Mongo Background Flushing Test

By default, MongoDB instances using the MMAPv1 storage engine write in-memory changes to disk every 60 seconds. If Journaling is enabled, then the MongoDB server writes changes to the on-disk journal first. These changes will then flush from journal to the disk. If the server crashes before all the changes are flushed to the disk, then journaling ensures that the changes can still be recovered from the journal. However, where Journaling is not enabled, if changes in memory are not flushed to the disk quickly, then the sudden terminaton of the MongoDB server can result in loss of critical data. If this is to be avoided, then administrators should be able to proactively detect any potential slowness in background flushing and promptly initiate measures to pre-empt the data loss than an server crash can cause. The Mongo Background Flushing test helps with this.

This test tracks flushes to disk and reports the average time taken by the monitored server to flush writes in memory to disk. In the process, the test proactively alerts administrators to slowness in disk writes. The test also reports the duration of the last disk write, thus enabling administrators to figure out when the slowness could have occurred - did it creep in recently? or has it been persistent?

Note:

This test reports metrics only for those MongoDB instances that use the MMAPv1 storage engine.

Target of the test : A MongoDB server

Agent deploying the test : An internal/remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the Mongo database server being monitored

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test period	How often should the test be executed
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured.
Port	The port number at which the specified host listens
Database Name	The test connects to a specific Mongo database to run API commands and pull metrics of interest. Specify the name of this database here. The default value of this parameter is admin.
Username and Password	The eG agent has to be configured with the credentials of a user who has the required privileges to monitor the target MongoDB instance, if the MongoDB instance is access control enabled. To know how to create such a user, refer to How to monitor access control enabled MongoDB database?. If the target MongoDB instance is not access control enabled, then, specify none against the Username and Password parameters.
Confirm Password	Confirm the password by retyping it here.
Authentication Mechanism	Typically, the MongoDB supports multiple authentication mechanisms that users can use to verify their identity. In environments where multiple authentication mechanisms are used, this test enables the users to select the authentication mechanism of their interest using this list box. By default, this is set to None. However, you can modify this settings as per the requirement.
SSL	By default, the SSL flag is set to No, indicating that the target MongoDB server is not SSL-enabled by default. To enable the test to connect to an SSL-enabled MongoDB server, set the SSL flag to Yes.
CA File	A certificate authority (CA) file contains root and intermediate certificates that are electronically signed to affirm that a public key belongs to the owner named in the certificate. If you are looking to monitor the certificates contained within a CA file, then provide the full path to this file in the CA File text box. For example, the location of this file may be: C:\cert\rootCA.pem. If you do not want to monitor the certificates in a CA file, set this parameter to none.
Certificate Key File	A Certificate Key File specifies the path on the server where your private key is stored. If you are looking to monitor the Certificate Key File, then provide the full path to this file in the Certificate Key File text box. For example, the location of this file may be: C:\cert\mongodb.pem. If you do not want to monitor the certificates in a CA file, set this parameter to none.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Flushes	Indicates the number of times the monitored server flushed writes to disk.	Number
Flushes rate	Indicates the rate at which writes were flushed to disk.	Flushes/Sec	A high value is desired, as it indicates that changes are written to disk frequently. Frequent disk writes will minimize the data loss that may occur if the server abnormally exits.
Average flush time	Indicates the average time taken by the server to flush writes to disk.	Seconds	If the value of this measure is over 1000 milliseconds, it is a cause for concern, as it indicates that writing to disk is taking a long time. The most common causes for high flush time are: Disk not having enough IOPS to handle the load; Massive write activities happen all at once; Normally a flush should not take more than 1000 ms, if it does, it is likely the amount of data flushing to disk is too large for the disk to handle. With journaling enabled, which is standard on production MongoDB service, write operations go to journal file on disk and take away valuable disk I/O needed for flushing and page fault. To resolve this issue, you can do one or all of the following: Upgrade to disk with higher IOPS, e.g. SSD / Flash Array. Separate journal file and data file onto separate drives, to free up disk I/O taken by journal file. Spikes in background flush occur when a large amount of dirty pages needed to flush to disk. Tune the application to spot for errors, or disburse writes to a longer time span.
Last flush time	Indicates the time taken by the last disk write.	Seconds	If this value is close to the Average flush time, it could indicate that the slowness occurred during the last flush. Investigating the last flush can provide pointers to why it took more time than normal.