What’s New: MySQL App!
By Knox Lively,April 17, 2023
Observe’s ability to connect seemingly unrelated data, and virtually endless data types, from multiple sources, lets users bridge the gap between their database instances and other observability data for a more comprehensive understanding of their systems.
Introducing the MySQL App!
In our continuous pursuit to provide you with easy-to-use Apps that make observability more turnkey, we are thrilled to announce the addition of MySQL App to our Observe Apps lineup! The MySQL App was specifically designed to provide out-of-the-box observability and visibility into the overall health of your MySQL databases, ensuring seamless performance and reliability.
With this App, you’ll get access to pre-built dashboards that offer valuable insights into key database performance indicators, such as query performance, resource utilization, error rates, and much more. In addition, when you need more context, simply click anywhere in any dashboard and you’ll be taken to one of the fourteen provided Datasets to help you drill down further into the underlying data.
The MySQL App also features pre-configured Monitor templates to keep you updated on essential conditions, such as high latency, increased error counts, slow query count spikes, and connection-related issues, ensuring optimal database performance while minimizing the risk of downtime or degradation. These templates provide timely alerts to help you proactively address potential performance bottlenecks in your MySQL databases.
Lastly, when combined with other telemetry data found in Observe, you’re able to unveil previously hidden connections and relationships within your data to make new discoveries. This holistic approach empowers you to ask and answer essential questions about your environment, such as, “How did the most recent deployment affect database performance?”, “Are there any infrastructure-related bottlenecks affecting my MySQL database?”, and so much more.
Now that we’ve covered the highlights, it’s time to dive in and see what this App can do for you!
What’s Included?
MySQL is a highly popular, open-source, relational database management system (RDBMS) that offers a versatile Community Edition, as well as commercial editions with added features and support. Owned by Oracle, MySQL has become the most commonly used relational database in production today and is used by over 20 Million websites worldwide. Its widespread adoption is further reflected by the fact that all three major cloud providers offer MySQL as a service and are available in various engine flavors including MySQL, MariaDB, and AuroraDB.
Whether on–premises, or in the cloud, the MySQL App provides a suite of Dashboards, Datasets, and Monitor templates to take the guesswork out of observability for your MySQL instances. Let’s further explore what content this App contains and the many questions it can help you answer.
Dashboards
Dashboards are often the starting place for any investigation, no matter how big or how small. We understand this and designed our Dashboards to make them actionable, rather than a single “pain” of glass. In the MySQL App, you’ll find seven dashboards that provide you with all the metrics you need to effectively troubleshoot and understand the overall health of your MySQL database instances.
A great starting point is the Monitoring Dashboard (below), which displays key metrics instances like throughput, query performance, concurrency, and buffer pool usage summaries. As you identify significant trends and anomalies in this dashboard, you can pivot to other, more specific dashboards to dive into deeper investigations.
The MySQL App also includes other dashboards — like the Throughput, Query Performance, Concurrency, and Buffer Pool Usage Dashboards — to help you drill further into specific metrics when you need more detail. There’s also the Configurations Dashboard that allows you to review the global variables of your database instances without having to log in to the server or the admin console.
Datasets
Observe uses common open-source plugins like Telegraf and FluentBit to collect crucial logs and metrics from MySQL, and then transform that data into Datasets. These Datasets form the backbone of everything you see in our Dashboards and contain the raw metrics, logs, and event data you need when performing advanced troubleshooting. Furthermore, these Datasets are linked at the time of modeling with other Datasets to help you discover hidden connections in your data.
Observe’s MySQL App includes seven Datasets to help you dig deeper — like the General Logs, Error Logs, and Slow Query Logs Datasets — that contain all relevant log data, and the Metrics Dataset where you can find raw metrics should you need them.
Monitor Templates
Lastly, the MySQL App from Observe boasts seven Monitor templates that provide crucial alerts on widely monitored metrics. With templates such as Buffer Pool Pages (Usage High) and three different Query Performance Monitor templates, you can promptly identify and tackle potential performance problems that may arise.
Additionally, the Concurrency (Connection Count High) and Connections (Aborted Connects Count) Monitor templates help maintain smooth database operations by keeping an eye on connection-related issues. These carefully selected Monitor templates ensure optimal database health and reliability for your MySQL environments.
And because we can’t predict all of your alerting needs, we encourage you to build your own Monitors from the hundreds of metrics provided by the MySQL App for unparalleled customization and comprehensive monitoring of your databases.
What Can You Do With This App?
In addition to the pre-loaded content provided by the MySQL App, you can also create your own customized Dashboards using the provided Datasets and metrics for a highly detailed and prescriptive approach to observability for all things MySQL.
Whether it’s the out-of-the-box content or your own customized Dashboards or Monitors, the MySQL App allows you to quickly answer important questions related to the health, performance, and reliability of their MySQL instances. Let’s look at just a few of the questions you can answer with the MySQL App from Observe:
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- Identify Query Performance Issues: By leveraging the Query Performance Dashboard and Monitor templates like Query Performance (Latency High) and Query Performance (Slow Query Count High), you can quickly detect and diagnose slow or high-latency queries in your MySQL instances, to optimize query performance and maintain efficient database operations.
- Monitor Database Connection Usage: The Concurrency Dashboard and Monitor templates such as Concurrency (Connection Count High) and Concurrency (Aborted Connects Count High) enable you to keep an eye on connection-related issues. This helps maintain smooth database operations by ensuring that connection limits are not exceeded and aborted connections are kept to a minimum.
- Analyze Resource Utilization: The Buffer Pool Usage Dashboard, coupled with the Buffer Pool Pages (Usage High) Monitor template, allows you to track buffer pool usage in your MySQL instances. This helps you ensure that database resources are utilized efficiently and optimally, preventing potential performance degradation due to resource contention.
- Investigate Database Errors: Using the Error Logs Dataset and Error Counts High Monitor template, you can quickly identify and address any errors occurring in your MySQL instances. This ensures that potential issues are resolved promptly, maintaining overall database health and reliability.
- Review and Optimize Database Configurations: The Configurations Dashboard provides you with an easy way to review the global variables of your MySQL instances without having to log in to the server or admin console. This allows you to optimize your database configurations to better suit your needs and improve overall performance.
Better Together
As mentioned earlier, Observe Apps go beyond merely observing the specific service the App was designed for — they make collecting, analyzing, and correlating data with other observability information more accessible and efficient. Once in Observe, the possibilities to gain new insights from your data, old or new, are virtually limitless.
Observe is able to do this because of the unique architecture of the Observability Cloud, which consists of Data Apps, the Data Lake, and the Data Graph. The MySQL App is an example of a Data App, which enables effortless data ingestion into the Data Lake. Once in the Data Lake, your data is transformed into Datasets or “things” of interest, such as users, pods, or customer tickets, and linked together. Then, by utilizing tools like GraphLink, and the Data Graph, you can swiftly navigate these connections found in your data — enabling you to quickly find relevant context during investigations, and answer critical questions from your observability data.
Let’s explore just a few of the ways this data can be used outside of observing individual MySQL instances.
- Combine General Logs from the MySQL App with Build Logs from the Jenkins, GitHub, or GitLab Apps to discover which build (and ultimately which commit) introduced a failed migration, and when.
- Furthering the above example, add Customer Tickets from Zendesk to see how the failed migration impacted your users.
- Select from a vast array of Metrics provided by the MySQL App and correlate them to Container Logs found in the Kubernetes App. This enables you to effectively monitor and enhance the performance of containerized database instances within microservices-based architectures.
Observe’s ability to connect seemingly unrelated data, and virtually endless data types, from multiple sources, lets users bridge the gap between their database instances and other observability data for a more comprehensive understanding of their systems.
Installation
To install the latest version of the MySQL App, simply visit the installation guide for the MySQL App. You’ll find detailed instructions on how to install and configure the Apps, along with comprehensive guides on their features, as well as what Dashboards, Datasets, and Monitor templates are included.
Conclusion
We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of how the MySQL App makes observability more turnkey. As with all of our Apps, their use cases are limited by your imagination, and we look forward to seeing what you can do with them. Don’t forget to check out our ever-growing list of Apps, to see how they help you to find new relationships among your data so you can spend more time building features, and less time writing post-mortems.
And don’t let cost concerns get in the way of finding new connections. Our usage-based pricing allows you to confidently expand your App ecosystem, ingest all observability data you find important, and keep it for as long as you like. This efficient and cost-effective approach allows you to focus on enhancing observability without compromising your budget.
If you’re not already an Observe customer but want to see how observability is as easy as installing an app, then click here to get access today!