Axiom
Overview

Send StatsD metrics to Axiom

The StatsD receiver is part of the contrib distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector (otelcol-contrib). It isn’t included in the core distribution.

Prerequisites#

When you create the dataset, select Metrics as the dataset type. StatsD data arrives in Axiom as OTel metrics, and metrics require their own dedicated dataset. For more information, see Create dataset.

Configure the OpenTelemetry Collector#

Add the StatsD receiver and an OTLP/HTTP exporter that sends data to Axiom:

receivers:
  statsd:
    endpoint: 0.0.0.0:8125    # UDP by default. Defaults to localhost:8125 if omitted.
    aggregation_interval: 60s # How often aggregated metrics are flushed to the exporter.
 
processors:
  batch:
    send_batch_max_size: 8192
 
exporters:
  otlphttp:
    compression: zstd
    endpoint: https://AXIOM_DOMAIN
    headers:
      authorization: Bearer API_TOKEN
      x-axiom-metrics-dataset: DATASET_NAME
 
service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers:
        - statsd
      processors:
        - batch
      exporters:
        - otlphttp

Replace AXIOM_DOMAIN with the base domain of your edge deployment. For more information, see Edge deployments.

Replace API_TOKEN with the Axiom API token you have generated. For added security, store the API token in an environment variable.

Replace DATASET_NAME with the name of the Axiom dataset where you send your data.

For metrics, use the x-axiom-metrics-dataset header instead of x-axiom-dataset.

Point your StatsD clients at the collector’s address and port (UDP 8125 in the example above) instead of your previous StatsD server.

Send a test metric#

With the collector running, send a test counter using netcat:

echo -n "test.requests:1|c" | nc -u -w1 localhost 8125

After the next aggregation interval, the test.requests metric appears in your Metrics dataset in Axiom.

Metric types#

The StatsD receiver maps StatsD metric types to OpenTelemetry metric types:

StatsD type OpenTelemetry type
Counter (c) Sum
Gauge (g) Gauge
Timer (ms), histogram (h), distribution (d) Configurable with the receiver’s timer_histogram_mapping option: histogram, summary, or gauge

Axiom supports all of these resulting types. For the full list of supported OTel metric types and current limitations, see Supported data types.

Query your metrics#

Once data is flowing, query your StatsD metrics like any other OTel metrics in Axiom. For more information, see Metrics.

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