You can monitor a Groundplex running on Windows with Datadog, New Relic, or any observability tool that supports OpenTelemetry (OTel). This requires deployment of an OTel collector to gather the metrics and the logs that Groundplex nodes generate.

Prerequisites:

• Find out what your observability tool requires for configuration. For example, Datadog and New Relic need an API key.
• Have a few example pipelines available to run on the Groundplex and generate events to view in your tool.

Install the OTel collector

Download and install the OTel collector:

1. Open the OTel collector GitHub page.
2. On each Windows Server that hosts a Groundplex node, download the appropriate v0.115.X Windows otelcol-contrib .msi installation package.
3. Install the OTel collector by running the .msi package.
4. Create a config.yaml file and configure as required by your third-party tool. The sections below provide details for Datadog and New Relic. You can use the example YAML files as starting points.
5. Follow the steps to Configure the firewall and start the OTel collector.

Configure the Datadog YAML file

Obtain your Datadog API key and add it to a .yaml file:

1. Log in to your Datadog account.
2. Navigate to the Organization settings.
3. Click the API keys tab.
4. Copy the API key and save it.
5. Create a config.yml file in the C:\Program Files\OpenTelemetry Collector folder with the following properties:

   receivers:
     otlp:
       protocols:
         grpc:
         http:
   
   processors:
     batch:
       send_batch_max_size: 100
       send_batch_size: 10
       timeout: 10s
     attributes:
       actions:
         - key: snaplex.node.name
           value: <node_name>
           action: upsert
             
   exporters:
     data dog:
       api:
         site: <datadog_site>
         key: <DD_api_key>
       logging:
         verbosity: 
             
   service:
     pipeline:
       logs:
         receivers:
         processors:
         exporters:
       metrics:
         receivers: 
         processors: 
         exporters:    

6. Replace the properties in brackets with your values for the Groundplex node name, Datadog site, and Datadog API key.
7. Save the file.
8. Skip to: Configure the firewall and start the OTel collector.

Configure the New Relic YAML file

Create a New Relic API key and add it to a config.yaml file:

1. To create an API key:
   1. Log in to the New Relic portal and click your username at the bottom of the left navigation pane.
   2. From the menu, select API keys.
   3. Click Create a key.
   4. For Key type, select Ingest - License.
   5. Click Create a key.
   6. Click Copy.
   7. Save the key in a secure location for later use.
2. Create a config.yml file in the C:\Program Files\OpenTelemetry Collector folder by copying the following:

   
   extensions:
     health_check:
     pprof:
       endpoint: 0.0.0.0:1777
     zpages:
       endpoint: 0.0.0.0:55679
   receivers:
     otlp:
       protocols:
         grpc:
         http:
     opencensus:
     jaeger:
       protocols:
         grpc:
         thrift_binary:
         thrift_compact:
         thrift_http:
     zipkin:
   processors:
     batch:
       end_batch_max_size: 100
       send_batch_size: 10
       timeout: 10s
     attributes:
       actions:
         - key: snaplex.node.name
           value: <node_name>
           action: upsert
   
   exporters:
     otlp:
       endpoint: https://otlp.nr-data.net:4317
       headers:  
         api-key: <NEW RELIC LICENSE API KEY>
     logging:
       verbosity: detailed
   service:
     pipelines:
       traces:
         receivers: [otlp, opencensus, jaeger, zipkin]
         processors: [batch]
         exporters: [logging]
       metrics:
         receivers: [otlp, opencensus]
         processors: [batch]
         exporters: [otlp, logging]
       logs:
         receivers: [otlp]
         processors: [batch]
         exporters: [otlp, logging]
     extensions: [health_check, pprof, zpages]  

3. Replace the values in brackets with the values for your environment.
4. Save the file.
5. Configure the firewall and start the OTel collector as described in the next section.

Configure the firewall and start the OTel collector

After saving the config.yaml file:

1. On each Windows Server, configure the Windows Defender Firewall to open ports 4317, 4318, and any ports required for additional exporters.
2. On each Windows Server, open the Services app from the Control Panel Administrative Tools group.
3. If otelcol-contrib.exe is running, stop it.
4. From the command line, run the following command with administrator privileges:

   C:\Program Files\OpenTelemetry Collector>otelcol-contrib.exe --config config.yaml

5. Check the command window for the status.
6. Run a few pipelines and wait for the metrics to flow into your tool.
7. Refer to Observe in Datadog and Observe in New Relic for metric examples and Node metric reference for the list of metrics you can collect.