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Metrics Collection

There exists a generic metrics collection framework in Gecko applications.

Architecture

At the lowest level we have the concept of measurements. These are effectively data structures containing strongly-typed fields with values. These are how actual data is modeled.

Managing measurements are entities called providers. The role of a provider is to emit measurement instances.

Managing providers is a collector. Its job is to collect and manage measurements from multiple providers.

Measurements

Measurements represent obtained data. An individual measurement consists of some metadata describing the measurement itself plus a set of fields and their values.

The most important metadata in a measurement are the name and version. Providers are expected to emit a known/named set of measurements. Emitted measurements are identified primarily through their string name. Each measurement name/type has a numeric version associated with it. The version defines the behavior of this measurement.

Versions enforce no particular behavior in code. Instead, they allow an implementation to self-identify with a policy that governs what versions mean.

An individual measurement can be encoded as JSON:

{
    "name": "measurement-a",
    "version": 1,
    "fields": {
        "foo": "value-of-foo",
        "bar": 42
    }
}

It consists of the following fields:

  • name string: The name/type of this measurement.
  • version integer: The version of this measurement.
  • fields object: Mapping of field name to value.