Metrics

MariaDB Enterprise Operator is able to configure Prometheus operator resources to scrape metrics from MariaDB and MaxScale instances. These metrics can be used later on to build Grafana dashboards or trigger Alertmanager alerts.

Table of contents

• Operator metrics
• Exporter
• ServiceMonitor
• Configuration
• Grafana dashboards
• MariaDB metrics
• MaxScale metrics

Operator metrics

In order to expose the operator internal metrics, you can install the operator Helm chart passing the metrics.enabled = true value. Refer to the Helm documentation for further detail.

Exporters

The operator configures exporters to query MariaDB and MaxScale, exposing metrics in Prometheus format through an HTTP endpoint.

It is important to note that these exporters run as standalone Deployments rather than as sidecars for each data-plane replica. Since they can communicate with all replicas of MariaDB and MaxScale, there is no need to run a separate exporter for each replica.

As a result, the lifecycle of MariaDB and MaxScale remains independent from the exporters, allowing for upgrades without impacting the availability of either component.

ServiceMonitor

Once the exporter Deployment is ready, the operator creates a ServiceMonitor object that will be eventually reconciled by the Prometheus operator, resulting in the Prometheus instance being configured to scrape the exporter endpoint.

As you scale MariaDB and MaxScale by adjusting the number of replicas, the operator will reconcile the ServiceMonitor to dynamically add or remove targets corresponding to the updated instances.

Configuration

The easiest way to setup metrics in your MariaDB and MaxScale instances is just by setting spec.metrics.enabled = true:

apiVersion: enterprise.mariadb.com/v1alpha1
kind: MariaDB
metadata:
  name: mariadb
spec:
...
  metrics:
    enabled: true

apiVersion: enterprise.mariadb.com/v1alpha1
kind: MaxScale
metadata:
  name: maxscale
spec:
...
  metrics:
    enabled: true

The rest of the fields are defaulted by the operator. If you need a more fine grained configuration, refer to the API reference and the following examples:

apiVersion: enterprise.mariadb.com/v1alpha1
kind: MariaDB
metadata:
  name: mariadb
spec:
...
  metrics:
    enabled: true
    exporter:
      image: mariadb/mariadb-prometheus-exporter-ubi:v0.0.2
      resources:
        requests:
          cpu: 50m
          memory: 64Mi
        limits:
          cpu: 300m
          memory: 512Mi
      port: 9104
    serviceMonitor:
      prometheusRelease: kube-prometheus-stack
      jobLabel: mariadb-monitoring
      interval: 10s
      scrapeTimeout: 10s
    username: monitoring
    passwordSecretKeyRef:
      name: mariadb
      key: password

apiVersion: enterprise.mariadb.com/v1alpha1
kind: MaxScale
metadata:
  name: maxscale
spec:
...
  auth:
    metricsUsername: metrics
    metricsPasswordSecretKeyRef:
      key: password
      name: maxscale-galera-metrics
  metrics:
    enabled: true
    exporter:
      image: mariadb/maxscale-prometheus-exporter-ubi:v0.0.2
      resources:
        requests:
          cpu: 50m
          memory: 64Mi
        limits:
          cpu: 300m
          memory: 512Mi
      port: 9105
    serviceMonitor:
      prometheusRelease: kube-prometheus-stack
      jobLabel: mariadb-monitoring
      interval: 10s
      scrapeTimeout: 10s

Grafana dashboards

The following community dashboards available on grafana.com are compatible with the MariaDB metrics, and therefore they can be used to monitor MariaDB instances:

MySQL Overview

MySQL Exporter Quickstart and Dashboard

MySQL Replication

Galera/MariaDB - Overview

MariaDB metrics

The following metrics are available for MariaDB instances:

MaxScale metrics

The following metrics are available for MaxScale instances: