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Monitoring Spring WebFlux Microservices with New Relic

 In this guide, we’ll go over how to monitor a reactive Spring Boot application using WebFlux, with New Relic’s @Trace annotation for detailed transaction tracking, custom parameters, and distributed tracing for complex service chains.

Prerequisites

  1. A Spring Boot WebFlux application.
  2. The New Relic Java agent configured in your application.
  3. Enable distributed tracing in newrelic.yml:
distributed_tracing:
  enabled: true

Step 1: Instrument the Main Endpoint

Our main entry point is the processRequest endpoint, which handles validation, external API calls, and data processing. Here’s how we add @Trace with dispatcher = true to make it a main transaction.



@RestController
public class SampleController {

    private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SampleController.class);
    private final SampleService sampleService;
    private final WebClient webClient;

    public SampleController(SampleService sampleService, WebClient.Builder webClientBuilder) {
        this.sampleService = sampleService;
        this.webClient = webClientBuilder.baseUrl("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1").build();
    }

    @GetMapping("/process")
    @Trace(dispatcher = true, metricName = "Custom/processRequest")
    public Mono<String> processRequest(@RequestParam String input) {
        NewRelic.addCustomParameter("inputParam", input);
        logger.info("Starting process for Trace ID: {}", NewRelic.getAgent().getTransaction().getTraceId());

        return sampleService.validateInput(input)
                .flatMap(validatedInput -> callExternalService(validatedInput))
                .flatMap(externalData -> sampleService.processData(input, externalData))
                .doOnSuccess(result -> logger.debug("Processing complete with result: {}", result))
                .doOnError(e -> logger.error("Error processing request", e));
    }

    @Trace(async = true, metricName = "Custom/callExternalService")
    private Mono<String> callExternalService(String validatedInput) {
        NewRelic.addCustomParameter("validatedInput", validatedInput);
        return webClient.get()
                .retrieve()
                .bodyToMono(String.class)
                .doOnNext(data -> NewRelic.addCustomParameter("externalData", data))
                .doOnError(e -> logger.error("Failed to call external service", e));
    }
}


Step 2: Instrument Sub-Methods for Traceability

Here, we add @Trace on the validateInput and processData methods. This allows each method to show up as segments within the main transaction trace. Setting async = true supports WebFlux’s non-blocking nature.

@Service
public class SampleService {

    @Trace(async = true, metricName = "Custom/validateInput")
    public Mono<String> validateInput(String input) {
        NewRelic.addCustomParameter("validatedInput", input);
        return Mono.just("Validated: " + input);
    }

    @Trace(async = true, metricName = "Custom/processData")
    public Mono<String> processData(String input, String externalData) {
        NewRelic.addCustomParameter("combinedData", input + " " + externalData);
        return Mono.just("Processed Data: " + input + " at " + LocalTime.now());
    }
}

Step 3: Viewing Results in New Relic

Main Transaction: In New Relic APM under Transactions, locate Custom/processRequest to analyze the main endpoint’s performance.

Sub-Method Tracking: Under Distributed Traces or Transaction Traces, view the breakdown of validateInput, callExternalService, and processData as segments within each transaction.

Custom Parameters: View specific data by setting custom parameters (inputParam, validatedInput, etc.), which appear in Transaction Attributes and allow deeper filtering in NRQL queries.

Step 4: Using NRQL to Query Performance Data

With New Relic’s NRQL, query average durations and segment-specific data:

Average Duration of Validation:

NRQL

SELECT average(duration) 
FROM Span 
WHERE name = 'Custom/validateInput' 
SINCE 1 week ago
External Call Monitoring:



SELECT average(duration) 
FROM Span 
WHERE name = 'Custom/callExternalService' 
SINCE 1 week ago
Overall Transaction Time:



SELECT average(duration) 
FROM Transaction 
WHERE name = 'Custom/processRequest' 
SINCE 1 week ago


Ref doc for Newrelic account setup & Integration 

https://docs.newrelic.com/install/java/?deployment=gradle&framework=springboot

Let me know if you need a codebase as well.

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