The document discusses how Boundary, a SaaS application for monitoring application performance, is utilized alongside Puppet for managing dynamic environments in a DevOps setting. It describes a case of configuring a historical data store to improve performance and the benefits seen from monitoring tools, including improvements in application latency after changes. Additionally, it provides guidance on deploying the Boundary monitoring tool using Puppet, emphasizing its quick setup and configuration requirements.

1. Rethink Monitoring
What Just Happened?
Leveraging Puppet & Boundary to Manage Dynamic Environments
Molly Stamos, Director of Products

2. Boundary: Highly Distributed Platform delivering SaaS
• Boundary is a SaaS application that monitors application performance by analyzing
application communication over the network"
• Platform runs on Ubuntu Linux with a mix of off the shelf and home grown components "
• Continuous deployment shop - code rolled into production as its ready "
"

3. Boundary: The Team
• “devops” shop – but two primary Ops guys managing about 200 nodes and overseeing
all automation "
Scott Smith Joe Williams
"
"
• Everyone participates in operations – everyone is on call rotation (and gets the joy of
2am wake up calls)"
• Environment is hosted – Provider racks & stacks – Joe & Scott do everything else"

4. An Example
(but first a quick look at Boundary)

5. Configuration Change in Production
• Kobayashi is our historical data store "
• 9 node cluster "
• Riak under the covers"
• Provides historical feed of data for Boundary dashboards (beyond streaming system)"
• Configuration change needed to alleviate feared future performance problems"
• In Riak, must perform a “rolling upgrade”"
• Push config change to each node one at a time, restart services, wait for cluster to reach steady state"
• Unsure how cluster behavior would change "

6. Using Boundary to Assess Cluster Health
"

7. Unexpected Benefit: Evenly Distributed Writes Across the Cluster
BEFORE" AFTER"

8. Application Latency (App RTT) Before the Change
• Node Data06 is 2x
slower than the rest
of the nodes"

9. Application Latency (App RTT) After the Change
• App RTT are tightly grouped
around 4-5 ms"

10. Boundary & Puppet
Using the Puppet Module

11. Download and Install the Boundary Module
• Fairly Straightforward:"
• sudo puppet module search boundary
• sudo puppet module install puppetlabs-boundary
Make sure you get this one: puppetlabs-boundary (NOT the bprobe one) !
• **Some configuration required**"
• Boundary::params class – set your API Key and your OrgID "
• Located in /etc/puppetlabs/puppet/boundary/manifests/params.pp "
• Boundary.yaml file – set your API Key and OrgID "
• Located in /etc/puppetlabs/puppet/boundary/"

12. Where to get your API Key & OrgID in Boundary
• Go to Organization -> Settings"
• API Key & OrgID"
• API Key is like your password – keep it secret"

13. Using Puppet to Deploy the Boundary Meter

14. Get Boundary Now
• Boundary: http://boundary.com/signup/"
• Literally takes less than 2 minutes to deploy"
• When was the last time a monitoring tool took less than 2 minutes to set up?"
• Free to use up to 2GB per day "
• How do I get more information? "
• Website: www.boundary.com"
• Email: service@boundary.com"

15. Rethink Monitoring