StatsD and Graphite-like tools for .Net and Windows

Question

I was recently sent this link to Statsd which would be an interesting tool for us to monitor various aspects of our product, but it would be a hard-sell for us because of the PHP and non-Windows toolset. (This question asks about installing this on Windows, without an answer...)

Can anyone recommend Windows / .Net toolsets that might provide similar low-overhead monitoring of systems? Within reason, paying for a toolset should not be a problem.

I did find this microsoft page that looks quite interesting, but let's be honest, it does not have as many cool graphs that show the kind of thing that would be nice to have as an end-result :)

Your experiences and thoughts on direction would be appreciated: I think our ultimate goal would be 'wall-boards' e.g. large screens cycling through several key graphs or views so the whole team could understand and monitor some key metrics of the products we are supporting. Our client uses SQL Server Reporting Services for this, but their reports seem to be mostly statistical and very little graphical.

score 11 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 09 '12 at 17:28

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I've ported Graphite to Windows. It was pretty easy to do this. I've issued a pull request to the main project. I hope it will get merged. Until then, you find the fork under:

https://github.com/stephanstapel/carbon

Graphite installation requires some additional steps I published here:

http://www.s2-industries.com/wordpress/2012/12/running-graphite-on-windows/

answered Dec 09 '12 at 17:28

Stephan

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Can you update this blog so that it works for the latest versions and so on? Maybe even make a video tutorial? – Mathias Lykkegaard Lorenzen May 04 '16 at 19:30

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 07 '11 at 19:33

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Why not run Graphite in a Linux VM on top of a windows server? You get the full support of the graphite community, while being completely hosted on windows.

answered Oct 07 '11 at 19:33

Nathan Garabedian

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You also get the full support of the linux community – Joe Phillips Aug 23 '13 at 20:11
In my case this is not an option, since the Windows Server is already a virtual machine, and I can't nest virtual machines. – Mathias Lykkegaard Lorenzen May 04 '16 at 19:31

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 08 '11 at 22:23

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If you were wanting to replicate statsd, I would create a Windows service listening via UDP on a specific port. With a fairly open database schema, you could mimic its low-friction fluidity. That would take care of statsd and Carbon, the data collector piece of Graphite. You would then need to write a management tool that analyzes and presents the data in place of Graphite.

I would, for this reason, encourage you to just take the Linux route. Otherwise, you'd be fighting every battle the developers of those tools fought all over again.

answered Jun 08 '11 at 22:23

bbrown

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Thanks for your thoughts. I agree that - if no alternative pre-written software is available - rewriting all functionality seems over-the-top. However, as I have been a driver of the idea that we should pick our core requirements for developers and pick our tools etc from within those skills, it would be a harder sell. (and of course, I believe there are good reasons to use tools within your core skillsets) – Nij Jun 09 '11 at 17:30
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So given that, my next best recommendation for off-the-shelf is to create custom performance counters for your application and then use PowerShell (or even some C#-based piece) to aggregate data from them across your server farm. You can then use that on your dashboard idea. – bbrown Jun 09 '11 at 23:31

StatsD and Graphite-like tools for .Net and Windows

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