Application Insights StatsD backend

The ApplicationInsights StatsD backend enables easy pre-aggregation of lightweight StatsD metrics that can be then forwarded to Application Insights.

Installation and Configuration

You can add the appinsights backend into your existing StatsD project or into a new clone of the official StatsD repo.

New Project

Install node.js from nodejs.org

Clone the statsd project:

$ git clone https://github.com/etsy/statsd

Create a config file from exampleConfig.js:

$ cd /path/to/statsd
$ cp exampleConfig.js appinsights.js

Continue with the Existing Project instructions

Existing project

Install the appinsights-statsd backend npm module:

$ cd /path/to/statsd
$ npm install appinsights-statsd --save

Add the backend and configuration to your statsd config file (appinsights.js):

{
    backends: [ "appinsights-statsd" ],  // [Required] The Application Insighst StatsD backend
    aiInstrumentationKey: "<Application Insights Instrumentation Key from https://portal.azure.com>",  // [Required] Your instrumentation key
    aiPrefix: "myapp",  // [Optional] Send only metrics with this prefix
    aiRoleName: "MyFrontEnd",  // [Optional] Add this role name context tag to every metric
    aiRoleInstance: "VM5",  // [Optional] Add this role instance context tag to every metric
    aiTrackStatsDMetrics: true,  // [Optional] Send StatsD internal metrics to Application Insights
}

Start the Daemon:

$ node stats.js /path/to/config

Usage

The backend supports counters, timers and gauges with the standard statsd format.

In additional, custom properties can be attached to each metric using a double-underscore delimiter in this format:

"<name>__<base64-encoded JSON>"

E.g. to send a counter with a custom property you could use code like this:

const customProperties = { "title": "engineer" };
const customPropertiesEncoded = new Buffer(JSON.stringify(customProperties)).toString("base64");
const name = "jobs-open__" + customPropertiesEncoded;
statsDClient.increment(name);

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING for details