Apache ActiveMQ Artemis can export metrics to a variety of monitoring systems via the Micrometer vendor-neutral application metrics facade.

Important runtime metrics have been instrumented via the Micrometer API, and all a user needs to do is implement org.apache.activemq.artemis.core.server.metrics.ActiveMQMetricsPlugin in order to instantiate and configure a io.micrometer.core.instrument.MeterRegistry implementation. Relevant implementations of MeterRegistry are available from the Micrometer code-base.

This is a simple interface:

public interface ActiveMQMetricsPlugin extends Serializable {
   ActiveMQMetricsPlugin init(Map<String, String> options);
   MeterRegistry getRegistry();
   default void registered(ActiveMQServer server) { }
}

When the broker starts it will call init and pass in the options which can be specified in XML as key/value properties. At this point the plugin should instantiate and configure the io.micrometer.core.instrument.MeterRegistry implementation.

Later during the broker startup process it will call getRegistry in order to get the MeterRegistry implementation and use it for registering meters. Once registered, it will call registered to provide the plugin with a handle to the server. The plugin can then use that handle later to inspect whether the broker is operational and not in a startup or shutdown phase.

The broker ships with two ActiveMQMetricsPlugin implementations:

org.apache.activemq.artemis.core.server.metrics.plugins.LoggingMetricsPlugin

This plugin simply logs metrics. It’s not very useful for production, but can serve as a demonstration of the Micrometer integration. It takes no key/value properties for configuration.

org.apache.activemq.artemis.core.server.metrics.plugins.SimpleMetricsPlugin

This plugin is used for testing. It is in-memory only and provides no external output. It takes no key/value properties for configuration.

1. Exported Metrics

The following metrics are exported, categorized by component. A description for each metric is exported along with the metric itself therefore the description will not be repeated here.

1.1. Broker

• connection.count

• total.connection.count

• address.memory.usage

• address.memory.usage.percentage

• disk.store.usage

1.2. Address

• routed.message.count

• unrouted.message.count

• address.size

• number.of.pages

1.3. Queue

• message.count

• durable.message.count

• persistent.size

• durable.persistent.size

• delivering.message.count

• delivering.durable.message.count

• delivering.persistent.size

• delivering.durable.persistent.size

• scheduled.message.count

• scheduled.durable.message.count

• scheduled.persistent.size

• scheduled.durable.persistent.size

• messages.acknowledged

• messages.added

• messages.killed

• messages.expired

• consumer.count

It may appear that some higher level broker metrics are missing (e.g. total message count). However, these metrics can be deduced by aggregating the lower level metrics (e.g. aggregate the message.count metrics from all queues to get the total).

1.4. Optional metrics

• JVM memory metrics (exported by default)

• JVM GC

• JVM thread

• Netty

• File descriptors

• Processor

• Uptime

2. Configuration

Metrics for all addresses and queues are enabled by default. If you want to disable metrics for a particular address or set of addresses you can do so by setting the enable-metrics address-setting to false.

In broker.xml use the metrics element to configure which JVM metrics are reported and to configure the plugin itself. Here’s a configuration with all optional metrics:

<metrics>
   <jvm-memory>true</jvm-memory> <!-- defaults to true -->
   <jvm-gc>true</jvm-gc> <!-- defaults to false -->
   <jvm-threads>true</jvm-threads> <!-- defaults to false -->
   <netty-pool>true</netty-pool> <!-- defaults to false -->
   <file-descriptors>true</file-descriptors> <!-- defaults to false -->
   <processor>true</processor> <!-- defaults to false -->
   <uptime>true</uptime> <!-- defaults to false -->
   <plugin class-name="org.apache.activemq.artemis.core.server.metrics.plugins.LoggingMetricsPlugin"/>
</metrics>

The plugin can also be configured with key/value properties in order to customize the implementation as necessary, e.g.:

<metrics>
   <plugin class-name="org.example.MyMetricsPlugin">
      <property key="host" value="example.org" />
      <property key="port" value="5162" />
      <property key="foo" value="10" />
   </plugin>
</metrics>