Collecting metrics data

To collect, manage, and derive insights from metric data

1. Create profiles describing the devices connected to the BMC Helix Edge environment.
   Specify the metrics, including names, data types, and additional properties.
2. To create a device profile, see Managing-device-profiles. 

3. Define the metrics in the device profiles by specifying the following information:

   Parameter	Description
   Metric name	A unique identifier for the metric.
   Data type	The type of data the metric represents. For example, int, float, string.
   Unit of measurement	The unit in which the metric is measured. For example, degrees Celsius, meters.
   Other relevant properties	Any additional properties or metadata associated with the metric.

4. Use REST API to ingest data from various devices into your system.
   For more information about integrating the REST API for device service, see Ingesting-data-from-device-service-with-the-REST-API. This API provides a straightforward method for sending device-related metrics to the server.

5. Provision of the devices based on the created device profiles.

   During this process, the BMC Helix Edge environment establishes communication with the devices and prepares to collect metric data.
   Devices transmit metric data to the BMC Helix Edge environment.

6. Depending on the configuration, you can do this through various communication protocols that your device service supports, such as MQTT, HTTP, etc.
   BMC Helix Edge services receive process, and store metric data. They also ensure that the data is normalized and made available for further analysis.

7. Implement BMC Helix Edge environment alerting mechanisms by integrating BMC Helix Operations Management.
   With BMC Helix Operations Management, you can configure alerts to notify you of critical events and raise tickets. This proactive approach allows you to address issues.

   Important

   As the number of connected devices and the volume of metric data increase, you must consider scaling the infrastructure to handle the growing demands. This process might involve deploying additional instances of BMC Helix Edge nodes or scaling up the pods for services on the BMC Helix Edge core.