Data blending allows you to combine data from your collected metrics with auxiliary data from other sources. The blended data is available to metric analytics and alert notification templates. Currently, the system supports data blending in the form of metric dimension aliasing.

Metric Dimension Aliasing

Blends metric dimension aliases from yaml files in your git repository. Create directory data-blending/sources/file/aliasing under your assets folder in your git repo, then drop alias files under any path in this directory. The system will watch this directory for changes and automatically sync their contents with the timeseries database and the alerting meta data store.

assets
└── data-blending
    └── sources
        └── file
            └── aliasing
                ├── agents.yaml
                └── url.yaml

Dimension Aliasing Files

Each file contains aliases for one dimension, for one metric set. A metric set is the namespace of a metric minus the trailing segment, for example the metric set for metric myrmex/http/status/url/status_code is myrmex/http/status/url. This means that you define the same dimension aliases for all metrics with a common parent namespace. You may have multiple files for the same metric set and dimension, the system will merge their contents. If you have duplicate aliases in the same file or different files, the system will blend only one of them but not in a deterministic order.

Inside an aliasing file, define the following fields:

• metric_set, the metric set that the aliases are defined for
• dim, the aliased dimension name segment in metric_set
• aliases, an array of dimension aliases. Each array element is a 2-dimensional array where the first element is the source value and the second is the alias.

The below example provides short names for the url dimension in myrmex/http/status/url:

# URL short names
metric_set: "myrmex/http/status/url"
dim: "url"
aliases: 
    - ["www.test.com/very_long_url/1", "API 1"]
    - ["www.test.com/very_long_url/6", "API 2"]
    - ["www.test.com/very_long_url/6", "API 3"]
    - ["www.test.com/very_long_url/8", "API 4"]
    - ["www.test.com/very_long_url/9", "API 5"]
    - ["www.test.com/very_long_url/10", "API 6"]

Use metric dimension aliases in analytics

Tick the Display Dimension Aliases box in an analysis definition. The system will replace dimension values for any metric with their corresponding aliases if they exist.

Use metric dimension aliases in alert notification templates

The system provides functions DimAlias and DimAliasWithValue which you can use in your templates to get hold of dimension aliases if they exist.

DimAlias(alertData, dimName, dimValue)

Returns the alias for dimension dimName of alertData.Metric with value dimValue or an empty string ("") if no alias exists

• Print .Name: .Value (alias)

  {{$data := .}}
  {{range .MetricDimensions}}
  // - given dim name = "url", dim value = "www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=param" and dim alias = "Super API", it will print:
  //   url: www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=param (Super API)  
  //
  // - given dim name = "url", dim value = "www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=other" and no dim alias defined, it will print:
  //   url: www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=other ()
  - {{.Name}}: {{.Value}} ({{DimAlias $data .Name .Value}})
  {{end}}
  

• Print .Name: alias if alias exists, otherwise .Name: .Value

  {{$data := .}}
  {{range .MetricDimensions}}
  // - given dim name = "url", dim value = "www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=param" and dim alias = "Super API", it will print:
  //   url: Super API
  //
  // - given dim name = "url", dim value = "www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=other" and no dim alias defined, it will print:
  //   url: www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=other
  - {{$a := DimAlias $data .Name .Value}}{{.Name}}: {{or $a .Value}}
  {{end}}
  

• Print .Name: alias (.Value) if dim alias exists, otherwise .Name: .Value

  {{$data := .}}
  {{range .MetricDimensions}}
  // - given dim name = "url", dim value = "www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=param" and dim alias = "Super API", it will print:
  //   url: Super API (www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=param)
  //
  // - given dim name = "url", dim value = "www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=other" and no dim alias defined, it will print:
  //   url: www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=other
  - {{$a := DimAlias $data .Name .Value}}{{or (and $a (printf "%s (%s)" $a .Value)) .Value}}
  {{end}}
  

DimAliasWithValue(alertData, dimName, dimValue, format)

Formats dim alias and dim value with a format parameter if the alias exists. Otherwise returns the dimension value. format is called with 2 arguments, the first is the alias and the second is the value. The format string specification must use golang fmt package verbs (opens new window)

{{$data := .}}
{{range .MetricDimensions}}
  // - given dim name = "url", dim value = "www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=param" and dim alias = "Super API", it will print:
  //   url: Super API (www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=param)
  //
  // - given dim name = "url", dim value = "www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=other" and no dim alias defined, it will print:
  //   url: www.some.com/very/long/url?with_params=other
- {{.Name}}: {{DimAliasWithValue $data .Name .Value "%s (%s)"}}
{{end}}