Help Docs

Monitor Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Use a single tool to auto-discover and monitor all your Google cloud services, identify performance bottlenecks, and address issues instantly with Site24x7's GCP monitoring. View the complete list of GCP services supported for monitoring here.

For large enterprises and organizations, overseeing Google Cloud Platform (GCP) at scale can be complex. In those situations, utilize Google Cloud Organization Monitoring.

Add a Monitor

  1. Log in to Site24x7 and go to Cloud > GCP > Add GCP Monitor.
  2. Provide a unique Display Name for identification purposes and the Project ID under which the resources to be monitored are present.
  3. Click Upload a Service Account JSON File to upload the Key to your Google Cloud service account and authenticate Site24x7 for performing resource discovery.
    Follow the instructions in this help document to create a service account. To create a service account key, log in to your Google Cloud console and go to IAM & Admin > Service Accounts > look for the service account for which you wish to create a key. Under the Keys tab, click the Add key drop-down menu and select Create New Key. Select JSON as the key type and then click Create. Learn what permissions you need to enable GCP monitoring.
  4. In the Filter Resources section:
    1. Select the Services/Resource Types that you wish to monitor. By default, all the service types supported for monitoring are selected.
    2. Use the Exclude/Include Resources using Labels/Tags toggle button to either include or exclude your Google Cloud resources for monitoring based on the tags or labels you have provided to them in the Google Cloud console.
    3. The Auto-discover New Resources toggle button is set to Enable by default to let Site24x7 add new Google Cloud resources for monitoring.
    4. Set the time interval for the auto-discovery cycle in the Discovery Interval field.
    5. Use the Auto create monitor groups field to create monitor groups for each Google Cloud monitor automatically.
  5. Under Resource Termination Settings:
    1. Set Mute Resource Termination Alerts to No to get alerts whenever a resource has been terminated in the Google Cloud console.
    2. Set Monitor Terminated Resources to No to exclude terminated Google Cloud resources from monitoring.
    3. Set Automatically Remove Terminated Resources to No to move the monitors to a suspended state.
  6. Under Configuration Profiles:
    1. Select the Monitor Groups you would like to associate the Google Cloud monitor with in the Associate with Monitor Group(s) drop-down menu.
    2. Select the monitors on which the Google Cloud monitor you are creating now is dependent on from the Dependent on Monitor drop-down menu. Enabling this feature avoids alerts for the dependent monitors when the selected monitors are down.
    3. Assign new or existing tags from the Tags drop-down menu. The tags assigned will be auto-applied to all the resources discovered further.
    4. Select IT Automation actions to run by associating IT Automation Templates from the Select Automation drop-down, and also declare when to run them.
    5. Use the Execute IT Automation during Scheduled Maintenance check box to run the selected IT Automation actions even on scheduled maintenance time frames.
  7. Under the Alert Settings section:
    1. Select the Alert Groups you would like to get notifications for.
    2. Select the On-Call Schedule to ensure appropriate personnel get alerted according to the shift schedule.
    3. Select existing or create new Notification Profiles, and associate them using the Notification Profile drop-down.
  8. Click Start GCP Monitoring.

Please wait a few minutes for all of your GCP resources to be discovered and added in Site24x7's web client. Once discovery is complete, you'll be directed to the Service View dashboard.

Resources still not added? Check out possible reasons why GCP resources are not added for monitoring.

Dashboards

There are three exclusive dashboards for GCP monitoring in Site24x7. You can also create custom dashboards.

Service View:

Once you've successfully added a GCP monitor, you'll be directed to the Service View dashboard. In this view, all your Google Cloud resources under the Google Cloud project will be grouped as Google Cloud resource types along with the count of monitored resources. Clicking each resource type tile will take you to the respective resource type monitor list.

Infrastructure Dashboard:

This represents a NOC view of all the GCP resources discovered from your account. Hover over the hamburger icon beside the page title to edit, suspend, or delete the GCP monitor.

Highlights:

  • See the number of GCP resources discovered, separated into different service types, in a single dashboard.
  • View resources according to their status:
    • UP
    • Down
    • Discovery in progress
    • Critical
    • Maintenance
    • Suspended
    • Trouble
  • Filter resources based on service type, location, and status.
  • Click on a NOC box to go to that particular monitor's Summary page.

Infrastructure Dashboard

Inventory Dashboard:

Go to GCP > Inventory Dashboard. The Inventory dashboard gives you a view of the GCP resources discovered from your account. Hover over the hamburger icon beside the page title to edit, suspend, or delete the GCP monitor.

Highlights:

  • View all discovered GCP resources broken down by service type in a single pie chart. Hover over a section of the chart to see the resources under a particular service type.
  • View the daily usage of critical GCP resources for a set of service types.
  • Under Inventory Details of GCP Resources, get a tabular view of all your GCP resources, along with their respective number of locations, resources, and zones. Click a service to view a detailed inventory report based on name, zone, type, license, users etc.

Inventory Dashboard

Custom Dashboard:

You can build your own dashboard that displays various key metrics across all your GCP resources. To start, navigate to Home > Dashboards > Custom Dashboards > + Create new.

  1. Provide a suitable name and description for your dashboard.
  2. Under Widget Category, choose either from Performance Widgets, Top N Widgets, or Current Status Widgets.
  3. Select All Monitors under Filter Monitors by Monitor Group. Under Monitor Type, select the Google Cloud resource type.
  4. Choose the desired service type Template.
  5. Select your GCP resources under Choose Monitors to create your dashboard.
  6. Select the required Time Period and drag and drop the widgets onto the working space.
  7. When you're done, click Done Customizing at the top of the page.

Management Actions

Go to GCP > Management Actions. Under these management actions, you can manage all your GCP resources in one console. Start or stop VMs; delete your resources; and filter resources based on service types, location, and monitor status for better visibility. Hover over the hamburger icon beside the page title to edit, suspend, or delete the GCP monitor.

From the Add Deleted Resources for Monitoring section, you can view the list of deleted resources and add them for monitoring.

Tip: Only a Site24x7 Admin or Super Admin can perform these actions.

Management Actions

Operations

All actions that you perform in the GCP console will be listed here (activity logs). Track events that affect your project, monitor operation logs, system logs etc.

Security Tip: Site24x7 does not store this data; the data is fetched using APIs and presented in this dashboard.

For example, a user stops a resource in the GCP console. The action will be automatically listed in the Site24x7 web client in the Operations tab. This will help other users in the account aware of such an action and, if its a wrong step, the resource can be immediately started to avoid any performance degradation.

GCP Operations

Alerting

You can create new or associate existing threshold profiles for every GCP resource that's being monitored. Follow the steps below to create a threshold profile:

  1. Go to GCP > click the resource you'd like to associate with a threshold profile.
  2. Hover over the hamburger icon next to the display name. Click Edit.
  3. Under Advanced Configuration > Threshold and Availability, click the plus icon (+) to create a new profile. Click the pencil icon to edit an existing profile. Save your changes.

Alerting

Reports

Log in to Site24x7 and go to Reports and from the drop-down menu in the left navigation pane, select the Google Cloud resource type to view the list of reports available for the selected resource type. You can also create custom reports.

Guidance Reports

Utilize Google Cloud Guidance Report by Site24x7 to optimize, secure, and manage your cloud infrastructure efficiently and proactively. It saves you time, money, and potential headaches by providing clear recommendations tailored to your specific cloud environment.

GCP VM-Server Integration

Install the Server Monitoring agent to get in-depth system-level metrics for your GCP Virtual Machines (VMs).

  1. Go to Cloud > GCP > click the GCP account > VM Instance.
  2. Click the VM instance in which you wish to install the extension. Go to the Server Monitoring Extension tab.
  3. Click Install Agent. Select the preferred OS platform and install the extension in your VM.

Once the agent is successfully installed, you will be able to see system-level metrics for your GCP VMs.

Security

Site24x7 GCP monitoring is done by fetching the access keys in the Service Account JSON file that is uploaded by the user in the Site24x7 web client. The private keys in the JSON file are stored in an encrypted format. Performance metrics for GCP monitoring are collected using the GCP Monitor REST API. Learn the permissions that you should have to enable GCP monitoring.

Licensing

The parent Google Cloud monitor consumes one basic monitor license. In addition to that, each GCP service or resource uses up one basic monitor. Google Cloud VM Instance (Compute Engine) consumes two basic monitor licenses.

If you monitor your Google Cloud setup containing three Compute Engines, two Firebase Databases, and one Cloud Router, the total license consumption will be 10 basic monitors.

How does data collection (DC) happen?

Site24x7 sends one or more requests to the Cloud API of each resource and derives data for each minute. Data collection happens every five minutes. Site24x7 analyzes the data and presents it in user-desired report or dashboard formats. If the user has set thresholds, Site24x7 checks if the derived data corresponds to the configured threshold limit. If there is any breach, an alert will be triggered.

how data collection happens for Google Cloud monitoring

FAQs

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