You run MariaDB on GCE VMs and need metrics (network connections, disk IO, replication status) in Stackdriver with minimal development. What should you install/configure?

Installing the Stackdriver Agent (now Cloud Monitoring agent) and configuring its MySQL plugin is the most straightforward and minimal-development approach. The agent is designed to collect system and application metrics, including those for MariaDB (which is MySQL-compatible), and automatically send them to Cloud Monitoring. The OpenCensus Agent requires custom development for metric collection and export, which is not minimal. Placing instances in an Instance Group with a Health Check monitors VM health, not detailed MariaDB application metrics. The Stackdriver Logging Agent collects logs, not metrics, and configuring fluentd for logs won't provide the requested performance metrics like network connections or disk I/O directly.