Monitor DataStax Enterprise (DSE) clusters

DataStax Enterprise (DSE) provides many metrics about your clusters that help you understand a cluster’s performance characteristics. This information is critical to diagnosing issues and planning capacity.

DSE exposes statistics and management operations through Java Management Extensions (JMX). JMX is a Java technology that supplies tools for managing and monitoring Java applications and services. You can use JMX to monitor or manipulate any statistic or operation that is exposed as an MBean by a Java application.

During normal operation, the database outputs information and statistics that you can monitor using JMX-compliant tools, such as the following:

You can also use these tools for certain administrative operations, such as flushing caches or repairing nodes.

For more robust oversight and visualization, you can integrate DSE statistics into dashboards and alerting tools, including DataStax tools and third-party monitoring services.

JMX authentication

Configure JMX authentication if you want to authenticate JMX users or implement role-based access control to MBeans. For more information, see the following:

Get MBeans

You need the complete names of MBeans to make calls to MBeans from the command line or set MBean permissions in CQL.

The following example shows how to use jmxterm to get the full list of JMX MBeans from a database node:

echo "beans" | java -jar jmxterm-1.0.0-uber.jar -l localhost:7199 -n 2>&1

Only perform this operation in isolation because the list can be large.

Alternatively, you can filter the results of the initial jmxterm command by piping the output to grep or a similar command. For example, to find MBeans that contain the word commitlog:

echo "beans" | java -jar /tmp/jmxterm-1.0.0-uber.jar -l localhost:7199 -n 2>&1 | grep -i commitlog

Use the resulting MBean strings exactly as printed to fetch and manage metrics. This includes MBean names in the nodetool sjk mx command, metrics searches in JConsole, and MBean permission management with the CQL GRANT and REVOKE commands.

Result
com.datastax.bdp.advrep.v2.metrics:name=CommitLogMessagesRead,type=ReplicationLog
          com.datastax.bdp.advrep.v2.metrics:name=CommitLogsDeleted,type=ReplicationLog
          com.datastax.bdp.advrep.v2.metrics:name=CommitLogsToConsume,type=ReplicationLog
          org.apache.cassandra.db:type=Commitlog
          org.apache.cassandra.metrics:name=CompletedTasks,type=CommitLog
          org.apache.cassandra.metrics:name=PendingTasks,type=CommitLog
          org.apache.cassandra.metrics:name=TotalCommitLogSize,type=CommitLog
          org.apache.cassandra.metrics:name=WaitingOnCommit,type=CommitLog
          org.apache.cassandra.metrics:name=WaitingOnSegmentAllocation,type=CommitLog

Use Java Console (JConsole)

JConsole is a JMX-compliant tool for monitoring Java applications. JConsole consumes the JMX metrics and operations exposed by DSE and prints them to a well-organized GUI.

If you choose to monitor DSE using JConsole, understand that JConsole consumes a significant amount of system resources. For this reason, DataStax recommends running JConsole on a remote machine rather than on the same host as a DSE node.

  1. Open a terminal, and then start jconsole to open the JConsole GUI:

    jconsole

    JConsole is included with Sun JDK 5.0 and later as well as OpenJDK. If the JDK isn’t installed on the machine where you are running JConsole, see the JDK installation guides in the Oracle and OpenJDK documentation.

    To use JConsole with SSL, see Setting up SSL for jconsole (JMX).

  2. In the JConsole GUI, create a connection to a DSE node:

    1. Select Remote Process.

    2. Enter the node’s IP address and port number.

      The default DSE JMX metrics monitoring port is 7199.

    3. If you enabled JMX authentication, enter a username and password to authenticate to the node.

    4. Click Connect.

  3. After the connection is established, click the MBeans tab.

    For each connected node, JConsole provides information and controls on the tabs in the JConsole GUI:

    • Overview tab: A summary of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and monitored values.

    • Memory tab: Memory use details, including heap and non-heap memory usage, and an option to start the Java garbage collection process.

    • Threads tab: Thread use details.

    • Classes tab: Class loading details.

    • VM Summary tab: JVM details.

    • MBeans tab: Details about MBeans registered with the JVM.

  4. On the MBeans tab, in the navigation tree, expand the following directories to browse DSE MBeans:

    • org.apache.cassandra.auth: Permissions cache.

    • org.apache.cassandra.db: Caching, table metrics, and compaction.

    • org.apache.cassandra.internal: Internal server operations, such as gossip, hinted handoff, and Memtable values.

    • org.apache.cassandra.metrics: All DSE metrics, including CQL, clients, keyspaces, read repair, storage, threadpools, and other topics.

    • org.apache.cassandra.net: Internode communication including FailureDetector, MessagingService, and StreamingManager.

    • org.apache.cassandra.request: Tasks related to read, write, and replication operations.

    • org.apache.cassandra.service: GCInspector.

    When you select an MBean in the tree, MBean details appear in the MBeanInfo and MBean Descriptor sections, and the tree expands to list any attributes, operations, or notifications associated with the selected MBean.

    ops jconsole cf options
    Inspecting org.apache.cassandra.metrics/Compaction in JConsole

Use nodetool

The nodetool utility is a command-line interface for monitoring a cluster and performing routine database operations. It is typically run from an operational node.

You can use nodetool commands to view detailed table metrics, server metrics, and compaction statistics:

The following example shows the output from nodetool proxyhistograms after running 4,500 insert statements and 45,000 select statements on a three ccm node-cluster on a local machine:

nodetool proxyhistograms
proxy histograms
Percentile      Read Latency     Write Latency     Range Latency
                    (micros)          (micros)          (micros)
50%                  1502.50            375.00            446.00
75%                  1714.75            420.00            498.00
95%                 31210.25            507.00            800.20
98%                 36365.00            577.36            948.40
99%                 36365.00            740.60           1024.39
Min                   616.00            230.00            311.00
Max                 36365.00          55726.00          59247.00

For a summary of the ring and its current state of general health, use nodetool status. For example:

nodetool status
Note: Ownership information does not include topology; for complete information, specify a keyspace
Datacenter: datacenter1
=======================
Status=Up/Down
|/ State=Normal/Leaving/Joining/Moving
--  Address    Load       Tokens  Owns    Host ID                               Rack
UN  127.0.0.1  47.66 KB   1       33.3%   aaa1b7c1-6049-4a08-ad3e-3697a0e30e10  rack1
UN  127.0.0.2  47.67 KB   1       33.3%   1848c369-4306-4874-afdf-5c1e95b8732e  rack1
UN  127.0.0.3  47.67 KB   1       33.3%   49578bf1-728f-438d-b1c1-d8dd644b6f7f  rack1

Use Swiss Java Knife (SJK) with nodetool sjk

SJK is an open-source JVM tool.

SJK is available in DSE through the nodetool sjk command and subcommands.

For demonstration purposes, the following examples use the mx subcommand to get and set JMX MBean values and interact with a specific list of MBeans.

The nodetool sjk mxdump subcommand tries to print all exposed MBeans to the console. The command can fail if it encounters an improperly formatted MBean that exposes a non-serializable type, such as an mx4j MBean.

Instead, use nodetool sjk mx to interact with a specific list of MBeans. Use the -q flag to avoid errors if a non-serializable type is returned.

  1. Get MBean names because SJK is case-sensitive, and exact MBean names are required in nodetool sjk commands.

  2. Get options and values for a specified MBean:

    nodetool sjk mx -b "EXACT_MBEAN_NAME" -mi

    For example, to get the options and values for the TotalCommitLogSize MBean:

    nodetool sjk mx -b "org.apache.cassandra.metrics:name=TotalCommitLogSize,type=CommitLog" -mi

    This MBean is simple; it has only one Value attribute:

    org.apache.cassandra.metrics:type=CommitLog,name=TotalCommitLogSize
org.apache.cassandra.metrics.CassandraMetricsRegistry$JmxGauge
 - Information on the management interface of the MBean
 (A) Value : java.lang.Object
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (O) objectName() : javax.management.ObjectName
  - Operation exposed for management

    The output is longer for more complex MBeans, such as latency:

    nodetool sjk mx -b "org.apache.cassandra.metrics:name=Latency,scope=Read,type=ClientRequest" -mi

    Each (A) is a separate Value attribute:

    org.apache.cassandra.metrics:type=ClientRequest,scope=Read,name=Latency
org.apache.cassandra.metrics.CassandraMetricsRegistry$JmxTimer
 - Information on the management interface of the MBean
 (A) Max : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) Min : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) Mean : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) StdDev : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) 95thPercentile : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) DurationUnit : String
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) 50thPercentile : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) 75thPercentile : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) 98thPercentile : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) 99thPercentile : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) 999thPercentile : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) OneMinuteRate : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) FifteenMinuteRate : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) FiveMinuteRate : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) MeanRate : double
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) RateUnit : String
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (A) Count : long
  - Attribute exposed for management
 (O) values() : long[]
  - Operation exposed for management
 (O) objectName() : javax.management.ObjectName
  - Operation exposed for management

  3. Use other mx options to extract specific MBean details.

    For example, use -f to read the value of an MBean.

    For MBeans with simple values, you can get Value directly, without naming a specific Value attribute:

    nodetool sjk mx -b "org.apache.cassandra.metrics:name=TotalCommitLogSize,type=CommitLog" -f Value -mg
    org.apache.cassandra.metrics:type=CommitLog,name=TotalCommitLogSize
67108864

    For MBeans with complex values, such as latency, specify a Value attribute returned by nodetool sjk mx -b EXACT_MBEAN_NAME -mi:

    nodetool sjk mx -b "org.apache.cassandra.metrics:name=Latency,scope=Read,type=ClientRequest" -f 99thPercentile -mg
    org.apache.cassandra.metrics:type=ClientRequest,scope=Read,name=Latency
3379.391

Driver metrics

See Enable metrics collection in Cassandra drivers.

Advanced monitoring and visualization

For more robust oversight and visualization, you can integrate DSE statistics into dashboards and alerting tools, including DataStax tools and third-party monitoring services.

You can use any of the following tools to monitor DSE clusters and view metrics dashboards:

DSE Metrics Collector and Mission Control support exporting metrics to external observability tools.

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