IBM DB2 integration for Grafana Cloud

Before you begin

In order for the integration to properly work, you must set up the IBM DB2 Prometheus Exporter to export metrics from IBM DB2.

Activating IBM DB2 database

For DB2 to accurately report metric values, the database being monitored must be “explicitly activated”. Doing so will make it so that certain metric values are correctly incremented and not periodically reset. However, it does result in a performance impact on the environment DB2 is running in. The size of this impact will depend on the system, but will result in the most accurate data reported by DB2 and, subsequently, this exporter. To explicitly activate a database, connect to DB2 and run the command activate database <dbname> and disconnect. Now DB2 will correctly increment and store metrics.

Copy

db2
activate database sample
quit

To deactivate a database, connect to db2 and run the command deactivate database <dbname> and disconnect. Doing so will reset the metrics reported by DB2. The database must be reactivated in order for metrics to be properly incremented, stored, and reported by DB2. Note: Whether or not the database is activated only affects DB2’s ability to report metrics, it does not affect DB2’s behavior as a database.

Set up IBM DB2 Exporter

The exporter can be run by following this guide.

Note: The exporter uses a driver that is not compatible with ARM64 architectures. Therefore the exporter cannot be used on an ARM64 machine.

The exporter serves metrics for only one database, so to monitor multiple databases multiple exporters will need to be set up. By default, the exporter serves metrics at port 9953 but can be configured to use a different port. Use the flag --web.listen-address=;<port> when running the exporter to serve metrics at a different port. This can be done so that Grafana Alloy can report metrics for multiple databases by scraping from multiple exporters.

Once deployed, Grafana Alloy will be able to scrape the IBM DB2 Exporter.

Install IBM DB2 integration for Grafana Cloud

1. In your Grafana Cloud stack, click Connections in the left-hand menu.
2. Find IBM DB2 and click its tile to open the integration.
3. Review the prerequisites in the Configuration Details tab and set up Grafana Agent to send IBM DB2 metrics and logs to your Grafana Cloud instance.
4. Click Install to add this integration’s pre-built dashboard and alerts to your Grafana Cloud instance, and you can start monitoring your IBM DB2 setup.

Configuration snippets for Grafana Alloy

Simple mode

These snippets are configured to scrape a single IBM DB2 instance running locally with default ports.

First, manually copy and append the following snippets into your alloy configuration file.

Metrics snippets

river Copy

prometheus.scrape "metrics_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2" {
	targets = [{
		__address__ = "localhost:9953",
		instance    = constants.hostname,
	}]
	forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
	job_name   = "integrations/ibm-db2"
}

Logs snippets

linux

river Copy

local.file_match "logs_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2" {
	path_targets = [{
		__address__ = "localhost",
		__path__    = "/home/*/sqllib/db2dump/{DIAG*,db2diag.log}/db2diag.log",
		instance    = constants.hostname,
		job         = "integrations/ibm-db2",
	}]
}

loki.process "logs_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2" {
	forward_to = [loki.write.grafana_cloud_loki.receiver]

	stage.multiline {
		firstline     = "\\d+-\\d+-\\d+-\\d+.\\d+.\\d+.\\d+\\+\\d+\\s[A-Z0-9]+\\s+LEVEL:\\s[a-zA-Z]+"
		max_lines     = 0
		max_wait_time = "3s"
	}
}

loki.source.file "logs_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2" {
	targets    = local.file_match.logs_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2.targets
	forward_to = [loki.process.logs_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2.receiver]
}

Advanced mode

The following snippets provide examples to guide you through the configuration process.

To instruct Grafana Alloy to scrape your IBM DB2 instances, manually copy and append the snippets to your alloy configuration file, then follow subsequent instructions.

Advanced metrics snippets

river Copy

prometheus.scrape "metrics_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2" {
	targets = [{
		__address__ = "localhost:9953",
		instance    = constants.hostname,
	}]
	forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
	job_name   = "integrations/ibm-db2"
}

To monitor your IBM DB2 instance, you must use a discovery.relabel component to discover your IBM DB2 Prometheus endpoint and apply appropriate labels, followed by a prometheus.scrape component to scrape it.

Configure the following properties within each discovery.relabel component:

• __address__: The address to your IBM DB2 Prometheus metrics endpoint.
• instance label: constants.hostname sets the instance label to your Grafana Alloy server hostname. If that is not suitable, change it to a value uniquely identifies this IBM DB2 instance. Make sure this label value is the same for all telemetry data collected for this instance.

If you have multiple IBM DB2 servers to scrape, configure one discovery.relabel for each and scrape them by including each under targets within the prometheus.scrape component.

Advanced logs snippets

linux

river Copy

local.file_match "logs_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2" {
	path_targets = [{
		__address__ = "localhost",
		__path__    = "/home/*/sqllib/db2dump/{DIAG*,db2diag.log}/db2diag.log",
		instance    = constants.hostname,
		job         = "integrations/ibm-db2",
	}]
}

loki.process "logs_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2" {
	forward_to = [loki.write.grafana_cloud_loki.receiver]

	stage.multiline {
		firstline     = "\\d+-\\d+-\\d+-\\d+.\\d+.\\d+.\\d+\\+\\d+\\s[A-Z0-9]+\\s+LEVEL:\\s[a-zA-Z]+"
		max_lines     = 0
		max_wait_time = "3s"
	}
}

loki.source.file "logs_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2" {
	targets    = local.file_match.logs_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2.targets
	forward_to = [loki.process.logs_integrations_integrations_ibm_db2.receiver]
}

To monitor your IBM DB2 instance logs, you will use a combination of the following components:

• local.file_match defines where to find the log file to be scraped. Change the following properties according to your environment:
  • __address__: The IBM DB2 instance address
  • __path__: The path to the log file.
  • instance label: constants.hostname sets the instance label to your Grafana Alloy server hostname. If that is not suitable, change it to a value uniquely identifies this IBM DB2 instance. Make sure this label value is the same for all telemetry data collected for this instance.

Logs are found where the DB2 instance is located, inside the sqllib directory. For a single member environment, logs will be available at /path/to/inst/sqllib/db2dump/db2diag.log. For multi-member environments logs are located at /path/to/inst/sqllib/db2dump/DIAG*/db2diag.log. You can edit the __path__ label for logs to match your environment.

• loki.process defines how to process logs before sending it to Loki.
• loki.source.file sends logs to Loki.

Before you begin

In order for the integration to properly work, you must set up the IBM DB2 Prometheus Exporter to export metrics from IBM DB2.

Activating IBM DB2 database

For DB2 to accurately report metric values, the database being monitored must be “explicitly activated”. Doing so will make it so that certain metric values are correctly incremented and not periodically reset. However, it does result in a performance impact on the environment DB2 is running in. The size of this impact will depend on the system, but will result in the most accurate data reported by DB2 and, subsequently, this exporter. To explicitly activate a database, connect to DB2 and run the command activate database <dbname> and disconnect. Now DB2 will correctly increment and store metrics.

Copy

db2
activate database sample
quit

To deactivate a database, connect to db2 and run the command deactivate database <dbname> and disconnect. Doing so will reset the metrics reported by DB2. The database must be reactivated in order for metrics to be properly incremented, stored, and reported by DB2. Note: Whether or not the database is activated only affects DB2’s ability to report metrics, it does not affect DB2’s behavior as a database.

Set up IBM DB2 Exporter

The exporter can be run by following this guide.

Note: The exporter uses a driver that is not compatible with ARM64 architectures. Therefore the exporter cannot be used on an ARM64 machine.

The exporter serves metrics for only one database, so to monitor multiple databases multiple exporters will need to be set up. By default, the exporter serves metrics at port 9953 but can be configured to use a different port. Use the flag --web.listen-address=;<port> when running the exporter to serve metrics at a different port. This can be done so that Grafana Alloy can report metrics for multiple databases by scraping from multiple exporters.

Once deployed, Grafana Alloy will be able to scrape the IBM DB2 Exporter.

Install IBM DB2 integration for Grafana Cloud

1. In your Grafana Cloud stack, click Connections in the left-hand menu.
2. Find IBM DB2 and click its tile to open the integration.
3. Review the prerequisites in the Configuration Details tab and set up Grafana Agent to send IBM DB2 metrics and logs to your Grafana Cloud instance.
4. Click Install to add this integration’s pre-built dashboard and alerts to your Grafana Cloud instance, and you can start monitoring your IBM DB2 setup.

Post-install configuration for the IBM DB2 integration

After enabling the metrics generation, instruct the Grafana Agent to scrape your IBM DB2 database.

Logs are found where the DB2 instance is located, inside the sqllib directory. For a single member environment, logs will be available at /path/to/inst/sqllib/db2dump/db2diag.log. For multi-member environments logs are located at /path/to/inst/sqllib/db2dump/DIAG*/db2diag.log. You can edit the __path__ label for logs to match your environment.

If multiple databases are being monitored by the Grafana Agent, and subsequently, multiple exporters are running, then be sure to add additional targets to the metrics scrape config.

If you want to show logs and metrics signals correlated in your dashboards as a single pane of glass, ensure the following:

• instance label values for metrics and logs should be set to the hostname:port passed to the exporter which is used to connect to IBM DB2 and monitor the specified database.

Make sure to change targets in the snippet according to your environment.

Configuration snippets for Grafana Agent

Below metrics.configs.scrape_configs, insert the following lines and change the URLs according to your environment:

yaml Copy

    - job_name: integrations/ibm-db2
      metrics_path: /metrics
      static_configs: 
        - targets:
          - localhost:9953
          labels:
            instance: '<your-instance-name>'

Below logs.configs.scrape_configs, insert the following lines according to your environment.

yaml Copy

    - job_name: integrations/ibm-db2
      static_configs:
        - targets: [localhost] 
          labels:
            instance: '<your-instance-name>'
            __path__: /home/*/sqllib/db2dump/{DIAG*,db2diag.log}/db2diag.log
            job: integrations/ibm-db2
      pipeline_stages:
        - multiline:
          firstline: '\d+-\d+-\d+-\d+.\d+.\d+.\d+\+\d+\s[A-Z0-9]+\s+LEVEL:\s[a-zA-Z]+'

Full example configuration for Grafana Agent

Refer to the following Grafana Agent configuration for a complete example that contains all the snippets used for the IBM DB2 integration. This example also includes metrics that are sent to monitor your Grafana Agent instance.

yaml Copy

integrations:
  prometheus_remote_write:
  - basic_auth:
      password: <your_prom_pass>
      username: <your_prom_user>
    url: <your_prom_url>
  agent:
    enabled: true
    relabel_configs:
    - action: replace
      source_labels:
      - agent_hostname
      target_label: instance
    - action: replace
      target_label: job
      replacement: "integrations/agent-check"
    metric_relabel_configs:
    - action: keep
      regex: (prometheus_target_sync_length_seconds_sum|prometheus_target_scrapes_.*|prometheus_target_interval.*|prometheus_sd_discovered_targets|agent_build.*|agent_wal_samples_appended_total|process_start_time_seconds)
      source_labels:
      - __name__
  # Add here any snippet that belongs to the `integrations` section.
  # For a correct indentation, paste snippets copied from Grafana Cloud at the beginning of the line.
logs:
  configs:
  - clients:
    - basic_auth:
        password: <your_loki_pass>
        username: <your_loki_user>
      url: <your_loki_url>
    name: integrations
    positions:
      filename: /tmp/positions.yaml
    scrape_configs:
      # Add here any snippet that belongs to the `logs.configs.scrape_configs` section.
      # For a correct indentation, paste snippets copied from Grafana Cloud at the beginning of the line.
    - job_name: integrations/ibm-db2
      static_configs:
        - targets: [localhost] 
          labels:
            instance: '<your-instance-name>'
            __path__: /home/*/sqllib/db2dump/{DIAG*,db2diag.log}/db2diag.log
            job: integrations/ibm-db2
      pipeline_stages:
        - multiline:
          firstline: '\d+-\d+-\d+-\d+.\d+.\d+.\d+\+\d+\s[A-Z0-9]+\s+LEVEL:\s[a-zA-Z]+'
metrics:
  configs:
  - name: integrations
    remote_write:
    - basic_auth:
        password: <your_prom_pass>
        username: <your_prom_user>
      url: <your_prom_url>
    scrape_configs:
      # Add here any snippet that belongs to the `metrics.configs.scrape_configs` section.
      # For a correct indentation, paste snippets copied from Grafana Cloud at the beginning of the line.
    - job_name: integrations/ibm-db2
      metrics_path: /metrics
      static_configs: 
        - targets:
          - localhost:9953
          labels:
            instance: '<your-instance-name>'
  global:
    scrape_interval: 60s
  wal_directory: /tmp/grafana-agent-wal