Prometheus Graphite Exporter

How to Integrate Prometheus Graphite Exporter with Apica Ascent:

1. Introduction

This guide explains how to send metrics exported in the Graphite plaintext protocol to Apica Ascent, and how to monitor and visualize them.

You’ll learn:

• How to install Graphite Exporter

• How to configure Prometheus to scrape Graphite Exporter metrics

• How to connect Prometheus with Apica Ascent

• How to visualize metrics in dashboards

2. Install and Run Prometheus Graphite Exporter

If you are new to Prometheus and Graphite Exporter, here is a simple step-by-step guide:

• Binary installation:

  • Follow the Installation Guide.

• Automated installs:

  • Use Ansible playbooks.

• Containerized deployment:

  • Follow the Docker instructions.

By default, Graphite Exporter runs on port 9108 and exposes metrics at:

http://localhost:9108/metrics

3. Configure Prometheus to Scrape Graphite Exporter

Update your prometheus.yml with a scrape job for Graphite Exporter:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: "graphite_exporter"
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["localhost:9108"]

Restart Prometheus and check the /targets page to verify that metrics are being scraped.

4. Connect Prometheus to Apica Ascent

To send metrics to Apica Ascent, add the following remote_write configuration to your prometheus.yml:

remote_write:
  - url: "https://<ascentEvironment>.apica.io/v1/receive/prometheus"
    tls_config:
      insecure_skip_verify: true
    authorization:
      type: "Bearer"
      credentials: "<YOUR_INGEST_TOKEN>"

• More on remote_write

• Generate an ingest token

Optional: Relabel metrics for easier identification:

write_relabel_configs:
  - action: replace
    source_labels: [__name__]
    regex: "(.*)"
    target_label: __name__
    replacement: "ascent_$1"

This will rename metrics to ascent_<metric-name> before sending them.

5. Verify Metrics in Apica Ascent

1. Log in to Apica Ascent

2. Navigate to Queries → New Query

3. Run a query such as:

graphite_last_processed_timestamp_seconds
graphite_samples_received_total
graphite_samples_dropped_total

4. Execute and verify that results are populated.

6. Example Dashboards

You can build dashboards for common system metrics:

• System Overview: CPU usage, Memory usage, TCP connections, Samples received/dropped

• Alerts:

  • TCP connections > X

  • Samples > or < X

• Dashboard templates: GitHub repository

7. Troubleshooting

• Graphite Exporter not reachable → Check firewall on port 9108.

• Prometheus not scraping → Verify prometheus.yml.

• Metrics not in Apica → Validate remote_write URL and ingest token.