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Tom de Bruijn for AppSignal

Posted on • Originally published at blog.appsignal.com

Expand Your Monitoring Capabilities with AppSignal's Standalone Agent Docker Image

Want to monitor all of your application's services? Our Standalone Agent allows you to monitor processes our standard integrations don't monitor by default, helping you effortlessly expand your monitoring capabilities.

To help simplify the process of configuring our standalone agent, we're excited to announce the launch of our Standalone Agent's Docker image, available on Docker Hub under the name appsignal/agent.

What Is the AppSignal Standalone Agent?

Based on the same software that powers our Ruby, Elixir, and JavaScript integrations, the standalone agent can be used to monitor:

  • Infrastructure: machines that are part of our system but do not run application code.
  • Background jobs: Think intensive cron jobs or long-running data-processing scripts. You can use the standard integration if these background jobs are written in a supported language (Ruby, Elixir, or Node.js).
  • More languages: Programs written in languages other than those supported by an AppSignal integration.

For instance, with the standalone agent, you can track a machine learning model written in Java, instrument backup scripts, or monitor Kafka brokers.

Monitor Traces, Custom Metrics, and More

The AppSignal standalone agent is a powerful addition to monitoring your applications. With the standalone agent Docker image, you can report OpenTelemetry traces, StatsD metrics, and NGINX metrics to a single endpoint within your internal network.

You can view all this information on AppSignal alongside your application's core metrics, giving you a bird's eye view of the performance of your application and its services.

StatsD Metrics

Getting Started with AppSignal's Docker Image

Previously, running the AppSignal standalone agent required running it as another process on a Docker container for your application or infrastructure like NGINX. However, with our new docker image, you can run the AppSignal standalone agent in an isolated container, making it easier to manage and more efficient to use.

Ready to get started? You can find more information on how to install and configure the AppSignal standalone docker image in our installation and configuration documentation.

AppSignal, The Developer Driven APM

AppSignal's standalone agent is just one of our many developer-driven tools designed to help you to monitor your application. Developers also enjoy using our monitoring because we have:

  • An intuitive interface that is easy to navigate.
  • Simple and predictable pricing.
  • Developer-to-developer support.

If you're new to AppSignal, remember to ask us for some free stroopwafels! They taste almost as good as it feels to have all of your application's metrics at your fingertips 😉🍪

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