Let’s say you start building a website, which could be eCommerce, a gaming site, or a news site. Slowly but surely, as you start posting blog posts, the site gets filled up, the storage is getting full, the RAM is not enough, etc. Usually, you host it in your own data center, shared, dedicated hosting, or the cloud.
You may first observe if everything is operating flawlessly because there is often little traffic.
As time goes on, the number of users who visit the website suddenly rises, you’ll notice that your pages have slowed down and that your clients are dissatisfied with your service, which causes a decline in sales. Here, you would need to learn how to start or where to start. Your best option in this situation is New Relic.
These tools offer crucial data that enables you to identify any performance concerns rapidly. As a result, troubleshooting may be done more quickly, potentially saving you money on site upkeep.
This article will cover every aspect of New Relic, including how it functions and its benefits.
What is New Relic?
New Relic is a real-time web application performance service designed to integrate with your live web applications seamlessly.
New Relic Infrastructure offers adaptable and dynamic server monitoring capabilities, empowering modern operations teams to make informed decisions regarding complex systems, whether they are in a physical data center or across tens of thousands of Azure or Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances.
Within New Relic, you gain access to crucial performance metrics for your application, such as browser response times broken down by geography and browser type, real-time web transaction insights, and more.
New Relic boasts compatibility with a wide array of web development languages, eliminating compatibility concerns. Operating as a service, New Relic offers accessibility from anywhere at any time, effectively serving as the essential infrastructure that enhances the speed and performance of web applications.
Here is an example: Think of New Relic as a performance dashboard with the precision of a web application debugger. It grants you the ability to peer deeply into your web application’s inner workings, offering unprecedented visibility into the end user’s experience and the underlying source code. New Relic simplifies the complexities of monitoring, troubleshooting, and scaling your web application, allowing you to navigate these challenges effortlessly.
How New Relic Works?
New Relic APM serves as a comprehensive data collection and storage solution for metrics and information originating from various web-based and affiliated applications within an enterprise setting. This platform acquires data via network communication and subsequently undertakes processing and in-depth analysis of this data. End-users gain access to this valuable information through an intuitive dashboard-style interface.
New Relic leverages specialized agents, which are small code components integrated into the application or the application’s environment. These agents play a pivotal role in monitoring and gathering data across a diverse spectrum of applications. New Relic’s agent ecosystem spans multiple programming languages, including C (available as an SDK), Go, Java, .NET, Node.js, PHP, Python, and Ruby, ensuring compatibility and seamless integration with a wide array of application types and environments.
To grasp the inner workings of New Relic, it’s essential to acquaint yourself with the four key data types it employs for monitoring, succinctly encapsulated by the acronym MELT:
- Metrics: These are numeric measurements that provide insights into your application’s performance. Metrics encompass critical indicators such as load time, CPU utilization, and memory consumption.
- Events: Events serve as descriptive markers that characterize activities taking place within your application. They are composed of multiple lines of log data, offering a detailed perspective on your application’s behavior.
- Logs: Logs provide a comprehensive record of events, chronicling every step and action within an application. Each log entry is timestamped, enabling precise tracking of occurrences.
- Traces: Traces offer a sequential view of events, offering a chronological understanding of how your application functions. This data type provides valuable information about the order and dependencies of operations within your app.
Benefits of New Relic
Key benefits and features of New Relic:
- Software as a Service (SaaS): New Relic operates as a SaaS solution, eliminating the need for complex installations. It provides access at any time and from any location.
- User-Friendly: New Relic boasts a user-friendly interface, making it easy for both beginners and experienced users to navigate and utilize effectively.
- Availability Monitoring: New Relic provides insightful reports that visually represent any instances of downtime, enabling you to stay informed about your application’s availability.
- Customer Error Recording: New Relic automatically records customer errors and presents them in an easily interpretable graphical format. You can also delve into the stack trace for each error for comprehensive debugging.
- Transaction Tracking: Gain visibility into your application’s performance by identifying where it spends the majority of its processing time, allowing you to pinpoint optimization opportunities.
- External Service Call Monitoring: New Relic tracks external service calls made by your application, such as HTTP requests to APIs like Twitter. It highlights the slowest external calls, the most frequently used ones, and those with the slowest average response times, helping you optimize your app’s interactions with external services.
- Scalability and Capacity Analysis: New Relic enables you to assess your application’s scalability effortlessly. Conduct load tests and instantly evaluate your app’s capacity to handle increased loads. Track application response time trends as your user base expands, facilitating capacity planning for future growth.
How to integrate AWS into New Relic
To check all AWS integrations (Currently, there are more than 90 AWS integrations on New Relic), check here – New Relic AWS. Anyone with access to your Relic Infrastructure account may view and examine the AWS data reporting. AWS connectors may only be added by Owners, Admins, or Infrastructure add-on managers. To get AWS data into your Relic Infrastructure account, you must follow a method that will be covered shortly. When the setting is finished, the AWS data will be sent immediately to Relic Insights.
To seamlessly connect your AWS account to your New Relic Infrastructure account, follow these step-by-step instructions:
- Access New Relic Infrastructure Integration:
- Go to infrastructure.newrelic.com.
- Go to the “Integrations” tab and choose “Amazon Web Services.”
- Click on “Add an AWS account.”
- Create a New Role in AWS:
In your AWS console, access IAM (Identity and Access Management).
- Select “Roles” and click “Create role.”
- Choose “Another AWS account” for the trusted entity type.
- Enter the New Relic Account ID, which is 754728514883.
- Check the “Require external ID” box.
- For the “External ID,” input your Relic account ID.
- Do not enable the “Require MFA” (multi-factor authentication) setting.
- Attach the ReadOnlyAccess Policy:
- Search for “ReadOnlyAccess” in the policies list.
- The “ReadOnlyAccess” policy’s checkbox should be selected.
- Click “Next: Review.”
- Name the Role:
- Enter a name for the Role, such as “NewRelicInfrastructure-Integrations.”
- Click “Create role.”
- Copy the Role ARN:
- Select the newly created Role from the list of roles.
- On the Role summary page, copy the entire Role ARN (you’ll need this later).
- Configure a Budgets Policy (Optional):
Select “Add inline policy” while reading the job summary for your new position.
Create a custom policy by entering a name (e.g., “NewRelicBudget”) and adding the following permission statement:.
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"budgets:ViewBudget"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}- Click “Apply policy.”
- Return to New Relic UI:
Go back to the New Relic user interface. Enter your AWS account name and the ARN for the new Role you created. Select the Amazon Web Services components you want to monitor with Relic Infrastructure integrations.
Click “Save.”
- Connecting Multiple AWS Accounts:
If you wish to connect multiple AWS accounts with New Relic, repeat the above steps for each account.
- To Uninstalling Services:
To uninstall services from New Relic Infrastructure Integrations, go to the “Amazon Web Services” section in infrastructure.newrelic.com. Select the edit icon and then choose the integrations you want to monitor or unlink your existing integration.
If you have previously set up an ARN with a more restrictive policy (e.g., AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess), consider creating a new integration with a broader policy.
To completely uninstall your services, remember to delete the Role you created in your AWS console from the IAM section.
New Relic Alternatives
When considering APM solutions, it’s essential to assess your options thoroughly. New Relic faces competition from several notable players in the field, including:
- AppDynamics
- Datadog
- Dynatrace
- SignalFx (Splunk has Acquires SignalFx)
Since an APM tool can become a long-term component of your IT toolkit, it’s crucial to conduct a meticulous evaluation of each prospective tool.
Final Say
New Relic, with its robust AWS integrations, proves to be an invaluable tool for optimizing application performance and ensuring the seamless operation of your cloud-based services.
By effortlessly connecting your AWS account, you gain access to a wealth of monitoring and analysis capabilities. With Relic, you can effectively track and enhance the performance of your applications, troubleshoot issues proactively, and make data-driven decisions for scaling and capacity planning.
As a comprehensive solution, Relic empowers you to streamline your AWS operations, ultimately leading to improved user experiences and cost-efficient resource utilization.
FAQs New Relic
What is New Relic’s primary Role in AWS integrations?
Relic acts as a performance monitoring and optimization tool within AWS integrations. It helps you track application performance, identify bottlenecks, and optimize resource usage, contributing to a more efficient and reliable AWS environment.
How does New Relic benefit AWS users?
Relic’s offers a range of benefits to AWS users, including real-time monitoring, error tracking, performance analysis, and scalability insights. It enhances application performance, reduces downtime, and aids in efficient resource allocation.
Is New Relic compatible with various AWS services and resources?
Yes, Relic seamlessly integrates with numerous AWS services and resources, making it versatile and adaptable for a wide range of applications and infrastructure configurations. It provides visibility into AWS resources like EC2 instances, Lambda functions, and RDS databases, among others, to ensure comprehensive monitoring and optimization.
