Configuring a Kafka Alarm Rule

Updated on 2025-02-14 GMT+08:00

View PDF

This section describes the alarm rules of some metrics and how to configure them. In actual services, you are advised to configure alarm rules for metrics based on the following alarm policies:

**Table 1** Alarm policies and handling of Kafka instances
Metric ID	Metric	Monitored Object	Alarm Policy	Description	Handling Suggestion
broker_disk_usage	Disk Capacity Usage	Broker	Alarm threshold: original value > 80% Number of consecutive periods: 1 Alarm severity: critical	Disk usage of the Kafka VM	Modify the instance storage space. For details, see Modifying Instance Specifications.
broker_cpu_core_load	Average Load per CPU Core	Broker	Alarm threshold: original value > 2 Number of consecutive periods: 3 Alarm severity: major	Average load of each CPU core of the Kafka VM.	Check whether the metric has been approaching or exceeding the alarm threshold for a long time. If yes, modify the instance bandwidth or the number of brokers. For details, see Modifying Instance Specifications.
broker_memory_usage	Memory Usage	Broker	Alarm threshold: original value > 90% Number of consecutive periods: 3 Alarm severity: critical	Memory usage of the Kafka VM.	Modify the instance bandwidth or the number of brokers. For details, see Modifying Instance Specifications.
current_partitions	Partitions	Instance	Alarm threshold: original value > 90% of the maximum allowed number of partitions. The partition limit varies depending on instance specifications. For details, see Specifications. Number of consecutive periods: 1 Alarm severity: major	Number of used partitions in the instance.	If new topics are required, modify the instance bandwidth or the number of brokers, or split the service to multiple instances. For details about how to modify the instance bandwidth or the number of brokers, see Modifying Instance Specifications.
broker_cpu_usage	CPU Usage	Broker	Alarm threshold: original value > 90% Number of consecutive periods: 3 Alarm severity: major	CPU usage of the Kafka VM.	Check whether the metric has been approaching or exceeding the alarm threshold for a long time. If yes, modify the instance bandwidth or the number of brokers. For details, see Modifying Instance Specifications.
group_msgs	Accumulated Messages	Instance	Alarm threshold: original value > 90% of the upper limit. The upper limit is customized. Number of consecutive periods: 1 Alarm severity: major	Total number of accumulated messages in all consumer groups of the instance	Delete idle consumer groups, if any. You can also accelerate message retrieval, for example, by increasing the number of consumers.
topic_messages_remained	Topic Available Messages	Consumer group	Alarm threshold: original value > 90% of the upper limit. The upper limit is customized. Number of consecutive periods: 1 Alarm severity: major	Number of remaining messages that can be retrieved from the specified topic in the consumer group.	Check whether the consumer code logic is correct, for example, by checking whether the consumer stops consuming messages due to an exception. You can also accelerate message retrieval, for example, by adding topic consumers. Ensure that the number of partitions is greater than or equal to the number of consumers.

Configuring Kafka Alarm Rules

The following section describes how to configure alarm rules for a specified Kafka instance.

Log in to the console.
Click in the upper left corner to select the region where your instance is located.
Click and choose Middleware > Distributed Message Service (for Kafka) to open the console of DMS for Kafka.
In the navigation pane, choose Kafka Instances.
Go to the monitoring page in either of the following ways:
- Click View Metric in the row containing the desired Kafka instance.
- Click the desired Kafka instance to go to the instance details page. Choose Monitoring and Alarms > Monitoring Details in the navigation pane.
Hover the mouse pointer over a metric and click to create an alarm rule for the metric. The Create Alarm Rule page is displayed.
Specify the alarm details.

For more information about creating alarm rules, see Creating an Alarm Rule.
1. Set the alarm name and description.
2. Set the alarm policy.
  As shown in the following figure, if the original disk capacity usage is equal to or higher than 80% for consecutive once, an alarm is generated. If the alarm is not handled on time, an alarm notification is sent.
  
  Figure 1 Setting the alarm policy
3. Set the alarm notification configurations.
  If you enable Alarm Notification, specify Notification Recipient and Notification Policies.
4. Click Create.

Enabling One-Click Monitoring

The following section describes how to enable alarm rules for key metrics of all Kafka instances in a region.

Log in to the console.
Click in the upper left corner to select the region where your instance is located.
Click and choose Middleware > Distributed Message Service (for Kafka) to open the console of DMS for Kafka.
In the navigation pane, choose Kafka Instances.
Click the desired Kafka instance to go to the instance details page.
In the navigation pane, choose Monitoring and Alarms > Alarms. The One-Click Monitoring tab page is displayed.
By default, the alarm rules are in the Disable state. Click Config and the One-Click Monitoring page is displayed on the Cloud Eye console.

Figure 2 One-click monitoring
Left-click the search box, select Resource Type, select Distributed Message Service from the drop-down list, and click OK.
In the row containing Distributed Message Service, click . The Enable Alarm Rule dialog box is displayed.

A Kafka instance has two preset alarm rules. See Table 2. Enable the alarm rules as required and click OK.

Figure 3 Enabling alarm rules

**Table 2** Alarm rules
Alarm Rule	Dimension	Policy
alarm-dms-kafka_broker-metric-defaulth	Instance	A major alarm is generated once a day when the raw number of partitions is greater than or equal to 750 for three consecutive periods. A major alarm is generated once a day when the raw number of topics is greater than or equal to 200 for three consecutive periods. A major alarm is generated once a day when the raw number of stacked messages is greater than or equal to 100,000,000 for three consecutive periods.
alarm-dms-kafka_instance_id-metric-default	Broker	A critical alarm is generated every 10 minutes when the raw average duration per disk write is greater than 5,000 ms for three consecutive periods. A critical alarm is generated every 10 minutes when the raw average duration per disk read is greater than 5,000 ms for three consecutive periods. A major alarm is generated every hour when the raw average duration for processing consumption requests is greater than 60,000 ms for three consecutive periods. A critical alarm is generated every 10 minutes when the raw JVM heap memory usage is greater than 85% for three consecutive periods. A critical alarm is generated every 10 minutes when the raw disk usage is greater than 85% for three consecutive periods. A critical alarm is generated every 10 minutes when the raw CPU usage is greater than 85% for three consecutive periods. A critical alarm is generated every 10 minutes when the raw active status of a broker is less than 1 for three consecutive periods. A critical alarm is generated every 10 minutes when the raw memory usage is greater than 85% for three consecutive periods.

Alarm policies can be modified after one-click monitoring is enabled. For details, see One-Click Monitoring.

Go back to the One-Click Monitoring page, click . The alarm rule is in the Enable state.

If other Kafka instances are available in this region, their alarm rules are enabled, too.

Viewing Alarm Rules of a Kafka Instance

The following procedure describes how to query all alarm rules of a specified Kafka instance.

Log in to the console.
Click in the upper left corner to select the region where your instance is located.
Click in the upper left corner of the console, choose Management & Governance > Cloud Eye.
In the navigation pane, choose Cloud Service Monitoring.
Search for "Distributed Message Service" and press Enter.
Click Distributed Message Service DMS. The Details page is displayed.
In the row containing the desired Kafka instance, choose More > View Alarm Rule. All alarm rules of this Kafka instance are displayed in the View Alarm Rule dialog box.