New Relic

Monitor applications and infrastructure with New Relic's observability platform.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• Implementing full-stack observability

• Setting up APM for applications

• Monitoring infrastructure health

• Creating custom dashboards and alerts

• Implementing distributed tracing

Prerequisites

• New Relic account and license key

• Application access for APM agents

• Infrastructure access for host agents

Infrastructure Agent

Linux Installation

Add repository and install

curl -Ls https://download.newrelic.com/install/newrelic-cli/scripts/install.sh | bash

Configure license key

sudo NEW_RELIC_API_KEY=<YOUR_API_KEY> NEW_RELIC_ACCOUNT_ID=<ACCOUNT_ID> /usr/local/bin/newrelic install

Or manual configuration

echo "license_key: YOUR_LICENSE_KEY" | sudo tee -a /etc/newrelic-infra.yml sudo systemctl start newrelic-infra

Docker

docker-compose.yml

version: '3.8'

services: newrelic-infra: image: newrelic/infrastructure:latest cap_add: - SYS_PTRACE privileged: true pid: "host" network_mode: "host" environment: - NRIA_LICENSE_KEY=${NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY} - NRIA_DISPLAY_NAME=docker-host volumes: - /:/host:ro - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock

Kubernetes

Using Helm

helm repo add newrelic https://helm-charts.newrelic.com

helm install newrelic-bundle newrelic/nri-bundle
--namespace newrelic
--create-namespace
--set global.licenseKey=${NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY}
--set global.cluster=my-cluster
--set newrelic-infrastructure.privileged=true
--set ksm.enabled=true
--set kubeEvents.enabled=true
--set logging.enabled=true

APM Agents

Node.js

// At the very start of your application require('newrelic');

// newrelic.js configuration exports.config = { app_name: ['My Application'], license_key: process.env.NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY, distributed_tracing: { enabled: true }, logging: { level: 'info' }, error_collector: { enabled: true, ignore_status_codes: [404] }, transaction_tracer: { enabled: true, transaction_threshold: 'apdex_f', record_sql: 'obfuscated' } };

Install agent

npm install newrelic

Run application

NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY=xxx node -r newrelic app.js

Python

newrelic.ini

[newrelic] license_key = YOUR_LICENSE_KEY app_name = My Application distributed_tracing.enabled = true transaction_tracer.enabled = true error_collector.enabled = true browser_monitoring.auto_instrument = true

Install agent

pip install newrelic

Generate config file

newrelic-admin generate-config YOUR_LICENSE_KEY newrelic.ini

Run application

NEW_RELIC_CONFIG_FILE=newrelic.ini newrelic-admin run-program python app.py

Or with gunicorn

NEW_RELIC_CONFIG_FILE=newrelic.ini newrelic-admin run-program gunicorn app:app

Java

Download agent

curl -O https://download.newrelic.com/newrelic/java-agent/newrelic-agent/current/newrelic-java.zip unzip newrelic-java.zip

Configure newrelic.yml

license_key: YOUR_LICENSE_KEY

app_name: My Application

Run with agent

java -javaagent:/path/to/newrelic.jar -jar myapp.jar

Go

package main

import ( "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/v3/newrelic" "net/http" )

func main() { app, err := newrelic.NewApplication( newrelic.ConfigAppName("My Application"), newrelic.ConfigLicense("YOUR_LICENSE_KEY"), newrelic.ConfigDistributedTracerEnabled(true), ) if err != nil { panic(err) }

http.HandleFunc(newrelic.WrapHandleFunc(app, "/", indexHandler))
http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil)

}

func indexHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) { txn := newrelic.FromContext(r.Context()) txn.AddAttribute("user_id", "12345") w.Write([]byte("Hello, World!")) }

Custom Instrumentation

Custom Events

import newrelic.agent

Record custom event

newrelic.agent.record_custom_event('OrderPlaced', { 'order_id': '12345', 'amount': 99.99, 'customer_id': 'cust_001' })

Custom Metrics

import newrelic.agent

Record custom metric

newrelic.agent.record_custom_metric('Custom/OrderValue', 99.99)

With attributes

newrelic.agent.record_custom_metric('Custom/ProcessingTime', processing_time, {'unit': 'milliseconds'} )

Custom Spans

import newrelic.agent

@newrelic.agent.function_trace(name='process_payment') def process_payment(order_id, amount): # This creates a custom span in the trace pass

Manual span creation

with newrelic.agent.FunctionTrace(name='custom_operation'): # Traced code pass

NRQL Queries

Basic Queries

-- Transaction throughput SELECT rate(count(*), 1 minute) FROM Transaction WHERE appName = 'My Application' SINCE 1 hour ago

-- Average response time SELECT average(duration) FROM Transaction WHERE appName = 'My Application' SINCE 1 hour ago

-- Error rate SELECT percentage(count(*), WHERE error IS true) FROM Transaction WHERE appName = 'My Application' SINCE 1 hour ago

-- Apdex score SELECT apdex(duration, t: 0.5) FROM Transaction WHERE appName = 'My Application' SINCE 1 hour ago

Advanced Queries

-- Slowest transactions SELECT average(duration) FROM Transaction WHERE appName = 'My Application' FACET name SINCE 1 hour ago ORDER BY average(duration) DESC LIMIT 10

-- Error breakdown SELECT count(*) FROM TransactionError WHERE appName = 'My Application' FACET error.class SINCE 1 hour ago

-- Percentile response times SELECT percentile(duration, 50, 90, 95, 99) FROM Transaction WHERE appName = 'My Application' SINCE 1 hour ago TIMESERIES

-- Custom event analysis SELECT average(amount), count(*) FROM OrderPlaced FACET customer_id SINCE 1 day ago

Dashboards

Dashboard JSON

{ "name": "Application Dashboard", "pages": [ { "name": "Overview", "widgets": [ { "title": "Throughput", "visualization": {"id": "viz.line"}, "configuration": { "nrqlQueries": [ { "accountId": 12345, "query": "SELECT rate(count(), 1 minute) FROM Transaction WHERE appName = 'My Application' SINCE 1 hour ago TIMESERIES" } ] } }, { "title": "Error Rate", "visualization": {"id": "viz.billboard"}, "configuration": { "nrqlQueries": [ { "accountId": 12345, "query": "SELECT percentage(count(), WHERE error IS true) FROM Transaction WHERE appName = 'My Application' SINCE 1 hour ago" } ] } } ] } ] }

Alerts

Alert Condition (NRQL)

{ "name": "High Error Rate", "type": "static", "nrql": { "query": "SELECT percentage(count(*), WHERE error IS true) FROM Transaction WHERE appName = 'My Application'" }, "valueFunction": "single_value", "terms": [ { "threshold": 5, "thresholdOccurrences": "all", "thresholdDuration": 300, "operator": "above", "priority": "critical" }, { "threshold": 2, "thresholdOccurrences": "all", "thresholdDuration": 300, "operator": "above", "priority": "warning" } ] }

Alert Policy

{ "name": "Application Alerts", "incident_preference": "PER_CONDITION_AND_TARGET", "conditions": [ { "name": "High Response Time", "type": "apm_app_metric", "entities": ["My Application"], "metric": "response_time_web", "condition_scope": "application", "terms": [ { "duration": "5", "operator": "above", "threshold": "1", "priority": "critical" } ] } ] }

Logs in Context

Python Configuration

newrelic.ini

[newrelic] application_logging.enabled = true application_logging.forwarding.enabled = true application_logging.metrics.enabled = true application_logging.local_decorating.enabled = true

Log Forwarding

newrelic-infra.yml

log:

• name: application-logs file: /var/log/myapp/*.log attributes: service: myapp environment: production

Common Issues

Issue: No Data Appearing

Problem: Agent not reporting to New Relic Solution: Verify license key, check network connectivity, review agent logs

Issue: Missing Transactions

Problem: Some transactions not captured Solution: Check instrumentation coverage, verify framework support

Issue: High Overhead

Problem: APM agent impacting performance Solution: Adjust sampling rate, disable unnecessary features

Best Practices

• Use meaningful application names

• Implement distributed tracing across services

• Set up service maps for dependency visualization

• Configure appropriate alert thresholds

• Use custom attributes for business context

• Implement logs in context for correlation

• Set up workloads for service grouping

• Regular review of unused dashboards and alerts

Related Skills

• datadog - Alternative monitoring platform

• prometheus-grafana - Open source monitoring

• alerting-oncall - Alert management