Akka.Metrics.MetricMailbox

A Metrics Measuring Mailbox For Akka.NET, inspired by / ported from the JVM Akka's https://github.com/ouven/akka-visualmailbox

About

The MetricMeasuringMailbox is a wrapper around an UnboundedMailbox that will send MailboxMetric events to the EventStream for every message sent to an actor using the mailbox.

Usage

Please refer to the GlutenFree.Akka.Metrics.MetricMailbox.VisualizerExample project for a full example with a Visualizer.

Note that unlike the original Scala project, this has been geared to be more 'pluggable' in how metrics are consumed. Rather than assume usage of Akka.IO, an implementation of IMetricMeasuringWriter is used so that you may publish metrics in whatever way suits your needs.

Notes

• Currently, The MetricMeasuringMailbox always uses an UnboundedMailbox under the hood.

• You cannot currently use this as a Default mailbox. Attempting to do so appears to cause issues in starting the ActorSystem.

Core Library

To use the Metric Mailbox, you will need to do the following:

• Ensure that a Mailbox Configuration is provided in the ActorSystem Configuration:
  • Default configuration/declaration is provided in the MetricMailboxConfig class in both String and Config object form.
  • An Extension Method is provided to inject the Default configuration via config.WithDefaultMetricMailbox()
• For Actors that you wish to track metrics for, include the mailbox in your props:
  • Example: Props.Create(()=>new MyActor()).WithMailbox("metric-mailbox")
  • An Extension Method to use the default configured box is provided for your convenience: Props.Create(()=>new MyActor()).WithDefaultMetricMailbox()

You may then utilize the Metrics via one of the following options:

• Create your own actor that subscribes to MailboxMetric messages on the EventStream
• Use the Provided MetricMeasuringClientListener

MetricMeasuringClientListener

The Provided MetricMeasuringClientListener is an actor that listens to the event stream and buffers messages, which will be periodically flushed to the IMetricMeasuringWriter provided via the constructor.

• IMetricMeasuringWriter has only one Signature, void WriteMetrics(MailboxMetric[] metric)
• If IMetricMeasuringWriter fails, the actor will continue to operate. IOW any exceptions thrown when WriteMetrics() is called will be caught, logged to the System logger, and not rethrown (i.e. the actor will not restart).

MetricsMeasurementPlugin

Simply a nice wrapper for MetricMeasuringClientListener

RedisPubSub

The RedisPubSub Library is designed to provide an IMetricMeasuringWriter that publishes to a Redis Pub/Sub channel as well as multiple subscriber abstractions.

• MetricPublisher is an implementation of IMetricMeasuringWriter
• BaseAsyncMetricSubscriber provides a Task HandlePublishedMetricsAsync(MailboxMetricPayload payload) method to be implemented.
• ObservableMetricSubscriber Wraps the Subscriber and provides an IObservable<MailboxMetric> on the .ObservableSet property.

In addition to an IConnectionMultiplexer, you will also need to provide:

• An Implementation of IMetricPayloadSerializer
• A keyName (string) that should be shared between the Publisher and Subscriber.