April 2019 Summaries

Announcing Speakers and Agenda for InfluxDays London 2019` InfluxDays is coming to London on June 13-14, featuring a lineup of speakers from organizations such as Worldsensing and Playtech, alongside InfluxData team members, who will be hosting hands-on technical workshops and sharing updates on the future of InfluxDB 2.0 and Flux. Attendees can expect to learn about real-world time series use cases, best practices for optimizing DevOps infrastructure, and how to get the most out of their data with InfluxData. The event will also feature talks from guest speakers, including a presentation on creating the PromQL transpiler for Flux, a real-world use case for Flux, and using the Open Source OPC-UA client and server for IoT solutions.

The author of the text describes a situation where a website's x509 certificate expired, causing issues with online access. The author highlights the importance of monitoring x509 certificates and introduces Telegraf's `inputs.x509_cert` plugin as a solution to easily collect and send metrics about these certificates. With this plugin, users can configure alerts for certificate expiration using simple queries in InfluxDB.

A new maintenance release for Chronograf is now available, featuring a fix for an issue with meta queries and Flux compatibility in Chronograf 1.7.11.

Time series databases are being touted as a solution to handle the vast amounts of data generated by IoT devices, which can produce dozens of data streams per device. These databases are designed specifically to ingest, store, and query time series data, which differs from other types of data. The growing need for efficient management of this type of data has led to an increase in awareness and a new category of database vendors that specialize in time series databases, resulting in significant growth in the market over the past 24 months.

InfluxData CEO Evan Kaplan discusses time series databases in a Cloudcast podcast, highlighting why companies choose them, common use cases, and how business goals align with database patterns. He offers insights into the differences between time series and relational databases, choosing the right platform for enterprises, and mixing open-source and paid offerings. Through the conversation, Kaplan shares valuable information on translating business demands to developer capabilities.

InfluxDB OSS and Chronograf have released new maintenance updates, addressing critical issues such as unresponsiveness when using the inmem index and a security vulnerability related to shared secrets. The InfluxDB 1.7.6 release includes enhancements for Flux queries, while the Chronograf 1.7.10 release improves UI functionality and resolves issues with Prometheus read API and dashboard cell editing. These updates are available for download by community members.

Telegraf, a popular monitoring and logging tool, has released a new maintenance update, Telegraf 1.10.3, which includes several improvements to its plugins. The updates enhance the Agent plugin by setting log directory attributes in the RPM specification, and the Prometheus Client Output plugin now allows colons in metric names. Additionally, users can find the latest binaries for this release on the Telegraf downloads page.

InfluxDB has released its new version, 2.0 Alpha 8, with several enhancements including a redesigned navigation to improve user experience, the ability to import templates for Dashboards and a "Getting Started with Flux" template, as well as updates to the Flux library. This alpha build is intended for feedback on functionality and user experience rather than performance or production usage. Users can provide feedback and opt-in to user testing sessions from within the application. The latest release can be downloaded and explored at the InfluxDB Github Repo or Community Site.

InfluxData is hosting InfluxDays London 2019, an event that promises to be exciting for users of time series technology. The company's CTO and founder Paul Dix will lead a workshop on the new features in InfluxDB 2.0, which has been the biggest enhancement since its release in 2015. Attendees can also expect to meet people from all over Europe who are using InfluxData, as well as get hands-on experience with time series technology through interactive workshops. The event is designed to foster a sense of community among users, with opportunities for attendees to share experiences and find others near them to create local events throughout the year.

InfluxData has announced a new partnership with Google Cloud to host its time series database InfluxDB, which is one of the most popular open source databases. The explosion of machine data from various sources has created new use cases demanding time series analysis. To address this, InfluxDB 2.0 introduces a built-in data scripting and query language called Flux, which aims to decouple the query language from the database, providing a solution for community growth.

The partnership between InfluxData and Google Cloud aims to provide a streamlined user experience for users of the open source time series database InfluxDB on the Google Cloud Platform. This integration will enable Google Cloud customers to access InfluxDB Cloud 2.0 directly through the Google Cloud Marketplace or via the enterprise sales team, offering a more convenient and efficient way to manage their data processing needs. The growing demand for time series databases due to the increasing amount of data being generated is driving this partnership, with IDC predicting that 30 percent of global data will be consumed in real-time by 2025. By partnering with InfluxData, Google Cloud is expanding its availability and distribution of InfluxDB to better serve its customers' growing needs for time series database solutions.

Google Cloud has introduced an Open Source Partnership Program that makes other developers of popular open source technologies first-class citizens in its cloud ecosystem. The partnership includes InfluxData, the creator of time series database InfluxDB. This program is seen as a strategic move by Google to engage with leading open source vendors and build a platform around their solutions. Seven inaugural ISVs are participating in this program, offering solutions at the forefront of their categories.

Google is partnering with open-source companies to compete with Amazon in the cloud, rather than competing directly with them. This approach allows Google Cloud to tap into the expertise and resources of these businesses while also expanding its own offerings. In this context, Google has partnered with InfluxData, a startup that commercializes the open-source time series database InfluxDB. By working with open-source companies, Google aims to gain a competitive edge in the cloud market without directly competing with Amazon's own offerings.

InfluxDays NYC 2019 was a highly successful event that brought together community members, speakers, and attendees for two days of talks, workshops, and networking opportunities. The event featured various talks on the future and vision of InfluxData's platform, monitoring journeys, and product showcases, as well as hands-on workshops covering topics like Flux queries, InfluxDB 2.0, and architecting for disaster recovery. The event was livestreamed, allowing attendees from around the world to participate remotely. A similar event, InfluxDays 2019 London, is scheduled for June 13-14, 2019, with registration open and tickets available at a discounted price of £199 with promo code BLOG.

InfluxData experienced continued growth in the first quarter of 2019, achieving record momentum after a successful 2018. The company saw significant new business wins and product enhancements, with over 200K daily active open source instances and 500 customers on board. InfluxDB continued to lead the time series database category, while the company made several key hires and announced $60 million in Series D funding. New partnerships were formed with VMware and DigitalOcean, expanding InfluxData's offerings and reach. The company also received recognition as one of the "Top 25 IoT Startups to Watch In 2019" by Forbes.

InfluxData has launched a public Influx Community Slack workspace, offering a new platform for its open source projects and community members to engage and stay informed. The Slack workspace complements existing community initiatives such as forums, Subreddit, and social media profiles, providing a dedicated space for discussions and collaboration on projects like InfluxDB, Telegraf, Flux, V2, Meetups, and Community Support. A public invite is available for joining the workspace, and users can request access by filling out an invitation form or emailing `@influxdata.com`. The new Slack workspace aims to foster a productive community environment while encouraging participation and engagement among its members.

Telegraf, a popular monitoring and alerting tool, has released its 1.10.2 version with several improvements and bug fixes in various plugins such as Agent, Ceph Input, DiskIO Input, File Output, Grok Parser, InfluxDB v2 Output, Prometheus Input, Prometheus Client Output, and StatsD Input.

Telegraf is a server agent for collecting and reporting metrics, and its File Input Plugin can be used to write points from CSV files to InfluxDB. To use this plugin, you need Telegraf 1.8.0 or higher and InfluxDB 1.7.0 or higher installed on your system. You create a Telegraf config file with the appropriate input and output plugins, specifying the target database for your CSV data and configuring the parser to exclude unwanted rows and columns. After editing the config file, you run Telegraf with the new configuration and verify that the data is successfully ingested into InfluxDB. The process allows for efficient bulk imports of familiar data into InfluxDB, making it easier to get acquainted with the platform.