Telemetry uses an agent based
architecture to fulfill the requirements against the data collection.</para>
<para>There are two agents supporting the polling mechanism, namely the compute
agent and the central agent. The following subsections give further information
regarding to the archticetural and configuration details of these components.
</para>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-central-agent">
<title>Central agent</title>
<para>As the name of this agent shows, it is a central component in the
Telemetry architecture. This agent is responsible for polling public REST APIs
to retrieve additional information on OpenStack resources not already surfaced
via notifications, and also for polling hardware resources over SNMP.</para>
<para>The follwoing services can be polled with this agent:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>OpenStack Networking</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>OpenStack Object Storage</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>OpenStack Block Storage</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Hardware resources via SNMP</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Energy consumption metrics via <link xlink:href="https://launchpad.net/kwapi">
Kwapi</link> framework</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>To install and configure this service use the <link xlink:href=
"http://docs.openstack.org/trunk/install-guide/install/apt/content/ceilometer-install.html">
Install the Telemtery module</link> section in the <citetitle>OpenStack
Installation Guide</citetitle>.</para>
<para>The central agent can be run as a single instance currently. It does not need
any database connection directly. The samples collected by this agent are sent via
message queue to the collector service, which is responsible for persisting the
data into the configured database backend.</para>
</section>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-compute-agent">
<title>Compute agent</title>
<para>This agent is responsible for collecting resource usage data of VM
instances on individual compute nodes within an OpenStack deployment. This
mechanism requires a closer interaction with the hypervisor, therefore a
separate agent type fulfills the collection of the related meters, which
placed on the host machines to locally retrieve this information.</para>
<para>A compute agent instance has to be installed on each and every compute node,
installation instructions can be found in the <link xlink:href=
"http://docs.openstack.org/trunk/install-guide/install/apt/content/ceilometer-install-nova.html">
Install the Compute agent for Telemetry</link> section in the
<citetitle>OpenStack Installation Guide</citetitle>.
</para>
<para>Just like the central agent, this component also does not need a direct database
access. The samples are sent via AMQP to the collector.
</para>
<para>The list of supported hypervisors can be found in
<xref linkend="section_telemetry-supported-hypervisors"/>.
The compute agent uses the API of the hypervisor installed on the compute hosts.
Therefore the supported meters can be different in case of each virtualization
backend, as these tools provide different set of metrics.</para>
<para>The list of collected meters can be found in the <link xlink:href=
"http://docs.openstack.org/developer/ceilometer/measurements.html#compute-nova">
Compute section</link> in the <citetitle>Telemetery Measurements Reference</citetitle>.
The support column provides the information that which meter is available for
each hypervisor supported by the Telemetry module.</para>
<note>
<para>Telemetry supports Libvirt, which hides the hypervisor under it.</para>
</note>
</section>
</section>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-post-api">
<title>Send samples to Telemetry</title>
<para>Most parts of the data collections in the Telemtery module are automated.
Telemetry provides the possibility to submit samples via the REST API to allow
users to send custom samples into this module.</para>
<para>This option makes it possible to send any kind of samples without the need
of writing extra code lines or making configuration changes.</para>
<para>The samples that can be sent to Telemetry are not limited to the actually
existing meters. There is a possibility to provide data for any new, customer
defined counter by filling out all the required fields of the POST request.
</para>
<para>If the sample corresponds to an existing meter, then the fields like
<literal>meter-type</literal> and meter name should be matched accordingly.</para>
<para>The required fields for sending a sample using the command line client
are:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>ID of the corresponding resource. (<parameter>--resource-id</parameter>)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Name of meter. (<parameter>--meter-name</parameter>)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Type of meter. (<parameter>--meter-type</parameter>)</para>
<para>Predefined meter types:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Gauge</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Delta</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Cumulative</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Unit of meter. (<parameter>--meter-unit</parameter>)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Volume of sample. (<parameter>--sample-volume</parameter>)</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>The <literal>memory.usage</literal> meter is not supported when Libvirt is used in an
Openstack deployment. There is still a possibility to provide samples for
this meter based on any custom measurements. To send samples to Telemetry
using the command line client, the follwoing command should be invoked:
<screen><prompt>$</prompt> <userinput>ceilometer sample-create -r 37128ad6-daaa-4d22-9509-b7e1c6b08697 \
-m memory.usage --meter-type gauge --meter-unit MB --sample-volume 48</userinput>
<?db-font-size 75%?><computeroutput>+-------------------+--------------------------------------------+
| Property | Value |
+-------------------+--------------------------------------------+
| message_id | 6118820c-2137-11e4-a429-08002715c7fb |
| name | memory.usage |
| project_id | e34eaa91d52a4402b4cb8bc9bbd308c1 |
| resource_id | 37128ad6-daaa-4d22-9509-b7e1c6b08697 |
| resource_metadata | {} |
| source | e34eaa91d52a4402b4cb8bc9bbd308c1:openstack |
| timestamp | 2014-08-11T09:10:46.358926 |
| type | gauge |
| unit | MB |
| user_id | 679b0499e7a34ccb9d90b64208401f8e |
| volume | 48.0 |
+-------------------+--------------------------------------------+</computeroutput></screen>
</para>
</section>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-data-collection-processing">
<title>Data collection and processing</title>
<para>The mechanism via the data is collected and processed is called
pipeline. Pipelines on configuration level describe a coupling between
sources of samples and the corresponding sinks for transformation and
publication of these data.</para>
<para>A source is a producer of samples, in effect a set of pollsters
and/or notification handlers emitting samples for a set of matching meters.
</para>
<para>Each source configuration encapsulates meter name matching, polling
interval determination, optional resource enumeration or discovery, and
mapping to one or more sinks for publication.</para>
<para>A sink on the other hand is a consumer of samples, providing logic
for the transformation and publication of samples emitted from related
sources. Each sink configuration is concerned only with the
transformation rules and publication conduits for samples.</para>
<para>In effect, a sink describes a chain of handlers. The chain starts
with zero or more transformers and ends with one or more publishers.
The first transformer in the chain is passed samples from the corresponding
source, takes some action such as deriving rate of change, performing unit
conversion, or aggregating, before passing the modified sample to the
next step that is described in
<xref linkend="section_telemetry-publishers"/>.</para>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-pipeline-configuration">
<title>Pipeline configuration</title>
<para>Pipeline configuration by default, is stored in a separate configuration
file, called <filename>pipeline.yaml</filename>, next to the
<filename>ceilometer.conf</filename> file. The pipeline
configuration file can be set in the <parameter>pipeline_cfg_file</parameter>
parameter listed in the <link xlink:href=
"http://docs.openstack.org/trunk/config-reference/content/ch_configuring-openstack-telemetry.html"
>Description of configuration options for api table</link> section in the
<citetitle>OpenStack Configuration Reference</citetitle>. Multiple chains
can be defined in one pipeline configuration file.</para>
<para>The chain definition looks like the following:</para>
<programlisting>---
sources:
- name: 'source name'
interval: 'how often should the samples be injected into the pipeline'
meters:
- 'meter filter'
resources:
- 'list of resource URLs'
sinks
- 'sink name'
sinks:
- name: 'sink name'
transformers: 'definition of transformers'
publishers:
- 'list of publishers'</programlisting>
<para>The interval parameter in the sources section should be defined in seconds.
It determines the cadence of sample injection into the pipeline, where samples
are produced under the direct control of an agent, for instance via a polling
cycle as opposed to incoming notifications.</para>
<para>There are several ways to define the list of meters for a pipeline source.
The list of valid meters can be found in the <link xlink:href=
"http://docs.openstack.org/developer/ceilometer/measurements.html"> Telemetry
Measurements Reference</link> document. There is a possibility to define all
the meters, or just included or excluded meters, with which a source should
operate:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>To include all meters, use the <literal>*</literal> wildcard symbol.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>To define the list of meters, use either of the following:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>To define the list of included meters, use the <literal>meter_name</literal>
syntax.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>To define the list of excluded meters, use the <literal>!meter_name</literal>
syntax.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>For meters, which have variants identified by a complex name field,
use the wildcard symbol to select all, e.g. for “instance:m1.tiny”, use
“instance:*”.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>The above definition methods can be used in the following combinations:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Use only the wildcard symbol.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Use the list of included meters.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Use the list of excluded meters.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Use wildcard symbol with the list of excluded meters.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<note>
<para>At least one of the above variations should be included in the meters section.
Included and excluded meters cannot co-exist in the same pipeline. Wildcard and
included meters cannot co-exist in the same pipeline definition section.</para>
</note>
<para>The optional resources section of a pipeline source allows a static list of
resource URLs to be configured for polling.</para>
<para>The transformers section of a pipeline sink provides the possibility to add a list
of transformer definitions. The available transformers are:</para>
<table rules="all">
<caption>List of available transformers</caption>
<col width="50%"/>
<col width="50%"/>
<thead>
<tr>
<td>Name of transformer</td>
<td>Reference name for configuration</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Accumulator</td>
<td>accumulator</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Aggregator</td>
<td>aggregator</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Arithmetic</td>
<td>arithmetic</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Rate of change</td>
<td>rate_of_change</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Unit conversion</td>
<td>unit_conversion</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<para>The publishers section contains the list of publishers, where the samples data should
be sent after the possible transformations.</para>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-pipeline-transformers">
<title>Transformers</title>
<para>The definition of transformers can contain the following fields:</para>
<para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>name</term>
<listitem>
<para>Name of the transformer.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>parameters</term>
<listitem>
<para>Parameters of the transformer.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
<para>The parameters section can contain transformer specific fields, like source and
target fields with different subfields in case of the rate of change, which depends on
the implementation of the transformer.</para>
<simplesect>
<title>Rate of change transformer</title>
<para>In the case of the transformer that creates the
<literal>cpu_util</literal> meter, the definition looks like the following:</para>
<programlisting>transformers:
- name: "rate_of_change"
parameters:
target:
name: "cpu_util"
unit: "%"
type: "gauge"
scale: "100.0 / (10**9 * (resource_metadata.cpu_number or 1))"</programlisting>
<para>The rate of change transformer generates the <literal>cpu_util</literal>meter
from the sample values of the <literal>cpu</literal> counter, which represents
cumulative CPU time in nanoseconds. The transformer definition above defines a
scale factor (for nanoseconds, multiple CPUs, etc.), which is applied before the
transformation derives a sequence of gauge samples with unit %, from sequential
values of the <literal>cpu</literal> meter.</para>
<para>The definition for the disk I/O rate, which is also generated by the rate of change
transformer:</para>
<programlisting>transformers:
- name: "rate_of_change"
parameters:
source:
map_from:
name: "disk\\.(read|write)\\.(bytes|requests)"
unit: "(B|request)"
target:
map_to:
name: "disk.\\1.\\2.rate"
unit: "\\1/s"
type: "gauge"</programlisting>
</simplesect>
<simplesect>
<title>Unit conversion transformer</title>
<para>Transformer to apply a unit conversion. It takes the volume of the meter and
multiplies it with the given scale expression. Also supports <literal>map_from
</literal> and <literal>map_to</literal> like the rate of change transformer.</para>
<para>Sample configuration:</para>
<programlisting>transformers:
- name: "unit_conversion"
parameters:
target:
name: "disk.kilobytes"
unit: "KB"
scale: "1.0 / 1024.0"</programlisting>
<para>With the <parameter>map_from</parameter> and <parameter>map_to</parameter>
:</para>
<programlisting>transformers:
- name: "unit_conversion"
parameters:
source:
map_from:
name: "disk\\.(read|write)\\.bytes"
target:
map_to:
name: "disk.\\1.kilobytes"
scale: "1.0 / 1024.0"
unit: "KB"</programlisting>
</simplesect>
<simplesect>
<title>Aggregator transformer</title>
<para>A transformer that sums up the incoming samples until enough samples have
come in or a timeout has been reached.</para>
<para>Timeout can be specified with the <parameter>retention_time</parameter> parameter.
If we want to flush the aggregation after a set number of samples have been
aggregated, we can specify the size parameter.</para>
<para>The volume of the created sample is the sum of the volumes of samples that came
into the transformer. Samples can be aggregated by the attributes <parameter>project_id
</parameter>, <parameter>user_id</parameter> and <parameter>resource_metadata</parameter>.
To aggregate by the chosen attributes, specify them in the configuration and set
which value of the attribute to take for the new sample (first to take the first
samples attribute, last to take the last samples attribute, and drop to discard
the attribute).</para>
<para>To aggregate 60s worth of samples by <parameter>resource_metadata</parameter>
and keep the <parameter>resource_metadata</parameter> of the latest received
sample:</para>
<programlisting>transformers:
- name: "aggregator"
parameters:
retention_time: 60
resource_metadata: last</programlisting>
<para>To aggregate each 15 samples by <parameter>user_id</parameter> and <parameter>resource_metadata
</parameter> and keep the <parameter>user_id</parameter> of the first received sample and
drop the <parameter>resource_metadata</parameter>:</para>
<programlisting>transformers:
- name: "aggregator"
parameters:
size: 15
user_id: first
resource_metadata: drop</programlisting>
</simplesect>
<simplesect>
<title>Accumulator transformer</title>
<para>This transformer simply caches the samples until enough samples have arrived and
then flushes them all down the pipeline at once.</para>
<programlisting>transformers:
- name: "accumulator"
parameters:
size: 15</programlisting>
</simplesect>
<simplesect>
<title>Multi meter arithmetic transformer</title>
<para>This transformer enables us to perform arithmetic calculations over one or more
meters and/or their metadata, for example:</para>
<programlisting>memory_util = 100 * memory.usage / memory</programlisting>
<para>A new sample is created with the properties described in the <literal>target
</literal> section of the transformers configuration. The samples volume is the
result of the provided expression. The calculation is performed on samples from
the same resource.</para>
<note>
<para>The calculation is limited to meters with the same interval.</para>
</note>
<para>Example configuration:</para>
<programlisting>transformers:
- name: "arithmetic"
parameters:
target:
name: "memory_util"
unit: "%"
type: "gauge"
expr: "100 * $(memory.usage) / $(memory)"</programlisting>
<para>To demonstrate the use of metadata, here is the implementation of a silly metric
that shows average CPU time per core:</para>
<programlisting>transformers:
- name: "arithmetic"
parameters:
target:
name: "avg_cpu_per_core"
unit: "ns"
type: "cumulative"
expr: "$(cpu) / ($(cpu).resource_metadata.cpu_number or 1)"</programlisting>
<note>
<para>Expression evaluation gracefully handles NaNs and exceptions. In such a case it
does not create a new sample but only logs a warning.</para>
</note>
</simplesect>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section xml:id="section_telemetry-storing-data">
<title>Storing samples</title>
<para>The Telemetry module has a separate service that is responsible for persisting the data
that is coming from the pollsters or received as notifications. The data is stored in
a database backend, the list of supported databases can be found in
<xref linkend="section_telemetry-supported-dbs"/>.
</para>
<para>The <systemitem class="service">ceilometer-collector</systemitem> service receives the
samples as metering messages from the message bus of the configured AMQP service. It stores
these samples without any modification in the configured backend. The service has to run on
a host machine from which it has access to the database.</para>
<para>Multiple <systemitem class="service">ceilometer-collector</systemitem> process can be
run at a time. It is also supported to start multiple worker threads per collector process.
The <parameter>collector_workers</parameter> configuration option has to be modified in the
<link xlink:href=
"http://docs.openstack.org/trunk/config-reference/content/ch_configuring-openstack-telemetry.html">
collector section</link> of the <filename>ceilometer.conf</filename> configuration file.</para>
<note>
<para>Using multiple workers per collector process is not recommended to be used with
PostgreSQL as database backend.</para>
</note>
<para>By default the time to live value (ttl) for samples is set to -1, which means that they
are kept in the database forever. This can be changed by modifying the <parameter>time_to_live
</parameter> parameter in <filename>ceilometer.conf</filename>. The value has to be specified
in seconds and it means that every sample that based on its timestamp is older, than the
specified value will be deleted from the database.</para>
<para>When the samples are deleted, there are cases, when users and resources remain in the
database without any corresponding sample. There is a command line script, that deletes
these useless entries, which is called <systemitem class="service">ceilometer-expirer</systemitem>.
This script should be run periodically, for instance in a cron job, to ensure that the
database is cleaned up properly.</para>
<para>The level of support differs in case of the configured backend:</para>
<table rules="all">
<caption>Time-to-live support for database backends</caption>
<col width="24%"/>
<col width="38%"/>
<col width="38%"/>
<thead>
<tr>
<td>Database</td>
<td>ttl value support</td>
<td><systemitem class="service">ceilometer-expirer</systemitem>
capabilities</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>MongoDB</td>
<td>MongoDB has a built-in mechanism for deleting samples that are older
than the configured ttl value.</td>
<td>In case of this database, only the lingering dead resource,
user and project entries entries will be deleted by
<systemitem class="service">ceilometer-expirer</systemitem>.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>SQL-based backends</td>
<td>The library (SQLAlchemy) that is used for accessing SQL-based backends does
not support using the ttl value.</td>
<td><systemitem class="service">ceilometer-expirer</systemitem> has to be
used for deleting both the samples and the remaining entires in other
database tables. The script will delete samples based on the
<parameter>time_to_live</parameter> value that is set in the
configuration file.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>HBase</td>
<td>HBase does not support this functionality currently, therefore the ttl value
in the configuration file is ignored.</td>
<td>The samples are not deleted by using
<systemitem class="service">ceilometer-expirer</systemitem>,
this functionality is not supported.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>DB2</td>
<td>Same as in case of MongoDB.</td>
<td>Same as in case of MongoDB.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</section>
</section>