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Motivation
Flink has defined a few standard metrics for jobs, tasks and operators. It also supports custom metrics in various scenarios. However, so far there is no standard or conventional metric definition for the connectors. Each connector defines their own metrics at the moment. This complicates operation and monitoring. Admittedly, different connectors may have different metrics, but some commonly used metrics can probably be standardized. This FLIP proposes a set of standard connector metrics that each connector should emit if applicable.
In the future, the other projects in Flink ecosystem may rely on this metric convention. Therefore, the connector implementations are expected to follow the conventions when reporting the metrics.
Public Interfaces
We propose to introduce a set of conventional / standard metrics for the connectors.
It is important to mention that
- A connector implementation does not have to report all the defined metrics. But if a connector reports a metric of the same semantic defined below, the implementation should follow the convention.
- The following metric convention is not a complete list. More conventional metric will be added over time.
- The histogram metrics are usually very expensive. Due to its performance impact, we intentionally excluded them in this FLIP. Please see future work section for more details.
Source Metrics
Name | Type | Unit | Description |
numBytesIn | Counter | Bytes | The total number of input bytes since the source started. Count towards the numBytesIn in TaskIOMetricsGroup. Predefined. For FLIP-27 Sources, updated by SourceReader implementations via SourceReaderContext. |
numBytesInPerSecond | Meter | Bytes/Sec | The input bytes per second. Predefined. associated with numBytesIn. |
numRecordsIn | Counter | Records | (Existing operator metric) The total number of input records since the source started. The Source implementation should reused this existing operator metric instead of creating a new one. Predefined. For FLIP-27 sources, updated by SourceReader implementations via SourceReaderContext. |
numRecordsInPerSecond | Meter | Records/Sec | (Existing operator metric) The input records per second The Source implementation should reused this existing operator metric instead of creating a new one. Predefined. Associated with numRecordsIn. |
numRecordsInErrors | Counter | Records | The total number of record that failed to consume, process or emit. Predefined. For FLIP-27 sources, updated by SourceReader implementations via SourceReaderContext. |
currentFetchEventTimeLag | Gauge | ms | The time in milliseconds from the record event timestamp to the timestamp Flink fetched the record. This metric is an instantaneous value recorded for the last processed record. This metric is provided because latency histogram could be expensive. The instantaneous latency value is usually a good enough indication of the latency. currentFetchEventTimeLag = FetchTime - EventTime Optional. For FLIP-27 sources, registered and updated by SourceReader implementations via MetricsGroup provided by SourceReaderContext, |
currentEmitEventTimeLag | Gauge | ms | The time in milliseconds from the record event timestamp to the timestamp the record is emitted by the source connector. This metric is an instantaneous value recorded for the last processed record. This metric is provided because latency histogram could be expensive. The instantaneous latency value is usually a good enough indication of the latency. currentEmitEventTimeLag = EmitTime - EventTime, where the EmitTime is the time the record leaves the source operator. Predefined. For FLIP-27 sources, updated by ReaderOutput implementation. |
watermarkLag | Gauge | ms | The time in milliseconds that the watermark lags behind the wall clock time. watermarkLag = CurrentTime - Watermark Predefined. For FLIP-27 sources, updated by ReaderOutput implementation. |
sourceIdleTime | Gauge | ms | The time in milliseconds that the source has not processed any record. sourceIdleTime = CurrentTime - LastRecordProcessTime Optional. For FLIP-27 sources, registered and updated by SourceReader implementation via MetricsGroup provided by SourceReaderContext. |
pendingBytes | Gauge | Bytes | The number of bytes that have not been fetched by the source. e.g. the remaining bytes in a file after the file descriptor reading position. Note that not every source reports this metric, but the metric of the same semantic should be reported with this name and specification if the Source does report. Optional. For FLIP-27 sources, registered and updated by SourceReader implementation via MetricsGroup provided by SourceReaderContext. |
pendingRecords | Gauge | Records | The number of records that have not been fetched by the source. e.g. the available records after the consumer offset in a Kafka partition. Note that not every source reports this metric, but the metric of the same semantic should be reported with this name and specification if the Source does report. Optional. For FLIP-27 sources, registered and updated by SourceReader implementation via MetricsGroup provided by SourceReaderContext. |
Sink Metrics
Name | Type | Unit | Description |
numBytesSend | Counter | Bytes | The total number of output bytes since the source started. Count towards the numBytesOut in TaskIOMetricsGroup Predefined, updated by sink implementations. |
numBytesSendPerSecond | Meter | Bytes/Sec | The output bytes per second Predefined, associated with numBytesSend. |
numRecordsSend | Counter | Records | The total number of output records since the sink started Predefined, updated by sink implementations. |
numRecordsSendPerSecond | Meter | Records/Sec | The output records per second Predefined, associated with numBytesSend. |
numRecordsSendErrors | Counter | Record | The total number of records failed to send Predefined, updated by sink implementations. |
currentSendTime | Gauge | ms | The time it takes to send the last record. This metric is an instantaneous value recorded for the last processed record. Optional, updated by sink implementations. |
Scope
The metric group for each source and sink would be the same as ordinary operator scope, i.e. default to <host>.taskmanager.<tm_id>.<job_name>.<operator_name>.<subtask_index>
Additional connector specific metrics should also use the same scope.
Native Connector Metrics
If the connector has its original metrics, the original metric names should still be kept and reported, even some of the original metrics are exposed with standard metric names. That means the connector will double report such metrics.
API Changes
OperatorIOMetricGroup
Add the following metrics.
public class OperatorIOMetricGroup extends ProxyMetricGroup<OperatorMetricGroup> { private final Counter numBytesIn; private final Counter numBytesOut; private final Meter numBytesInRate; private final Meter numBytesOutRate; public Counter getNumBytesInCounter() { return numRecordsIn; } public Counter getNumBytesOutCounter() { return numRecordsOut; } public Meter getNumBytesInRateMeter() { return numRecordsInRate; } public Meter getNumBytesOutRate() { return numRecordsOutRate; } }
SourceReaderContext
To provide the above SourceMetrics in the base implementation of FLIP-27, we add the following methods to SourceReaderContext.
public interface SourceReaderContext { Counter getNumBytesInCounter(); Counter getRecordsInCounter(); Counter getNumRecordsInErrorsCounter(); }
Future Work
Opt in/out metrics
In this FLIP, we intentionally left some of the useful but potentially expensive metrics out of the scope. For example:
Name | Type | Unit | Description |
recordSize | Histogram | Bytes | The size of a record. |
eventTimeFetchLag | Histogram | ms | The latency occurred before Flink fetched the record. fetchLatency = FetchTime - EventTime |
eventTimeLag | Histogram | ms | The latency occurred before the record is emitted by the source connector. latency = EmitTime - EventTime |
sendTime | Histogram | ms | The time it takes to send a record |
We plan to add these metrics to the convention by introducing optional metrics to allow user opt in/out these expensive metrics on demand. This will be discussed in a separate FLIP.
Proposed Changes
- Add the proposed metrics to the existing connectors.
- Mark the old metrics as deprecated if necessary.
- Correct the scope and metric names of the connectors if needed.
Compatibility, Deprecation, and Migration Plan
This FLIP proposes adding new metrics to the connectors and mark the old duplicate metrics as deprecated if necessary.
After some releases, we would like to remove some of the old metrics that are duplicates of the new standard metrics. But there is no strict timeline for that.
Test Plan
Standard connector metric test suites will be created to ensure the connector names are implemented correctly.
Rejected Alternatives
None