Overview
Memcached is a high-performance, distributed memory caching system used to speed up dynamic web applications by reducing database load. Xitoring's Memcached integration monitors cache performance, memory utilization, connection states, and eviction rates — ensuring your caching layer operates at peak efficiency.
What Can It Monitor?
- Cache Hit Ratio — Percentage of requests served from cache vs misses
- Get Hits / Get Misses — Counts of successful and failed cache lookups
- Used Memory — RAM consumed by cached items
- Max Memory — Configured memory limit
- Current Connections — Active client connections
- Total Connections — Cumulative connection count since start
- Evictions — Items removed from cache due to memory pressure
- Current Items — Number of items currently stored in cache
- Bytes Read / Written — Network throughput
- CMD Get / CMD Set — Rate of get and set operations
- Uptime — How long the Memcached instance has been running
Prerequisites
- Memcached installed and running on your server
- Xitogent agent installed
- Memcached stats endpoint accessible locally (default port:
11211)
No additional configuration or plugins are required.
How to Activate the Integration
Prefer the panel? You don't need the CLI for this step. In Xitoring, open the server, go to Integrations, choose Memcached, fill in the same details, and click Enable. See enabling integrations from the Xitoring panel. The CLI steps below still work if you script your setup.
Run the Xitogent CLI:
xitogent integrate
Select Memcached from the list of available integrations. When prompted, provide the Memcached host and port (default: 127.0.0.1:11211).
Xitogent connects and begins collecting statistics automatically.
Setting Up Triggers
Available trigger parameters:
- Cache Hit Ratio
- Used Memory / Max Memory
- Current Connections
- Evictions
- Current Items
- CMD Get / CMD Set rates
- Bytes Read / Written
Navigate to Triggers on your server page, select Memcached, choose a metric, set your threshold, and configure notification channels.
Tips
- Monitor Cache Hit Ratio — it should stay above 90% for effective caching
- Set alerts on Evictions — frequent evictions mean you need more memory
- Track Used Memory relative to Max Memory to plan capacity
- Watch Current Connections to detect connection leaks from application code
- A dropping Current Items count with stable traffic may indicate memory pressure