Unlocking Insights: Monitor Metric in the Last 24 Hours using New Relic with Terraform

As modern applications continue to evolve, monitoring performance and metrics becomes more crucial than ever. New Relic, a leading observability platform, offers unparalleled insights into your application’s health and performance. Terraform, an infrastructure-as-code tool, enables you to manage and provision infrastructure resources with ease. In this article, we’ll explore how to monitor metrics in the last 24 hours using New Relic with Terraform, providing you with a comprehensive guide to unlock valuable insights into your application’s performance.

Setting up New Relic and Terraform

Before diving into the meat of the article, let’s cover the basics. You’ll need to set up New Relic and Terraform on your system. Follow these steps:

1. Create a New Relic account and download the New Relic agent for your specific programming language (e.g., Java, Python, etc.).

2. Install Terraform on your system by following the official installation guide.

3. Set up your Terraform configuration file (main.tf) with the necessary providers and credentials.

With New Relic and Terraform set up, let’s move on to creating a monitoring metric.

Creating a Monitoring Metric in New Relic

Log in to your New Relic account and navigate to the APM > Metric section. Click the New metric button to create a new metric.

In the Create metric form, fill in the required details:

Field	Description
Metric name	Enter a name for your metric (e.g., “Request latency”).
	Select the unit of measurement for your metric (e.g., milliseconds).
Type	Select the type of metric (e.g., gauge, counter, etc.).
Enter a brief description of your metric.

Click Create metric to save your new metric.

Configuring Terraform to Monitor the Metric

In your Terraform configuration file (main.tf), add the following code to create a New Relic resource:

provider "newrelic" {
  account_id = "YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID"
  api_key   = "YOUR_API_KEY"
  region    = "US"
}

resource "newrelic_metric" "request_latency" {
  name        = "Request latency"
  unit        = "milliseconds"
  type        = "gauge"
  description = "Average request latency in the last 24 hours"
}

Replace YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID and YOUR_API_KEY with your actual New Relic account ID and API key.

In the resource "newrelic_metric" "request_latency" block, we’re creating a new metric resource with the same details as the metric we created in New Relic.

Querying the Metric in the Last 24 Hours

To query the metric in the last 24 hours, we’ll use the New Relic NRQL (New Relic Query Language) query language. Add the following code to your Terraform configuration file:

data "newrelic_nrql_query" "request_latency_last_24h" {
  account_id = "YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID"
  query      = "SELECT average(request_latency) FROM Metric WHERE timestamp > NOW() - 24 HOUR"
}

This NRQL query selects the average request latency metric for the last 24 hours.

Visualizing the Metric in New Relic

To visualize the metric in New Relic, navigate to the APM > Metrics section and click on the metric you created earlier (e.g., “Request latency”).

In the metric details page, click the Chart button to view the chart for the last 24 hours.

You should now see a chart displaying the average request latency for the last 24 hours.

Automating Metric Creation and Querying with Terraform

To automate the process of creating and querying metrics, we can use Terraform’s built-in functionality to manage infrastructure resources.

Create a new file called variables.tf with the following content:

variable "newrelic_account_id" {
  type        = string
  description = "New Relic account ID"
}

variable "newrelic_api_key" {
  type        = string
  description = "New Relic API key"
}

In your main.tf file, add the following code to create a new metric resource and query the metric in the last 24 hours:

resource "newrelic_metric" "request_latency" {
  name        = "Request latency"
  unit        = "milliseconds"
  type        = "gauge"
  description = "Average request latency in the last 24 hours"
}

data "newrelic_nrql_query" "request_latency_last_24h" {
  account_id = var.newrelic_account_id
  query      = "SELECT average(request_latency) FROM Metric WHERE timestamp > NOW() - 24 HOUR"
}

output "request_latency_last_24h" {
  value = data.newrelic_nrql_query.request_latency_last_24h.result
}

Run terraform init and terraform apply to deploy the metric resource and query the metric in the last 24 hours.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve demonstrated how to monitor metrics in the last 24 hours using New Relic with Terraform. By leveraging the power of New Relic’s observability platform and Terraform’s infrastructure-as-code capabilities, you can automate the process of creating and querying metrics, gaining valuable insights into your application’s performance.

Remember to replace the placeholders with your actual New Relic account ID and API key. With this setup, you’ll be able to monitor and analyze your application’s performance with ease, making data-driven decisions to optimize your application’s performance.

Happy monitoring!

Further Reading

• New Relic API documentation: https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/apis/get-started/intro-apis

• Terraform New Relic provider documentation: https://registry.terraform.io/providers/newrelic/newrelic/latest/docs

• New Relic NRQL query language reference: https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/query-your-data/nrql-new-relic-query-language/get-started-nrql

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