NerdGraph tutorial: Stream your data to an AWS Kinesis Firehose or Azure Event Hub

With our streaming export feature, available with Data Plus, you can send your data to an AWS Kinesis Firehose or Azure Event Hub as it's ingested by New Relic. We'll explain how to create and update a streaming rule using NerdGraph and how to view existing rules. You can use the NerdGraph explorer to make these calls.

What is streaming export?

As data is ingested by your New Relic organization, our streaming export feature sends that data to an AWS Kinesis Firehose or Azure Event Hub. You can set up custom rules, which are defined using NRQL, to govern what kinds of New Relic data you'll export. You can also elect to have this data compressed before it's exported, using our new Export Compression feature.

Some examples of things you can use streaming export for:

To populate a data lake
Enhance AI/ML training
Long-term retention for compliance, legal, or security reasons

You can disable or enable streaming export rules whenever you want. But note that streaming export only sends currently ingested data, which means that if you disable it and re-enable it, the data ingested when it was off won't be sent with this feature. For exporting past data, you can use Historical data export.

Requirements and limits

Limits on streamed data: The amount of data you can stream per month is limited by your total ingested data per month. If your streaming data amount exceeds your ingested data amount, we may suspend your access to and use of streaming export.

Permissions-related requirements:

Pro or Enterprise edition with Data Plus option
User type: core user or full platform user
The streaming data permission

You must have an AWS Kinesis Firehose or Azure Event Hub set up to receive New Relic data. If you haven't already done this, you can follow our steps below for AWS or Azure.

NRQL requirements:

Must be flat queries, with no aggregation. For example, SELECT * or SELECT column1, column2 forms are supported.
Applicable for anything in the WHERE clause, except subqueries.
Query cannot have a FACET clause, COMPARE WITH, or LOOKUP.
Nested queries are not supported.
Supports data types stored in NRDB, and not metric timeslice data.

Set up an AWS Kinesis Firehose

To set up streaming data export to AWS, you must first set up an Amazon Kinesis Firehose. We'll walk you through that procedure in the next three steps.

Create a Firehose for streaming export

Create a dedicated Firehose to stream your New Relic data to:

Go to Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose.
Create a delivery stream.
Name the stream (you will use this name later in the rule registration).
Use Direct PUT or other sources and specify a destination compatible with New Relic's JSON event format (for example, S3, Redshift, or OpenSearch).

Create IAM Firehose write access policy

Go to the IAM console and sign in with your user.
Click Policies in the left navigation, and then click Create policy.
Select the Firehose service, and then select PutRecord and PutRecordBatch.
For Resources, select the delivery stream, add ARN, and select the region of your stream.
Enter your AWS account number, and then enter your desired delivery stream name in the name box.
Create the policy.

Create IAM role for granting New Relic write access

To set up the IAM role:

Navigate to the IAM and click on Roles.
Create a role for an AWS account, and then select for another AWS account.
Enter the New Relic export account ID: 888632727556.
Select Require external ID and enter the account ID of the New Relic account you want to export from.
Click Permissions, and then select the policy you created above.
Add a role name (this will be used in the export registration) and description.
Create the role.

When you're done with these steps, you can set up your export rules using NerdGraph. For more on that, jump to Important fields for NerdGraph calls.

Set up an Azure Event Hub

To set up streaming data export to Azure, you must first set up an Event Hub. We'll walk you through that procedure in the next three steps.

Alternatively, you can follow the Azure guide here.

Create an Event Hubs namespace

Navigate to Event Hubs within your Microsoft Azure account.
Follow the steps to create an Event Hubs namespace. We recommend enabling auto-inflate to ensure you receive all of your data.
Ensure public access is enabled, we will be using a Shared Access Policy to authenticate securely with your Event Hub.
Once your Event Hubs namespace is deployed, click Go to resource.

Create an Event Hub

In the left column, click Event Hubs.
Then click +Event Hub to create an Event Hub.
Enter the desired Event Hub Name. Save this, as you'll need it later to create the streaming export rule.
For Retention, select the Delete Cleanup policy and desired Retention time (hrs).
Important
Streaming export is currently not supported for Event Hubs with Compact retention policy.
Once the Event Hub is created, click on the Event Hub.

Create and attach a shared access policy

In the left column, go to Shared access policies.
Click +Add near the top of the page.
Choose a name for your shared access policy.
Check Send, and click Create.
Click the created policy, and copy the Connection string–primary key. Save this, as we'll use this to authenticate and send data to your Event Hub.

When you're done with these steps, see the next section about important fields for your Nerdgraph calls.

Important fields for NerdGraph calls

Most of the streaming data export NerdGraph calls we'll be covering use a few fields that are related to your account:

For AWS Kinesis Firehose:

awsAccountId: The AWS account ID. For example: 10000000000
deliveryStreamName: The Kinesis stream name. For example: firehose-test-stream.
region: The AWS region. For example: us-east-1.
role: The AWS IAM role for Kinesis Firehose. This will always be firehose-role.

For Azure Event Hubs:

eventHubConnectionString: The Azure Event Hub Connection String. Looks similar to: Endpoint=sb://<NamespaceName>.servicebus.windows.net/;SharedAccessKeyName=<KeyName>;SharedAccessKey=<KeyValue>;EntityPath=<EventHubName>
eventHubName: The Event Hub name. For example: my-event-hub.

How to create a streaming export rule

First, decide which data you want to export. Then, with a NerdGraph call, you'll create the streaming rules you want using NRQL. We'll give some examples.

Create a stream

When you create a new streaming rule, you'll need all of the following fields. Here's an example of creating a streaming rule exporting to an AWS Kinesis Firehose:

mutation {
  streamingExportCreateRule(
    accountId: YOUR_NR_ACCOUNT_ID
    ruleParameters: {
      description: "ADD_RULE_DESCRIPTION"
      name: "PROVIDE_RULE_NAME"
      nrql: "SELECT * FROM NodeStatus"
      payloadCompression: DISABLED
    }
    awsParameters: {
      awsAccountId: "YOUR_AWS_ACCOUNT_ID"
      deliveryStreamName: "FIREHOSE_STREAM_NAME"
      region: "SPECIFY_AWS_REGION"
      role: "firehose-role"
    }
  ) {
    id
    status
  }
}

Here's an example of creating a streaming rule exporting to an Azure Event Hub:

mutation {
  streamingExportCreateRule(
    accountId: YOUR_NR_ACCOUNT_ID
    ruleParameters: {
      description: "ADD_RULE_DESCRIPTION"
      name: "PROVIDE_RULE_NAME"
      nrql: "SELECT * FROM NodeStatus"
      payloadCompression: DISABLED
    }
    azureParameters: {
      eventHubConnectionString: "YOUR_EVENT_HUB_SAS_CONNECTION_STRING"
      eventHubName: "YOUR_EVENT_HUB_NAME"
    }
  ) {
    id
    status
  }
}

You'll get a result immediately with a rule ID and status. The status will be shown as CREATION_IN_PROGRESS. You can use the rule id to check if the rule is created successfully.

It can take up to six minutes for the rule to complete creation due to the policy validation taking some time.

Before the rule finishes registering, you can't initiate another mutation action (like Enable, Disable, or Update) because the rule is locked for the creation process. If you try another mutation action before the rule completes the registration process, you'll get a message like, "The export rule is currently being updated by another request, please wait and try again later."

You can use Delete at any time.

The creation can finish and change the status at any time within the roughly six minutes required for rule creation. The status will change to ENABLED, DISABLED, or CREATION_FAILED.

See these details on the values:

ENABLED means the rule is created successfully and data has started to be streamed.
CREATION_FAILED means the rule failed on creation. This can happen for several reasons, but is often due to AWS policy or Azure SAS validation failing.
DISABLED means the rule is created but is not enabled yet due to reasons such as filter stream limit being reached, or failing on filter stream rule creation. If the status still remains as CREATION_IN_PROGRESS after six minutes, that means the rule creation failed due to a system error on our service. You can delete the rule and try to create a new one again.

Once a streaming rule is created, you can view it.

Update a stream

When you update a new streaming rule, you'll need all of the following fields. Here's an example of updating a streaming rule:

AWS Kinesis Firehose:

mutation {
  streamingExportUpdateRule(
    id: RULE_ID
    ruleParameters: {
      description: "ADD_RULE_DESCRIPTION"
      name: "PROVIDE_RULE_NAME"
      nrql: "YOUR_NRQL_QUERY"
      payloadCompression: DISABLED
    }
    awsParameters: {
      awsAccountId: "YOUR_AWS_ACCOUNT_ID"
      deliveryStreamName: "FIREHOSE_STREAM_NAME"
      region: "SPECIFY_AWS_REGION"
      role: "firehose-role"
    }
  ) {
    id
    status
  }
}

Azure Event Hub:

mutation {
  streamingExportUpdateRule(
    id: RULE_ID
    ruleParameters: {
      description: "ADD_RULE_DESCRIPTION"
      name: "PROVIDE_RULE_NAME"
      nrql: "YOUR_NRQL_QUERY"
      payloadCompression: DISABLED
    }
    azureParameters: {
      eventHubConnectionString: "YOUR_EVENT_HUB_SAS_CONNECTION_STRING"
      eventHubName: "YOUR_EVENT_HUB_NAME"
    }
  ) {
    id
    status
  }
}

When updating, you'll get a message in the message field: “The export rule is being updated and the process may take a few minutes to complete. Please check again later.” It can take up to six minutes to be fully updated.

You can check if the rule is updated by calling streamingRule to retrieve the rule. During the period that the rule is under updating, the rule is locked, and no other mutation action can act on the rule. If you are trying to perform another mutation action on the same rule, you will get a message saying, “The export rule is currently being updated by another request, please wait and try again later.” A user can update a rule of any status except a deleted rule.

Disable a stream

To disable a rule, you only need to provide the rule ID. Here's an example of disabling a stream:

mutation {
  streamingExportDisableRule(id: RULE_ID) {
    id
    status
    message
  }
}

You can only disable the rule when the rule has a status of ENABLED. If you're trying to disable a rule that's in another state, it returns the error message, "The export rule can't be enabled or disabled due to status not being allowed." You can't disable the rule if the rule is locked due to another mutation being done.

Enable a stream

If you want to enable a rule, you only need to provide the rule ID. Here's an example of enabling a stream:

mutation {
  streamingExportEnableRule(id: RULE_ID) {
    id
    status
    message
  }
}

You can only enable the rule when it has a status of DISABLED. If you're trying to enable a rule that's in another state, it returns the error message like, "The export rule can't be enabled or disabled due to status not being allowed." You can't enable the rule if the rule is locked due to another mutation being done.

Delete a stream

You'll need to provide a rule ID to delete a stream. Here's an example:

mutation {
  streamingExportDeleteRule(id: RULE_ID) {
    id
    ...
  }
}

Deleting can be performed on a rule of any status unless it's already deleted. Once a rule is deleted, it can't be reactivated again. The rule can be still viewed within the first 24 hours after deletion by calling the steamingRule API with the rule ID. After 24 hours, the rule won't be searchable anymore through NerdGraph.

View streams

You can query information about a specific stream rule by querying for the account ID and rule ID. Here's an example:

AWS Kinesis Firehose:

{
  actor {
    account(id: YOUR_NR_ACCOUNT_ID) {
      streamingExport {
        streamingRule(id: "RULE_ID") {
          aws {
            awsAccountId
            deliveryStreamName
            region
            role
          }
          createdAt
          description
          id
          message
          name
          nrql
          status
          updatedAt
          payloadCompression
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Azure Event Hub:

{
  actor {
    account(id: YOUR_NR_ACCOUNT_ID) {
      streamingExport {
        streamingRule(id: "RULE_ID") {
          azure {
            eventHubConnectionString
            eventHubName
          }
          createdAt
          description
          id
          message
          name
          nrql
          status
          updatedAt
          payloadCompression
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

You can also query for all existing streams. Here's an example:

{
  actor {
    account(id: YOUR_NR_ACCOUNT_ID) {
      streamingExport {
        streamingRules {
          aws {
            awsAccountId
            region
            deliveryStreamName
            role
          }
          azure {
            eventHubConnectionString
            eventHubName
          }
          createdAt
          description
          id
          message
          name
          nrql
          status
          updatedAt
          payloadCompression
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Understand export compression

Optionally, we can compress payloads before they are exported, though this is disabled by default. This can help avoid hitting your ingested data limit and save money on egress costs.

You can enable compression using the payloadCompression field under ruleParameters. This field can be any of the following values:

DISABLED: Payloads will not be compressed before being exported. If unspecified, payloadCompression will default to this value.
GZIP: Compress payloads with the GZIP format before exporting

GZIP is the only compression format currently available, though we may choose to make more formats available in the future.

When compression is enabled on an existing AWS export rule, the next message from Kinesis Firehose may contain both compressed and uncompressed data. This is due to buffering within Kinesis Firehose. To avoid this, you can temporarily disable the export rule before enabling compression, or create a new Kinesis Firehose stream for the compressed data alone to flow through.

If you do encounter this issue and you're exporting to S3 or another file storage system, you can view the compressed part of the data by following these steps:

Manually download the object.
Separate the object into two separate files by copying the compressed data into a new file.
Decompress the new, compressed-only data file.

Once you have the compressed data, you can re-upload it to S3 (or whatever other service you're using) and delete the old file.

Please be aware that in S3 or another file storage system, objects may consist of multiple GZIP-encoded payloads that are appended consecutively. Therefore, your decompression library should have the capability to handle such concatenated GZIP payloads.

Automatic Decompression in AWS

Once your data has arrived in AWS, you may want options to automatically decompress it. If you're streaming that data to an S3 bucket, there are two ways to enable automatic decompression:

Access points function as separate methods by which objects in S3 buckets can be accessed and downloaded. AWS supplies a feature called Object Lambda access points, which perform a Lambda function on each S3 object accessed via the access point. Follow these steps to enable such an access point:

Navigate to this page, click the link to the serverless repo.
Click the Deploy button at the bottom of the page.
Set up an access point on your S3 bucket.
Create an Object Lambda access point. This access point must have these settings:
- The Supporting Access Point on this Lambda access point will need to be set to the access point you set up on the S3 bucket.
- Under Transformation Configuration:
- The GetObject box must be checked.
- The DecompressGZFunction Lambda function (or whichever other function is necessary, if a different compression format is used) must be specified.

AWS will automatically decompress objects downloaded from S3, if those objects have the correct metadata set. We have written a function that automatically applies this metadata to every new object downloaded to a set S3 object. Here's how to set it up:

Navigate here, clone the repository locally, and follow the provided steps in the README file to generate a ZIP file containing the lambda function.
Create an IAM role for the function.

When creating the role, be sure to set the trusted entity type as "AWS Service", with "Lambda" as your use case.
This role must have a policy with these permissions: s3:PutObject and s3:GetObject.

In AWS, navigate to the Lambda functions page.
Click Create function.
Select the Java 11 runtime environment.
Click Change default execution role > Use an existing role. Enter the role you created in step 2 here.
Scroll down and click Create function.
Once the function has been created, click Upload from and select .zip or .jar file from the dropdown.
Click Upload from the box that pops up, and select the ZIP file created in step 1.
Once the upload has finished, click Save to exit the pop-up box.
Edit Runtime settings by adding the handler. In our provided function the handler is metadatasetter.App::handleRequest.
All that's left to do now is enable this Lambda function to trigger on S3 object creation. Click Add trigger to start setting that up.
From the dropdown, select S3 as your source.
Enter the name of the S3 bucket you'd like to apply the metadata to in the Bucket field.
Remove the default All object create events from the event types. From the Event types dropdown, select PUT.
Check the Recursive invocation box, then click Add in the bottom right.
The Lambda function will now start automatically adding the compression metadata to all newly added S3 objects.

Automatic Decompression in Azure

If you're exporting data to Azure, it's possible to view decompressed versions of the objects stored in your event hub using a Stream Analytics Job. To do so, follow these steps:

Follow this guide up to step 16.

On step 13, you may choose to use the same event hub as the output without breaking anything, though we do not recommend this if you intend to proceed to step 17 and start the job, as doing so as not been tested.

In the left pane of your streaming analytics job, click Inputs, then click on the input you set up.
Scroll down to the bottom of the pane that appears on the right, and configure the input with these settings:

Event serialization format: JSON
Encoding: UTF-8
Event compression type: GZip

Click Save at the bottom of the pane.
Click Query on the side of the screen. Using the Input preview tab, you should now be able to query the event hub from this screen.