Monitoring Compute Engine service


You can use the metrics from the following monitor types to determine the performance of the Compute Engine service.

For more information, see the following sections:

Scenario

Dennis is a Google Cloud Platform Technology Specialist in an IT organization. He is responsible for monitoring the virtual machines that are created by using the Google Compute Engine service. He monitors the performance of the virtual machines so that he can identify the current capacity of resources and forecast the future requirements.

Current problem: Dennis wants to know whether the virtual machines that are created by using the Google Compute Engine service are running smoothly.

He wants to determine the level of consumed resources, that is, the number of disk reads and writes, CPU usage, network traffic, and status of the virtual machine.

Solution: Dennis can use the Compute Engine metrics to quickly get the information that he wants. The metrics in the following monitor types can help him identify how the resources are currently being utilized by the Compute Engine instance.

Prerequisites: Let us assume that John, the TrueSight Presentation Server administrator, has already completed the necessary prerequisite tasks to set up the PATROL for Google Cloud Platform product so that Dennis can use the monitor type to view data.

Workflow

The following illustration provides a high-level view of the process.

compute_engine_usecase.png

Steps

Dennis performs the following steps:

  1. Open the Devices page

    1. Click Monitoring > Devices.
  2. Select the Device that contains the configured Google Cloud Platform project

    The Device Details page is displayed. In the Monitors tab, expand the Google Cloud Project monitor to view the configured monitor types.

  3. Select the Google Compute Engine monitor. This is a container that holds the virtual machines instances.

    Expand the Compute Engine Instance monitor to view the Disks, Networks, and Processors available for that virtual machine.

    1. Disk performance metrics

      The attributes that are marked as default Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are displayed. You can dynamically change the metric or other graph data using the graphing options.

      Attribute name

      Unit

      Description

      Disk Read Bytes

      KB

      This attribute displays the number of bytes read from the disk.

      Disk Read Operations

      #

      This attribute displays the number of disk read operations.

      Disk Throttled Read Bytes

      KB

      This attribute displays the number of bytes read from the disk, in throttled read operations.

      Disk Throttled Read Operations

      #

      This attribute displays the number of throttled read operations.

      Disk Throttled Write Bytes

      KB

      This attribute displays the number of bytes written to the disk, in throttled write operations.

      Disk Throttled Write Operations

      #

      This attribute displays the number of throttled write operations.

      Disk Write Bytes

      KB

      This attribute displays the number of bytes written to the disk.

      Disk Write Operations

      #

      This attribute displays the number of disk write operations.

      usecase_vm_disk.png

    2. Network performance metrics

      The attributes that are marked as default Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are displayed. You can dynamically change the metric or other graph data using the graphing options.

      Attribute name

      Unit

      Description

      Network Received Bytes

      KB

      This attribute displays the number of bytes received from the network.

      Network Received Packets

      #

      This attribute displays the number of packets received from the network.

      Network Sent Bytes

      KB

      This attribute displays the number of bytes sent over the network.

      Network Sent Packets

      #

      This attribute displays the number of bytes sent over the network.

      usecase_vm_network.png

    3. Processor performance metrics

      The attributes that are marked as default Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are displayed. You can dynamically change the metric or other graph data using the graphing options.

      Attribute name

      Unit

      Description

      CPU Usage

      Seconds

      This attribute displays the CPU usage of all the cores, in seconds. 

      CPU Utilization

      %

      This attribute displays the CPU utilization of the VM, in percent.

      usecase_vm_cpu.png

      You can view the event details in the Event tab. 

      By default, some columns are hidden. Use the action menu action_menu.png that is located next to the table title to display the hidden columns.

 

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