

Insanely simple Cloud-based replacement for statsd + graphite - spolu
http://dattss.com

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nhashem
Very cool service!

Question about the architecture though: what were the reasons for using HTTP
as opposed to UDP (which is typically how these stats collection servers
receive data)? It looks like it's possible to keep system load manageable
since you aggregate the data and space out the HTTP requests, but why do this
instead of just blasting the server with UDP requests?

~~~
spolu
Since we are cloud-based, our servers are remote to our customers'... and
since there's no UDP availability over WAN... Then we had to find a solution
to make it work nicely with HTTP. Does it make sense?

~~~
theatrus2
Since when does UDP not work over a WAN/the internet?

~~~
spolu
Definitely talked too fast! You're right, it definitely works. It's a little
bit shadier on WAN but the main reason for the pre-aggregation is that the
fire+forget behavior is much harder to scale as a service and would wastefully
cost a lot of WAN bandwidth.

Once you have a pre-aggregation and only periodic updates... UDP does not make
sense anymore.

HTTP also good for browser clients which could make sense.

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shepik
Some time ago I wrote a system to collect performace statistics for my
company's internal use (we have 100+ application servers - 4-6core 2xcpu
hardware servers - and 1 server running the statistics). And then we released
it as open-source. Our system shows not only by-service- or by-source-script-
statistics, but also which services are used by a particular script. Drawback:
all information is in russian.

pics: <http://imgur.com/a/idFF6> <https://github.com/mambaru/btp-daemon> \-
and google-translated text <https://gist.github.com/3139890>

Anyone interested? Is it worth to translate it to english?

~~~
spolu
That looks cool!

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anrope
Does the name mean anything? I guess it's an anagram of statsd, but it's tough
on the eyes.

Maybe I'm just not seeing them, but this seems to be missing some of my
favorite graphite features.

\- Combining multiple metrics on a single graph

\- Filters (e.g. lowestCurrent)

\- Graph labels and resizing

Is there a feature like graphite events?

~~~
spolu
It's an acronym for statsd indeed. Tough on the eyes yet easy to remember I
think... Not the best name ever I admit :)

\- Combining graph is one of the biggest missing feature at the moment. We'll
have simultaneous hover very soon to kind to help with that, and we'll work on
combining the graphs right after! (useful for scale of course!)

\- On timers you have the main "filters" built-in: min, max, 0.1 / 0.9
percentile and average. The filters are more an UI challenge than anything
else so we should be able to iterate on that. We wanted to get something out
fast!

\- Graph resizing: same as above. The sky's the limit, we're using d3.js and
it's pretty awesome but we wanted to limit ourselves to the core features for
this first release!

Thanks a bunch for your comments they're really useful!

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moe
Sorry to be that guy, but I don't like linkbait headlines.

If you spend a lot of work then perhaps you _might_ be a "replacement for
graphite" in about 1 year.

Today you're barely a prototype.

~~~
spolu
Agreed! We are trying to communicate on a clear vision, but at the same time
we already are a replacement for statsd + graphite in PaaS (and some IaaS)
environment where there is no UDP availability... So we're not entirely lying
:)

~~~
moe
_trying to communicate on a clear vision_

That's fine. Then how about "wants to become a graphite replacement" or
something in the headline?

 _we already are a replacement for statsd + graphite_

Excuse me? As it stands your frontend apparently can't even plot two lines in
the same chart.

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kt9
Do you support aggregating the data and showing graphs for percentiles? So I'd
like to send you latency stats and then get a graph for latency at the 99th
percentile (or 90th percentile) or whatever.

~~~
spolu
Yep for timers (latency). And we have the data for counters and gauges as
well.

You can even configure client-side which percentile you want, by default 10th
/ 90th

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spolu
Funny how there are more people hitting the login button than people hitting
the big demo button... that's hackernews :)

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lifeisstillgood
ok, I'll bite, signing up now But How do I call you from inside my server? Are
there libraries other than JS?

~~~
spolu
It's a rest based API with a very thin library. We're working on Ruby, Python
and Java as we speak. Which language are you working with, I can keep you
posted as soon as we have the driver ready!

~~~
tehnorm
Do you have any documentation on the rest API at this point? Interested in
rolling our own client library.

~~~
spolu
We'll be working on it tomorrow. Please drop us a line at team@dattss.com so
that we can come back to you when it's ready.

In the meantime please have a look at <http://github.com/teleportd/dattss-sdk>
to see how the nodeJS client works!

Cheers

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heretohelp
Oh come on man, don't tell me it's free. Tell me what numbers I can go up to
before you give me the "phone call" (if that, you could go Google and just
shut stuff off without any notification or warning of any kind) telling me
I've hit some sort of API limit.

The ambiguity is like that Oracle Linux debacle.

I don't even really care if you intend on living in fantasy-land and never
intend on charging for the service (get real), at least give me some idea of
what the limitations are.

I like the live demo though, good idea.

I _want_ to use your service but you need to set up some clearly defined
boundaries. I'm not some sort of enterprise-wonk trying to hold you to an
uptime contract, I'm a startup guy trying to make certain he's not hinging
stuff his company uses on something overly uncertain.

~~~
spolu
Free for now. For now, we're thinking of a $1-2 / stat / month price point
with free first 5 stat/months.

Still a lot of discovery to do before we get a clear pricing. Not a priority
RIGHT NOW, will become one rapidly.

We're free because we're in beta. Won't stay free. It's a promess. We may open
source the whole thing though. Not contradictory at all.

Glad you liked the demo! :)

~~~
Nikkau
The greatness of graphite is the ease of graphing thousands of stats in no
time and without headache.

$1 per stats isn't prohibitive?

~~~
spolu
Yep it might be. We still need to discover that! We might cap it to a certain
price!

