diff --git a/ansible/roles/monasca/defaults/main.yml b/ansible/roles/monasca/defaults/main.yml
index a95acc25a3..8e80bdb5ea 100644
--- a/ansible/roles/monasca/defaults/main.yml
+++ b/ansible/roles/monasca/defaults/main.yml
@@ -123,6 +123,7 @@ monasca_periodic_notifications_period: 60
 # the total number of threads across all instances of a service does not
 # exceed the Kafka topic partition count.
 monasca_log_pipeline_threads: 2
+monasca_metric_pipeline_threads: 2
 
 ####################
 # Docker
diff --git a/ansible/roles/monasca/templates/monasca-persister/persister.conf.j2 b/ansible/roles/monasca/templates/monasca-persister/persister.conf.j2
index 2610c5b49f..ac0681a4dd 100644
--- a/ansible/roles/monasca/templates/monasca-persister/persister.conf.j2
+++ b/ansible/roles/monasca/templates/monasca-persister/persister.conf.j2
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ num_processors = 1
 [kafka_metrics]
 uri = {{ monasca_kafka_servers }}
 topic = {{ monasca_metrics_topic }}
-num_processors = 1
+num_processors = {{ monasca_metric_pipeline_threads }}
 
 [zookeeper]
 uri = {{ monasca_zookeeper_servers }}