Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) component of Google Cloud Platform that delivers virtual machines running in Google's data centres and worldwide fibre network. The Sumo Logic app for Google Compute Engine helps you to monitor your infrastructure by providing preconfigured dashboards that allow you to view the activities, users, and message severity along with performance metrics monitoring CPU, network, disk, and quotas for your Google Compute Engine infrastructure.

Log and metrics types

The Sumo Logic app for Google Cloud Compute Engine uses the following logs and metrics:

• Google Cloud Audit Logs for Compute Engine - These logs provide information about Compute Engine API calls and operations.
• Compute Engine Platform Logs
• Google Compute Engine Metrics

Sample queries

Top 10 User

_collector="HTTP Source for GCP Pub/Sub" logName resource timestamp
| json "message.data.resource.type" as type
| parse regex "\s+\"logName\":\"(?<log_name>\S+)\""
| where type = "gce_instance" and log_name matches "projects/*/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Factivity"
| parse regex "\s+\"resourceName\":\"projects/\S+/zones/(?<zone>\S+)/instances/(?<instance>\S+)\""
| json "message.data.resource.labels" as labels
| json field=labels "project_id" as project
| json "message.data.protoPayload.authenticationInfo.principalEmail" as user
| count as requests by user
| sort by requests
| limit 10

Sample metric query

Avg CPU Utilization

project_id=* region=* cloud.platform=gcp_cloudsql database_id=* metric=database/cpu/utilization  statistic=average | eval _value*100 | avg 

Collecting logs for the Google Compute Engine

This page describes the Sumo pipeline for ingesting logs from Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services, and provides instructions for collecting logs from Google Compute Engine.

Collection process for GCP services

The key components in the collection process for GCP services are Google Logs Export, Google Cloud Pub/Sub, and Sumo’s Google Cloud Platform (GCP) source running on a hosted collector.

The GCP service generates logs which are exported and published to a Google Pub/Sub topic through Log Router. You will then set up a Sumo Logic Google Cloud Platform source that subscribes to this topic and receives the exported log data.

Configuring collection for GCP uses the following process:

1. Configure a GCP source on a hosted collector. You'll obtain the HTTP URL for the source, and then use Google Cloud Console to register the URL as a validated domain.
2. Create a topic in Google Pub/Sub and subscribe the GCP source URL to that topic.
3. Create an export of GCP logs from Google Log Router. Exporting involves writing a filter that selects the log entries you want to export, and choosing a Pub/Sub as the destination. The filter and destination are held in an object called a sink.

See the following sections for configuration instructions.

note

Logs from GCP services can be exported to any destination. Any GCP logs can be excluded from Logs router.

Configure a Google Cloud Platform source

The Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Source receives log data from Google Pub/Sub.

note

You can use the same GCP Source to receive log data from multiple GCP services. For example, you can send logs collected from Google Cloud Application Engine, Google Cloud IAM, and Google Cloud Audit.

However, this is not recommended since you cannot define specific Source Category values to each GCP service. If you create a GCP Source for each service you can define a specific Source Category to each service.

This Source will be a Google Pub/Sub-only Source, which means that it will only be usable for log data formatted as data coming from Google Pub/Sub.

1. In Sumo Logic, select Manage Data > Collection > Collection.
2. Select an existing Hosted Collector upon which to add the Source. If you do not already have a Collector you'd like to use, create one, using the instructions on Configure a Hosted Collector.
3. Click Add Source next to the Hosted Collector and click Google Cloud Platform.
4. Enter a Name to display for the Source. A Description is optional.
   
5. Source Host (Optional). The Source Host value is tagged to each log and stored in a searchable metadata field called _sourceHost. Avoid using spaces so you do not have to quote them in keyword search expressions. This can be a maximum of 128 characters.
6. Source Category (Optional). The Source Category value is tagged to each log and stored in a searchable metadata field called _sourceCategory. See our Best Practices: Good Source Category, Bad Source Category. Avoid using spaces so you do not have to quote them in keyword search expressions. This can be a maximum of 1,024 characters.
7. Fields. Click the +Add Field link to add custom log metadata Fields, then define the fields you want to associate. Each field needs a name (key) and value. Look for one of the following icons and act accordingly:
   • An orange triangle with an exclamation point is shown when the field doesn't exist in the Fields table schema. In this case, an option to automatically add the nonexistent fields to the Fields table schema is provided. If a field is sent to Sumo that does not exist in the Fields schema it is ignored, known as dropped.
   • A green circle with a check mark is shown when the field exists in the Fields table schema.
8. Advanced Options for Logs.
   
   • Timestamp Parsing. This option is selected by default. If it's deselected, no timestamp information is parsed at all.
   • Time Zone. There are two options for Time Zone. You can use the time zone present in your log files, and then choose an option in case time zone information is missing from a log message. Or, you can have Sumo Logic completely disregard any time zone information present in logs by forcing a time zone. It's very important to have the proper time zone set, no matter which option you choose. If the time zone of logs cannot be determined, Sumo Logic assigns logs UTC; if the rest of your logs are from another time zone your search results will be affected.
   • Timestamp Format. By default, Sumo Logic will automatically detect the timestamp format of your logs. However, you can manually specify a timestamp format for a Source. See Timestamps, Time Zones, Time Ranges, and Date Formats for more information.
9. Processing Rules. Configure any desired filters, such as allowlist, denylist, hash, or mask, as described in Create a Processing Rule.
10. When you are finished configuring the Source, click Save.

Configure a Pub/Sub Topic for GCP

You need to configure a Pub/Sub Topic in GCP and add a subscription to the Source URL that belongs to the Sumo Logic Google Cloud Platform Source you created. Once you configure the Pub/Sub, you can export data from Google Logging to the Pub/Sub. For example, you can export Google App Engine logs, as described on Collect Logs for Google App Engine.

1. Create a Pub/Sub Topic in GCP. Refer to the Google Cloud documentation for the latest configuration steps.
2. Create a Pub/Sub subscription to the Source URL that belongs to the Sumo Logic Google Cloud Platform Source you created. See Google Cloud documentation for the latest configuration steps.
   • Use a Push Delivery Method to the Sumo Logic Source URL. To determine the URL, navigate to the Source on the Collection page in Sumo Logic and click Show URL.

Limitations

Google limits the volume of data sent from a Topic. Our testing resulted in the following data limits:

Topics	Megabytes per second	Payload size
One	18 MBps (1.5 TB/day)	100 KB
One	6 MBps (0.5 TB/day)	2.5 KB

note

These limits may vary based on your setup and are based on our previous tests.

We recommend the following:

• Shard messages across topics within the above data limits.
• Ask GCP to increase the allowable capacity for the topic.

Create export of Google Compute Engine logs from Google Logging

In this step you export logs to the Pub/Sub topic you created in the previous step.

1. Go to Logging and click Logs Router.
   
2. Click Create Sink.
   
3. As part of Create logs routing sink, add the following information.
4. Enter the Sink Name. For example, gce-vm-instance.
5. Select Cloud Pub/Sub as the Sink Service.
6. Set Sink Destination to the Pub/Sub topic you created in the Google Cloud Platform Source procedure. For example, "pub-sub-logs".
7. In Choose logs to include in sink section for resource_type, replace "<resource_variable>" with "gce_instance".
8. Click Create Sync.

note

By default, GCP logs are stored within Cloud Logging, but you can configure Log Router to exclude them as detailed here without affecting the export to Sumo Logic as outlined above.

Collecting metrics for the Google Compute Engine app

For metrics collection in Sumo Logic, use the GCP Metric source.

1. Setup the Google Service Account.
2. Set up a GCP Metric source in Sumo Logic. While setting up the source, select Compute Engine as the service from the dropdown to get the Google Cloud Compute Engine metrics.

Installing the Google Compute Engine app

Now that you have set up collection for Google Compute Engine, install the Sumo Logic App to use the pre-configured searches and dashboards that provide visibility into your environment for real-time analysis of overall usage.

To install the app:

1. From the Sumo Logic navigation, select App Catalog.
2. In the Search Apps field, search for and then select your app.
3. Optionally, you can scroll down to preview the dashboards included with the app. Then, click Install App (sometimes this button says Add Integration).
   note

   If your app has multiple versions, you'll need to select the version of the service you're using before installation.

4. On the next configuration page, under Select Data Source for your App, complete the following fields:
   • Data Source. Select one of the following options:
     • Choose Source Category and select a source category from the list; or
     • Choose Enter a Custom Data Filter, and enter a custom source category beginning with an underscore. For example, _sourceCategory=MyCategory.
   • Folder Name. You can retain the existing name or enter a custom name of your choice for the app.
   • All Folders (optional). Default location is the Personal folder in your Library. If desired, you can choose a different location and/or click New Folder to add it to a new folder.
5. Click Next.
6. Look for the dialog confirming that your app was installed successfully.
   

Once an app is installed, it will appear in your Personal folder or the folder that you specified. From here, you can share it with other users in your organization. Dashboard panels will automatically start to fill with data matching the time range query received since you created the panel. Results won't be available immediately, but within about 20 minutes, you'll see completed graphs and maps.

Viewing Google Compute Engine dashboards

All dashboards have a set of filters that you can apply to the entire dashboard. Use these filters to drill down and examine the data to a granular level.

• You can change the time range for a dashboard or panel by selecting a predefined interval from a drop-down list, choosing a recently used time range, or specifying custom dates and times. Learn more.
• If required, configure the refresh interval rate for a dashboard or panel by clicking the drop-down arrow next to the refresh icon.
• Click the funnel icon in the dashboard top menu bar to filter dashboard with Template Variables.
  

Audit Logs

The Google Cloud Compute Engine - Audit Logs dashboard works with Compute Engine audit logs. These audit logs include admin activity operation and data access audit logs. Here is the list of operations tracked using the audit log for Compute Engine. The dashboard includes panels for event location, operation distribution, severity distribution, top users, recent error activities, start/stop events, and instance insert/deletion events.

CPU

The Google Cloud Compute Engine - CPU dashboard provides the CPU-related metric for compute instances like CPU utilization - with comparison to one-day and one-week time shifts, along with CPU usage time, and CPU scheduling wait time.

Disk

The Google Cloud Compute Engine - Disk dashboard is used to monitor metrics related to different disks attached to respective compute instances. Filters for both disk and instance are available in this dashboard. This dashboard helps to monitor the read/write operation count, read/write byte count along with trends for it, average disk IO latency, and IO queue depth.

Guest Performance

The Google Cloud Compute Engine - Guest Performance dashboard works on Guest metrics. For collecting guest metrics for GCE instance, you must enable the Container-Optimized OS Health Monitoring feature; for more information, see Container-Optimized OS. You can monitor - disk queue length, CPU usage time, memory bytes used, CPU load - 1m/5m/15m, Bytes for the file system, Memory bytes, operation count (read/write) along with CPU details like - runnable task count and visible vCPU.

Network

The Google Cloud Compute Engine - Network dashboard helps you monitor the network-related metrics like send bytes, received bytes, sent packets, and received packets with respective trends. Along with this, you can also monitor firewall bytes dropped trend and packets dropped by the firewall.

Performance Overview

The Google Cloud Compute Engine - Performance Overview dashboard provides information about the general performance of running compute instances in your Google Cloud. This dashboard provides insights into the average CPU utilization, number of active instances, sent/received bytes, sent/received packets, CPU utilization by instance, bytes dropped by firewall by instance, CPU details, and disk read/write operation.

Platform Logs

The Google Cloud Compute Engine - Platform Logs dashboard is based on Compute Engine Platform logs. With this dashboard, you can track the recent error messages and recent warning messages, along with top error/warning messages. You can also monitor platform log severity distribution along with severity trends.

Quota Overview

The Google Cloud Compute Engine - Quota Overview dashboard is based on significant quota-related metrics for the Compute engine. This dashboard provides insights into VPC-related quotas like instance usage, IP aliases, subnet range, and static route per VPC as well as aggregated. You can also monitor other quotas like regional concurrent operation, global concurrent operation, and inter-region egress bandwidth.