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

bash

# 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

yaml

# 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

bash

# 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

javascript

// 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'
  }
};

bash

# Install agent
npm install newrelic

# Run application
NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY=xxx node -r newrelic app.js

Python

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

bash

# 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

bash

# 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

python

import newrelic.agent

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

Custom Metrics

python

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

python

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

sql

-- 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

sql

-- 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

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)

json

{
  "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

json

{
  "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

python

# 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

yaml

# 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