Google Cloud

Pull metrics from Google Cloud Monitoring (formerly Stackdriver) into xScaler using the OpenTelemetry Collector's googlecloudmonitoring receiver. Covers GCE, GKE, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, and all other Google Cloud metrics.

Pattern: OTel Collector googlecloudmonitoring receiver → xScaler OTLP endpoint

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Dashboard

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Prerequisites

• Google Cloud project with Cloud Monitoring enabled
• Service account with roles/monitoring.viewer IAM role
• OTel Collector (contrib distribution)
• xScaler tenant credentials

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Create a service account

# Create service account
gcloud iam service-accounts create otel-metrics-reader \
  --display-name "OTel Metrics Reader"

# Grant viewer role
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding YOUR_PROJECT_ID \
  --member="serviceAccount:otel-metrics-reader@YOUR_PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \
  --role="roles/monitoring.viewer"

# Download key file
gcloud iam service-accounts keys create sa-key.json \
  --iam-account="otel-metrics-reader@YOUR_PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com"

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Configuration

Save as otel-collector-config.yaml:

receivers:
  googlecloudmonitoring:
    project_id: YOUR_PROJECT_ID
    collection_interval: 1m
    metric_descriptors:
      # GCE instances
      - metric_type: "compute.googleapis.com/instance/cpu/utilization"
      - metric_type: "compute.googleapis.com/instance/network/received_bytes_count"
      - metric_type: "compute.googleapis.com/instance/network/sent_bytes_count"
      - metric_type: "compute.googleapis.com/instance/disk/read_bytes_count"
      - metric_type: "compute.googleapis.com/instance/disk/write_bytes_count"

      # GKE
      - metric_type: "kubernetes.io/container/cpu/core_usage_time"
      - metric_type: "kubernetes.io/container/memory/used_bytes"
      - metric_type: "kubernetes.io/pod/network/received_bytes_count"

      # Cloud SQL
      - metric_type: "cloudsql.googleapis.com/database/cpu/utilization"
      - metric_type: "cloudsql.googleapis.com/database/memory/utilization"
      - metric_type: "cloudsql.googleapis.com/database/postgresql/num_backends"

      # Pub/Sub
      - metric_type: "pubsub.googleapis.com/subscription/num_undelivered_messages"
      - metric_type: "pubsub.googleapis.com/subscription/oldest_unacked_message_age"

processors:
  memory_limiter:
    check_interval: 1s
    limit_mib: 512
  batch:
    timeout: 30s
    send_batch_size: 1000

exporters:
  otlphttp/xscaler:
    endpoint: https://euw1-01.m.xscalerlabs.com
    headers:
      Authorization: "Bearer <token>"
      X-Scope-OrgID: "<tenant-id>"
    compression: gzip

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers:  [googlecloudmonitoring]
      processors: [memory_limiter, batch]
      exporters:  [otlphttp/xscaler]

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Provide credentials

Set the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable to the path of your service account key:

export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/path/to/sa-key.json

On GCE or GKE with Workload Identity, credentials are picked up automatically — no key file needed.

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Logs

Cloud Logging — export log sinks to Pub/Sub and forward to xScaler using an OTel Collector with the googlecloudpubsub receiver.

Key metrics

Service	Metric type	Description
GCE	instance/cpu/utilization	CPU utilisation (0–1)
GCE	instance/network/received_bytes_count	Bytes received
GKE	container/cpu/core_usage_time	Container CPU seconds
GKE	container/memory/used_bytes	Container memory
Cloud SQL	database/cpu/utilization	DB CPU %
Cloud SQL	database/postgresql/num_backends	Active connections
Pub/Sub	subscription/num_undelivered_messages	Unacked message backlog
Pub/Sub	subscription/oldest_unacked_message_age	Oldest unacked message age (s)

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Useful PromQL queries

# GCE CPU usage %
avg(compute_googleapis_com_instance_cpu_utilization) * 100

# Cloud SQL active connections
cloudsql_googleapis_com_database_postgresql_num_backends

# Pub/Sub subscription backlog
pubsub_googleapis_com_subscription_num_undelivered_messages

# GKE container memory usage (bytes)
kubernetes_io_container_memory_used_bytes