chapter nine
9 Building processors and Fluent Bit extension options
This chapter covers
- Applying processors to interact and manipulate metrics, traces and logs
- Using SQL-like expressions to work with signals using a processor
- Exploring the reasons for needing a custom plugin
- Reviewing the pros and cons of the technology options for creating custom plugins
- Building an understanding of the technologies involved in custom plugins
This chapter looks at the different approaches to extending Fluent Bit logic. Processors provide the opportunity to enhance input and output plugin behavior in several ways without resorting to custom plugins (highlighted in Figure 9.1). But processors only allow us to go so far,; sometimes, we must consider custom plugin development and extend Fluent Bit. To support this we’ll explore the design decisions in selecting which strategy to develop an extension. In Figure 9.1, we’ve highlighted where this can impact Fluent Bit. This leads us neatly to Chapter 10, where we will apply one of these custom plugin strategies.
Figure 9.1 Representation of Fluent Bit from a logical architecture showing where custom plugins can be used, along with the consideration of the processor feature that allows us to change the behavior of existing plugins.
