Kafka integration for Grafana Cloud

Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed event streaming platform used by thousands of companies for high-performance data pipelines, streaming analytics, data integration, and mission-critical applications.

This integration includes eight useful alerts and seven pre-built dashboards to help monitor and visualize Kafka metrics.

Pre-install configuration for the Kafka integration

In order for the integration to work, you must configure a JMX exporter on each instance composing your Kafka Cluster, including all brokers, zookeepers, ksqldb, schema registries and kafka connect nodes.

Each of these instances has it’s own JMX Exporter config file. The following files should be used for each respective kafka component. For more details on how to configure your Kaka JVM with the JMX exporter, plese refer to the JMX Exporter documentation.

If you want to monitor consumption lag as well, you will also need to update the Grafana Agent to verion 0.17.0 or higher. Here’s the Grafana Agent configuration reference

Install Kafka integration for Grafana Cloud

In your Grafana Cloud instance, click Integrations and Connections (lightning bolt icon).
Navigate to the Kafka tile and review the prerequisites. Then click Install integration.
Once the integration is installed, follow the steps on the Configuration Details page to setup Grafana Agent and start sending Kafka metrics to your Grafana Cloud instance.

Post-install configuration for the Kafka integration

It’s recommended that you configure a separate user for the Agent, and give it only the strictly mandatory security privileges necessary for monitoring your node, as per the documentation.

Below is an agent configuration example for this integration:

metrics:
  wal_directory: /tmp/wal
  configs:
    - name: integrations
      scrape_configs:
        - job_name: integrations/kafka
          static_configs:
            - targets: ['kafka-node1:7001', 'kafka-node2:7001', 'kafka-node3:7001']

        - job_name: integrations/kafka-zookeeper
          static_configs:
            - targets: ['zookeeper-node1:7001', 'zookeeper-node2:7001', 'zookeeper-node3:7001']

        - job_name: integrations/kafka-connect
          static_configs:
            - targets: ['kafka-connect-node1:7001', 'kafka-connect-node2:7001', 'kafka-connect-node3:7001']

        - job_name: integrations/kafka-schemaregistry
          static_configs:
            - targets:
                [
                  'kafka-schemaregistry-node1:7001',
                  'kafka-schemaregistry-node2:7001',
                  'kafka-schemaregistry-node3:7001',
                ]

        - job_name: integrations/kafka-ksqldb
          static_configs:
            - targets: ['kafka-ksqldb-node1:7001', 'kafka-ksqldb-node2:7001', 'kafka-ksqldb-node3:7001']

      remote_write:
        - url: http://cortex:9009/api/prom/push

integrations:
  kafka_exporter:
    enabled: true
    kafka_uris: ['kafka-node1:9091', 'kafka-node2:9091', 'kafka-node3:9091']

Dashboards

The Kafka integration installs the following dashboards in your Grafana Cloud instance to help monitor your metrics.

Kafka Connect Overview
Kafka Lag Overview
Kafka Overview
Kafka Topics
Schema Registry Overview
Zookeeper Overview
ksqldb Overview

Kafka Overview dashboard

Kafka Connect Overview dashboard

Kafka KSQL Overview dashboard

Schema Registry Overview dashboard

Alerts

The Kafka integration includes the following useful alerts:

Group: Kafka_Alerts

Alert	Description
KafkaOfflinePartitonCount	Critical: After successful leader election, if the leader for partition dies, then the partition moves to the OfflinePartition state. Offline partitions are not available for reading and writing. Restart the brokers, if needed, and check the logs for errors.
KafkaUnderReplicatedPartitionCount	Critical: Under-replicated partitions means that one or more replicas are not available. This is usually because a broker is down. Restart the broker, and check for errors in the logs.
KafkaActiveController	Critical: No broker in the cluster is reporting as the active controller in the last 1 minute interval. During steady state there should be only one active controller per cluster.
KafkaUncleanLeaderElection	Critical: There is unclean partition leader elections in the cluster reported in the last 1 minute interval. When unclean leader election is held among out-of-sync replicas, there is a possibility of data loss if any messages were not synced prior to the loss of the former leader. So if the number of unclean elections is greater than 0, investigate broker logs to determine why leaders were re-elected, and look for WARN or ERROR messages. Consider setting the broker configuration parameter unclean.leader.election.enable to false so that a replica outside of the set of in-sync replicas is never elected leader.
KafkaISRExpandRate	Warning: If a broker goes down, ISR for some of the partitions shrink. When that broker is up again, ISRs are expanded once the replicas are fully caught up. Other than that, the expected value for ISR expansion rate is 0. If ISR is expanding and shrinking frequently, adjust Allowed replica lag.
KafkaISRShrinkRate	Warning: If a broker goes down, ISR for some of the partitions shrink. When that broker is up again, ISRs are expanded once the replicas are fully caught up. Other than that, the expected value for ISR shrink rate is 0. If ISR is expanding and shrinking frequently, adjust Allowed replica lag.
KafkaBrokerCount	Critical: Broker count is 0.
KafkaZookeeperSyncConnect	Warning: Zookeeper Sync Disconnected.

Metrics

The following metrics are automatically written to your Grafana Cloud instance by connecting your Kafka instance through this integration:

jvm_gc_collection_seconds_sum
jvm_memory_bytes_max
jvm_memory_bytes_used
kafka_cluster_partition_underminisr
kafka_cluster_partition_underreplicated
kafka_connect_connect_metrics_connection_count
kafka_connect_connect_metrics_failed_authentication_total
kafka_connect_connect_metrics_incoming_byte_rate
kafka_connect_connect_metrics_io_ratio
kafka_connect_connect_metrics_network_io_rate
kafka_connect_connect_metrics_outgoing_byte_rate
kafka_connect_connect_metrics_request_rate
kafka_connect_connect_metrics_response_rate
kafka_connect_connect_metrics_successful_authentication_rate
kafka_connect_connect_worker_metrics_connector_destroyed_task_count
kafka_connect_connect_worker_metrics_connector_failed_task_count
kafka_connect_connect_worker_metrics_connector_paused_task_count
kafka_connect_connect_worker_metrics_connector_running_task_count
kafka_connect_connect_worker_metrics_connector_total_task_count
kafka_connect_connect_worker_metrics_connector_unassigned_task_count
kafka_connect_connect_worker_rebalance_metrics_rebalance_avg_time_ms
kafka_connect_connect_worker_rebalance_metrics_time_since_last_rebalance_ms
kafka_connect_connector_metrics
kafka_connect_connector_task_metrics_batch_size_avg
kafka_connect_connector_task_metrics_batch_size_max
kafka_connect_connector_task_metrics_offset_commit_avg_time_ms
kafka_connect_connector_task_metrics_offset_commit_success_percentage
kafka_connect_connector_task_metrics_running_ratio
kafka_connect_sink_task_metrics_partition_count
kafka_connect_sink_task_metrics_put_batch_avg_time_ms
kafka_connect_sink_task_metrics_put_batch_max_time_ms
kafka_connect_source_task_metrics_poll_batch_avg_time_ms
kafka_connect_source_task_metrics_poll_batch_max_time_ms
kafka_connect_source_task_metrics_source_record_active_count_avg
kafka_connect_source_task_metrics_source_record_active_count_max
kafka_connect_source_task_metrics_source_record_poll_rate
kafka_connect_source_task_metrics_source_record_write_rate
kafka_connect_task_error_metrics_deadletterqueue_produce_requests
kafka_connect_task_error_metrics_total_errors_logged
kafka_connect_task_error_metrics_total_record_errors
kafka_connect_task_error_metrics_total_record_failures
kafka_connect_task_error_metrics_total_records_skipped
kafka_connect_task_error_metrics_total_retries
kafka_consumer_lag_millis
kafka_consumergroup_current_offset
kafka_consumergroup_uncommitted_offsets
kafka_controller_ControllerStats_UncleanLeaderElectionsPerSec
kafka_controller_KafkaController_ActiveControllerCount
kafka_controller_KafkaController_OfflinePartitionsCount
kafka_controller_controllerstats_uncleanleaderelectionspersec
kafka_controller_kafkacontroller_activecontrollercount
kafka_controller_kafkacontroller_offlinepartitionscount
kafka_controller_kafkacontroller_preferredreplicaimbalancecount
kafka_coordinator_group_groupmetadatamanager_numgroups
kafka_coordinator_group_groupmetadatamanager_numgroupscompletingrebalance
kafka_coordinator_group_groupmetadatamanager_numgroupsdead
kafka_coordinator_group_groupmetadatamanager_numgroupsempty
kafka_coordinator_group_groupmetadatamanager_numgroupspreparingrebalance
kafka_coordinator_group_groupmetadatamanager_numgroupsstable
kafka_log_log_logendoffset
kafka_log_log_logstartoffset
kafka_log_log_size
kafka_network_acceptor_acceptorblockedpercent
kafka_network_requestchannel_requestqueuesize
kafka_network_requestchannel_responsequeuesize
kafka_network_requestmetrics_localtimems
kafka_network_requestmetrics_remotetimems
kafka_network_requestmetrics_requestqueuetimems
kafka_network_requestmetrics_requestspersec
kafka_network_requestmetrics_responsequeuetimems
kafka_network_requestmetrics_responsesendtimems
kafka_network_socketserver_networkprocessoravgidlepercent
kafka_schema_registry_jersey_metrics_request_latency_99
kafka_schema_registry_jersey_metrics_request_rate
kafka_schema_registry_jetty_metrics_connections_active
kafka_schema_registry_registered_count
kafka_schema_registry_schemas_created
kafka_server_KafkaServer_BrokerState
kafka_server_ReplicaManager_IsrExpandsPerSec
kafka_server_ReplicaManager_IsrShrinksPerSec
kafka_server_ReplicaManager_UnderReplicatedPartitions
kafka_server_SessionExpireListener_ZooKeeperSyncConnectsPerSec
kafka_server_brokertopicmetrics_bytesinpersec
kafka_server_brokertopicmetrics_bytesoutpersec
kafka_server_brokertopicmetrics_fetchmessageconversionspersec
kafka_server_brokertopicmetrics_messagesinpersec
kafka_server_brokertopicmetrics_producemessageconversionspersec
kafka_server_brokertopicmetrics_totalfetchrequestspersec
kafka_server_brokertopicmetrics_totalproducerequestspersec
kafka_server_kafkarequesthandlerpool_requesthandleravgidlepercent_total
kafka_server_replicamanager_isrexpandspersec
kafka_server_replicamanager_isrshrinkspersec
kafka_server_replicamanager_leadercount
kafka_server_replicamanager_partitioncount
kafka_server_replicamanager_underreplicatedpartitions
kafka_server_sessionexpirelistener_zookeeperauthfailurespersec
kafka_server_sessionexpirelistener_zookeeperdisconnectspersec
kafka_server_sessionexpirelistener_zookeeperexpirespersec
kafka_server_sessionexpirelistener_zookeepersyncconnectspersec
kafka_server_socketservermetrics_connection_close_rate
kafka_server_socketservermetrics_connection_count
kafka_server_socketservermetrics_connection_creation_rate
kafka_server_socketservermetrics_connections
kafka_server_zookeeperclientmetrics_zookeeperrequestlatencyms
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_delete_latency_avg
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_delete_latency_max
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_delete_rate
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_fetch_latency_avg
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_fetch_rate
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_put_if_absent_latency_avg
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_put_if_absent_latency_max
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_put_if_absent_rate_rate
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_put_latency_avg
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_put_latency_max
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_put_rate
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_restore_latency_avg
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_restore_latency_max
kafka_streams_stream_state_metrics_restore_rate
kafka_streams_stream_thread_metrics_commit_latency_avg
kafka_streams_stream_thread_metrics_commit_latency_max
kafka_streams_stream_thread_metrics_poll_latency_avg
kafka_streams_stream_thread_metrics_poll_latency_max
kafka_streams_stream_thread_metrics_process_latency_avg
kafka_streams_stream_thread_metrics_process_latency_max
kafka_streams_stream_thread_metrics_punctuate_latency_avg
kafka_streams_stream_thread_metrics_punctuate_latency_max
kafka_topic_partition_current_offset
kafka_topic_partitions
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_error_queries
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_liveness_indicator
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_messages_consumed_per_sec
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_messages_produced_per_sec
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_not_running_queries
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_num_active_queries
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_num_idle_queries
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_num_persistent_queries
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_pending_shutdown_queries
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_rebalancing_queries
ksql_ksql_engine_query_stats_running_queries
ksql_ksql_metrics_ksql_queries_query_status
process_cpu_seconds_total
zookeeper_avgrequestlatency
zookeeper_inmemorydatatree_nodecount
zookeeper_inmemorydatatree_watchcount
zookeeper_maxrequestlatency
zookeeper_minrequestlatency
zookeeper_numaliveconnections
zookeeper_outstandingrequests
zookeeper_status_quorumsize
zookeeper_ticktime

Changelog

# 0.0.4 - December 2022

- Update mixin to latest version:
  - Fix missing job and instance label on all the dashboards
  - Fix alert names to have a Kafka prefix

# 0.0.3 - February 2022

- Added the following alerts:
  - OfflinePartitonCount
  - UnderReplicatedPartitionCount
  - ActiveController
  - UncleanLeaderElection
  - ISRExpandRate
  - ISRShrinkRate
  - BrokerCount
  - ZookeeperSyncConnect

# 0.0.2 - October 2021

- Update mixin to latest version:
  - Update all rate queries to use `$__rate_interval` so they respect the default resolution

# 0.0.1 - June 2021

- Initial release

Cost

By connecting your Kafka instance to Grafana Cloud you might incur charges. To view information on the number of active series that your Grafana Cloud account uses for metrics included in each Cloud tier, see Active series and dpm usage and Cloud tier pricing.