Collect StatsD Metrics

There are three basic parts to a StatsD implementation: application libraries, a simple protocol used to define the metrics, and a daemon/server that aggregates the metrics for a time window and flushes the aggregated metrics to a metrics back-end system. There are many StatsD libraries and StatsD daemons. If you want to add StatsD to your application and send your metrics to Sumo, we recommend using collectd as your metrics collection agent, with the StatsD input enabled. With Sumo’s collectd Plugin, you can add metadata to your metrics and send your metrics to Sumo in a multi-dimensional, metrics 2.0 format.

If you're using a different StatsD server, the most commonly available integration method is to install a Sumo Collector agent on or near your StatsD server and stream your metrics to Sumo in the Graphite format. For instructions to configure a streaming metrics source, see Streaming Metrics Source.

This page has information about using the collectd agent with the StatsD plugin and Sumo’s collectd output plugin to and StatsD metrics to the Sumo service.

To implement this capability, follow the instructions Steps 1 through 4 in the CollectD plugin README to:
1. Install the collectd agent.
2. Download and install Sumo’s collectd output plugin.
3. Configure an HTTP source in Sumo to receive metrics sent by the collectd output plugin.
4. Configure the collectd agent to use Sumo’s collectd output plugin.
Configure the collectd agent to use the StatsD input plugin, by adding the following element to the collectd.conf file in the /etc/collectd/ directory.
```
<Plugin statsd>
Host "::"
Port "8125"
DeleteSets     true
TimerPercentile 90.0
</Plugin>
```

For information about other StatsD configuration options, see the Plugin StatsD section in collectd documentation.