This topic describes how to use Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS) to monitor an application running in Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes.

Overview about ARMS

ARMS is a Java application performance management (APM) monitoring product developed

by Alibaba Cloud. If you use ARMS to monitor a Java application, you only need to mount a probe in the application startup script without modifying any code. By comprehensively monitoring the application, the probe helps you quickly locate faulty and slow interfaces, reproduce parameter calling, detect memory leaks, and discover system bottlenecks, more efficiently diagnosing problems online. For more information, see ARMS.

ARMS monitors an application as follows:
  • Automatically discovers the application topology

  • Automatically discovers and monitors interfaces
  • Captures exception transactions and slow transactions, and provides SQL analysis
  • Provides a Java exception report
  • Provides trace-based transaction snapshot queries

  • Provides multidimensional ad-hoc troubleshooting, including multidimensional trace searches and exception trace searches
  • Integrates PaaS platforms

Prerequisites

Install ARMS components

  1. Log on to the Container Service console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Store > App Catalog. On the App Catalog page, select ack-arms-pilot.
  3. On the App Catalog - ack-arms-pilot page, click DEPLOY.

In the left-side navigation pane, choose Application > Deployment, and then select the target cluster and namespace. An application named ack-arms-pilot-default-ack-arms-pilot is displayed on the page.

Grant permission to use ARMS

  1. In the left-side navigation pane of Container Service console, click Clusters.
    Note To perform the operations required in this section, you must use the primary account to log on to the Container Service console.
  2. Click the target cluster name to view the cluster details.
  3. In the Cluster Resources area, click Worker RAM Role.

    Note

    This topic uses the latest version of the RAM console.

    If you use an earlier version of the RAM console, you can modify the target policy document by using one of the following methods:

    Method 1

    1. In the left-side navigation pane, click Roles, and then enter the Worker RAM Role name in the Role Name box. Click the target Role Name.

    2. In the Basic Information area, click Edit Basic Information in the upper-right corner.

    Method 2

    In the lower-right corner of the RAM dashboard page, click New Version to switch to the latest version of the RAM console. In the Container Service console, click Worker RAM Role to log on to the RAM console.

  4. On the RAM Roles page, click the policy name on the Permissions tab page.
  5. On the Policies page, click Modify Policy Document on the Policy Document tab page.

  6. In the Policy Document area, add the following fields and then click OK.
    1. {    “Action”: “arms:“,    “Resource”: ““,    “Effect”: “Allow”}


Deploy ARMS monitoring for an application

In a YAML file used to create the target deployment, add the following annotations to deploy ARMS application monitoring. 
  1. annotations:  armsPilotAutoEnable: “on”  armsPilotCreateAppName: “<your-deployment-name>”
Note
  • In the YAML file, you must add annotations under metadata of template in the spec field.
  • The value of armsPilotCreateAppName is the name of the application monitored by ARMS.
  1. In the left-side navigation pane of the Container Service console, choose Application > Deployment.
  2. In the upper-right corner, click Create by Template.
  3. Select the target cluster and namespace to create a deployment.

    1. apiVersion: apps/v1beta1 # for versions before 1.8.0 use apps/v1beta1kind: Deploymentmetadata:  name: arms-springboot-demo  labels:    app: arms-springboot-demospec:  replicas: 2  selector:    matchLabels:      app: arms-springboot-demo  template:    metadata:      annotations:        armsPilotAutoEnable: “on”        armsPilotCreateAppName: “arms-k8s-demo”      labels:        app: arms-springboot-demo    spec:      containers:        - resources:            limits:              cpu: 0.5          image: registry.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/arms-docker-repo/arms-springboot-demo:v0.1          imagePullPolicy: Always          name: arms-springboot-demo          env:            - name: MYSQL_SERVICE_HOST              value: “arms-demo-mysql”            - name: MYSQL_SERVICE_PORT              value: “3306”—-apiVersion: apps/v1beta1 # for versions before 1.8.0 use apps/v1beta1kind: Deploymentmetadata:  name: arms-demo-mysql  labels:    app: mysqlspec:  replicas: 1  selector:    matchLabels:      app: mysql  template:    metadata:      labels:        app: mysql    spec:      containers:        - resources:            limits:              cpu: 0.5          image: registry.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/arms-docker-repo/arms-demo-mysql:v0.1          name: mysql          ports:            - containerPort: 3306              name: mysql—-apiVersion: v1kind: Servicemetadata:  labels:    name: mysql  name: arms-demo-mysqlspec:  ports:    # the port that this service should serve on    - name: arms-mysql-svc      port: 3306      targetPort: 3306  # label keys and values that must match in order to receive traffic for this service  selector:    app: mysql—-
Verify the results
  1. In the left-side navigation pane of the Container Service console, choose Application > Deployment, and then select the target cluster and namespace to view the created deployment.
  2. In the Action column of the target deployment, click ARMS console to log on to the ARMS console to view application details such as Application Overview, Interface Invocation, and other information.
    Note If ARMS console is not displayed in the Action column, check whether you have granted Container Service permission to use ARMS. For more information, see Grant permission to use ARMS.