---
title: "Memcached integration | Grafana Cloud documentation"
description: "Learn about Memcached Grafana Cloud integration."
---

# Memcached integration for Grafana Cloud

Memcached is a distributed, in-memory key-value store used to speed up dynamic database-driven websites by caching information in memory.

This integration includes 4 useful alerts and 1 pre-built dashboard to help monitor and visualize Memcached metrics.

## Before you begin

This integration relies on Grafana Alloy installed along Memcached node. See the following sections for details.

## Install Memcached integration for Grafana Cloud

1. In your Grafana Cloud stack, click **Connections** in the left-hand menu.
2. Find **Memcached** and click its tile to open the integration.
3. Review the prerequisites in the **Configuration Details** tab and set up Grafana Alloy to send Memcached metrics 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 Memcached setup.

## Configuration snippets for Grafana Alloy

### Simple mode

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

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

### Integrations snippets

Alloy ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```alloy
prometheus.exporter.memcached "integrations_memcached_exporter" { }

discovery.relabel "integrations_memcached_exporter" {
	targets = prometheus.exporter.memcached.integrations_memcached_exporter.targets

	rule {
		target_label = "instance"
		replacement  = constants.hostname
	}

	rule {
		target_label = "job"
		replacement  = "integrations/memcached_exporter"
	}
}

prometheus.scrape "integrations_memcached_exporter" {
	targets    = discovery.relabel.integrations_memcached_exporter.output
	forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
	job_name   = "integrations/memcached_exporter"
}
```

### Advanced mode

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

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

### Advanced integrations snippets

Alloy ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```alloy
prometheus.exporter.memcached "integrations_memcached_exporter" { }

discovery.relabel "integrations_memcached_exporter" {
	targets = prometheus.exporter.memcached.integrations_memcached_exporter.targets

	rule {
		target_label = "instance"
		replacement  = constants.hostname
	}

	rule {
		target_label = "job"
		replacement  = "integrations/memcached_exporter"
	}
}

prometheus.scrape "integrations_memcached_exporter" {
	targets    = discovery.relabel.integrations_memcached_exporter.output
	forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
	job_name   = "integrations/memcached_exporter"
}
```

This integrations uses the [prometheus.exporter.memcached](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/prometheus.exporter.memcached/) component to generate metrics from a Memcached instance.

For the full array of configuration options, refer to the [prometheus.exporter.memcached](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/prometheus.exporter.memcached/) component reference documentation.

This exporter must be linked with a [discovery.relabel](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/discovery.relabel/) component to apply the necessary relabelings.

For each Memcached instance to be monitored you must create a pair of these components.

Configure the following properties within each `discovery.relabel` component:

- `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 Memcached instance.

You can then scrape them by including each `discovery.relabel` under `targets` within the [prometheus.scrape](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/prometheus.scrape/) component.

## Dashboards

The Memcached integration installs the following dashboards in your Grafana Cloud instance to help monitor your system.

- Memcached Overview

**Memcached overview**

## Alerts

The Memcached integration includes the following useful alerts:

Expand table

| Alert                               | Description                                             |
|-------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------|
| MemcachedDown                       | Critical: Memcached instance is down.                   |
| MemcachedConnectionLimitApproaching | Warning: Memcached max connection limit is approaching. |
| MemcachedConnectionLimitApproaching | Critical: Memcached connections at critical level.      |
| MemcachedOutOfMemoryErrors          | Warning: Memcached has OutOfMemory errors.              |

## Metrics

The most important metrics provided by the Memcached integration, which are used on the pre-built dashboard and Prometheus alerts, are as follows:

- memcached\_commands\_total
- memcached\_connections\_total
- memcached\_current\_bytes
- memcached\_current\_connections
- memcached\_current\_items
- memcached\_items\_evicted\_total
- memcached\_items\_total
- memcached\_max\_connections
- memcached\_process\_system\_cpu\_seconds\_total
- memcached\_process\_user\_cpu\_seconds\_total
- memcached\_read\_bytes\_total
- memcached\_slab\_items\_outofmemory\_total
- memcached\_up
- memcached\_uptime\_seconds
- memcached\_version
- memcached\_written\_bytes\_total
- up

## Changelog

md ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```md
# 1.0.0 - July 2024

* Add new alert MemcachedOutOfMemoryErrors
* Show data on the dashboard even if 'cluster' label is missing

# 0.0.5 - September 2023

* New Filter Metrics option for configuring the Grafana Agent, which saves on metrics cost by dropping any metric not used by this integration. Beware that anything custom built using metrics that are not on the snippet will stop working.
* New hostname relabel option, which applies the instance name you write on the text box to the Grafana Agent configuration snippets, making it easier and less error prone to configure this mandatory label.

# 0.0.4 - December 2022

* Update mixin to latest version
* Add screenshot

# 0.0.3 - September 2022

* Update dashboard panels descriptions.

# 0.0.2 - October 2021

* Update mixin to latest version:
  - Update queries to use $__rate_interval

# 0.0.1 - November 2020

* Initial release
```

## Cost

By connecting your Memcached 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](/docs/grafana-cloud/fundamentals/active-series-and-dpm/) and [Cloud tier pricing](/products/cloud/pricing/).