Exploring data collection and metric protocols

In Chapter 2, we introduced four common protocols in use to collect data from today’s software – StatsD and DogStatsD, OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP), and Prometheus. We also introduced Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), which is used in the networking and compute spaces. In this section, we’ll explore some of the features of these protocols.

There are two methods that metrics can be collected, push and pull. In a push protocol, the application or infrastructure must be configured with a destination to send metrics. In a pull protocol, the application or infrastructure is configured to expose metrics for another service to request. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages, it is also important to be aware of the potential security implications. In the following subsections, let’s delve into each protocol.

StatsD and DogStatsD

We have grouped StatsD and DogStatsD together, as they are identical...