[zeromq-dev] Statistics reporting using zeromq/crossroads

[Pieter Hintjens]

Hi Paul,

This is a great idea. My advice is start simple and add functionality
as needed over time. If you want an easy reusable legal template for
protocols, see the rfc.zeromq.org site.

-Pieter

On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 4:38 PM, Paul Colomiets <paul at colomiets.name> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Every time I develop something using zeromq or libxs I come up with a
> problem of how to report statistics. Pub/Sub pattern is suited for
> statistics reporting very well, but the format of messages is unclear.
> The result is ugly and diverse solutions for reporting real-time
> statistics.
>
> I think the community would benefit from having common format for
> reporting statistics, so that all open-source software could use the
> format. And various plugins can be developed for existing statistics
> and monitoring systems.
>
>
> The protocol should meet the following requirements:
>
> 1. Simple compact format. Probably textual or fixed-size binary. It
> should be easy to craft messages without any dependencies.
>
> 2. Each message should bring compact representation of the type
> information in itself (so that centralized system doesn't need to be
> reconfigured for each new reported value and each software upgrade on
> remote system)
>
> 3. Subscriber should be able to filter statistics data by pub/sub subscriptions
>
> 4. There should be solution to collect that statistics (draw graphs, etc.)
>
>
> So I have the following questions:
>
> 1. What formats are available to (re)use?
>
> 2. What protocols and software do you use for your projects?
>
> 3. Would you like to participate in standardization of the protocol?
>
>
>
> At our company we use collectd. And as zeromq plugin is not in the
> mainstream for collectd, and it has complex binary format, we report
> using some custom formats and a special application that translates
> that into collectd protocol for unix sockets (which in turn nice
> textual protocol). Same is done in zerogw (see zerogwstat utility).
> This kind of proxying, and the point #2 from the requirements makes me
> incomfortable.
>
> --
> Paul
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