April 2020 Summaries

Telemetry has become increasingly important for organizations to gain visibility into fleet vehicle usage, helping them optimize their use of company cars while also tracking employee movements. WayKonect, a startup acquired by French oil company Total, uses telematics data from fleet vehicles processed in a cloud platform rooted in InfluxDB and Neo4J databases. This allows companies to better manage their fleets and reduce costs, making telemetry a valuable tool for optimizing fleet car usage.

InfluxData has expanded its presence in the Asia-Pacific region through new partnerships with Digital China and Hyundai BS&C, which will support increased demand for InfluxDB across the region. The company aims to empower local users and customers to leverage time series data for faster, more scalable monitoring, analytics, and IoT applications. With these partnerships, InfluxData is well-positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for time series platforms in APAC, driven by instrumentation of systems and applications, and the proliferation of IoT devices, resulting in exponential growth of data volumes over the next several years.

A new maintenance release for Telegraf version 1.14.2 is now available, addressing several improvements including plugin updates such as SQL Server Input, AWS Cloudwatch Input, SNMP Input, Elasticsearch Input, Kapacitor Input, Azure Monitor Output, and InfluxDB Output, with fixes for issues related to string conversion, metric limits, shard indices, and more.

InfluxDB Enterprise 1.8.0 is now available, marking the first official release of the 1.8 line, which builds upon the latest InfluxDB OSS release. This release includes Flux v0.65, a feature-bearing release that delivers on long-standing feature requests for InfluxDB, including join data, mathematical operations, string manipulation, and grouping capabilities. Additionally, this release provides forward compatibility with InfluxDB 2.0 API endpoints, allowing users to leverage the new client libraries while preparing for a potential move to InfluxDB 2.0 Cloud. Exclusive features in InfluxDB Enterprise include meta-data backup and restore functionality. Users can download the binaries from the InfluxDB Enterprise portal or contact support for more information.

InfluxDB Templates offer a way for experts to share their monitoring expertise with others in their organization by encapsulating configuration settings into a single YAML file that can be easily shared and imported into InfluxDB. This allows developers to comprehensively define how to monitor a piece of technology, saving time for experts who are continually asked to help set up monitoring. The templates are open-source, licensed under the Apache 2 license, and can be contributed to by the community, making it easier to track changes and improvements over time. InfluxDB Templates also align with larger trends such as GitOps, DevOps, and observability, allowing organizations to extend their observability across their entire organization. With InfluxDB Templates, developers can build and share comprehensive monitoring configurations in a fast and easy-to-consume format.

A new release of InfluxDB 2.0 Beta is available now, featuring enhancements such as improved Flux editor autocompletion, updated influx command line tool with respect for environment variables, and a new version of Flux v0.66.1, which includes fixes and a new alignTime function. The release is not intended for production usage but rather for testing and feedback purposes, and users are encouraged to join the InfluxDB Community Slack to provide input on the functionality, user experience, and APIs.

Kapacitor and Kapacitor Enterprise have released version 1.5.5, which includes updates such as improved security by switching from MD5 to SHA-256 for package validation, and enhanced logging of errors when communicating with Kafka. The binaries are available on the InfluxDB downloads page for open source users, and through the InfluxDB Enterprise portal for Enterprise customers. Users can report issues or ask questions on the Kapacitor GitHub Repo or the InfluxDB Community Slack channel.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented significant challenges for developers worldwide, with many working from home and facing new struggles and concerns as a result. According to an InfluxData survey, the majority of developers are adapting to remote work, but some struggle with isolation, communication breakdowns, and maintaining productivity. The survey found that many developers are taking proactive steps to stay organized, such as using tools like Kapacitor and Chronograf, and leveraging cloud-based services like Azure and GCP. Despite these efforts, the pandemic has also highlighted the importance of community support and collaboration among developers, with many seeking advice on how to navigate the challenges of remote work. Overall, the survey provides valuable insights into the experiences of developers during this critical period.

Developers from around the world reported a shift towards remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with 91% working from home full-time. Many had experience with remote work before the pandemic and were able to adapt quickly. However, many developers reported feeling less productive and struggling with loneliness and isolation. Despite these challenges, they shared tips for maintaining productivity while working from home, such as establishing a routine and staying connected with others. The pandemic has also led to changes in daily routines, including working later into the evenings and exercising more.

InfluxData is proud to announce a 100% free virtual InfluxDays Conference, which will take place on June 23-24, featuring sessions from industry experts and developers on time series data and InfluxDB. The event was originally scheduled for London but shifted to a virtual format due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with attendees who had already registered in-person receiving full refunds. The conference will be led by InfluxData's CTO, Paul Dix, and feature presentations from companies like Basefarm, Volvo, and BAI on leveraging time series data to gain new insights and improve applications. The virtual event will utilize Slack and Zoom platforms, allowing attendees to view presentations live, ask questions, and participate in conversations.

Apache Arrow, Parquet, Flight, and their ecosystem are a game-changer for OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) systems by providing interoperability between projects, massive performance gains for pushing and pulling data in and out of big data systems, and a common data API. The Arrow specification is an in-memory columnar data format designed to take advantage of modern CPU architectures, while Parquet is a compressed on-disk data format that has become ubiquitous as an accepted format for input and output within big data systems. Flight is a framework for fast data transport that defines a gRPC API for shipping Arrow Array data wrapped in FlatBuffers to describe metadata like schema, dictionaries, and breaks between record batches. The ecosystem offers tools for querying fast, in-memory data with great performance, in-process in the language of choice, and potential integrations with other systems to support tasks like data science and distributed query execution. Despite some early stages in maturity, these projects represent a set of tools that can be used to build interoperable components for data science, analytics, and working with data at scale, potentially disrupting the OLAP ecosystem with increased interoperability and new design requirements for systems to run in environments like Kubernetes.

InfluxDB 1.8.0 has been released with several key features, including Flux v0.65 for interactive query within the database, direct access through API and InfluxCLI, join data across multiple measurements, buckets, or data sources, and support for geohashes and geo-temporal data in an experimental state. The release also includes operational improvements such as custom HTTP endpoint connection using -url-prefix, offline series compaction capability, and security enhancements like TLS 1.3 configuration and bound parameter support. Additionally, the InfluxDB Enterprise 1.8 release will be tested within the InfluxDB Cloud environment first before being released later this month.

The InfluxDB Go Client is a powerful tool for building applications with fast data fetching capabilities and easy binary deployment. To use the client, you need to install it by adding `github.com/influxdata/influxdb-client-go/v2` to your project dependencies and import the necessary packages. The client requires authorization parameters such as Bucket Name or ID, Token, and Org, which can be gathered from InfluxDB v2 UI or executed using influx commands. The client provides two write APIs: WriteAPIBlocking for synchronous, blocking writes and WriteAPI for asynchronous, non-blocking writes. It also has methods for writing time series data points and querying InfluxDB v2 server. The client is easy to get started with and provides various options for customization and control over the data fetching process.

Telegraf 1.14.1 has been released with several improvements, including fixes for performance issues in the SQLServer Input Plugin, PHP-FPM Input Plugin, Prometheus Output Plugin, InfluxDB Output Plugin, and Template Processor Plugin. The latest release is now available on the InfluxData downloads page.

This is a maintenance release for Chronograf, which replaces the previous version due to an issue with table graph rendering. The new version includes enhancements such as improved API security and fixes for issues like news feed loading and data formatting in table cells. The latest releases can be downloaded by community members, and support or community forums are available for assistance.

To get started with JavaScript and InfluxDB 2.0, users can use the InfluxDB v2 JavaScript Client Library to perform data collection, write points, query data, and monitor database health. The library requires authorization parameters such as org, bucket, and token, which can be obtained from the InfluxDB UI or created through the InfluxDB console. The client library supports various data formatting methods, including writing line protocol data to InfluxDB and querying data using Flux queries. Additionally, the library includes examples for onboarding users, performing health checks, and visualizing time series data with Giraffe and Clockface.

A new release of InfluxDB 2.0 Beta is available now, offering enhancements such as improved query management with added command line flags, a revamped navigation menu for quicker access to frequently used features, and various UI bug fixes and enhancements. This beta release is not intended for production usage but rather for feedback from the community on functionality, user experience, and APIs. The development team invites users to join their InfluxDB Community Slack channel to provide input and report any issues or questions they may have with the latest release.

In a recent article on Information-Age.com, Aaron Hurst outlines the importance of automating the six Cs of DevOps: continuous business planning, collaborative development, continuous testing, continuous release and deployment, continuous monitoring, and collaborative customer feedback and optimization. To achieve this, organizations are advised to start with release and deployment automation, continuously test releases and deployments, prioritize accuracy over trust, automate testing across multiple stages, identify and eradicate potential barriers, and monitor application performance. By following these principles, organizations can effectively implement the six Cs of DevOps and improve their overall development and delivery processes.

InfluxDB is now available in Google Cloud Marketplace, offering a rich set of integrations with Google Cloud services, including monitoring, IoT core, Pub/Sub, and AI Platform. The platform provides benefits such as consolidated billing, pain-free reporting, streamlined purchasing, budget friendliness, and streamlined support. InfluxDB on Google Cloud Marketplace offers usage-based pricing, allowing customers to only pay for what they use, without the hassle of picking a big enough machine or migrating data from one machine to another. Additionally, customers can access $300 in free credits to get a feel for their production usage costs. The platform is now available for both InfluxDB Cloud and InfluxDB Enterprise, with various pricing options.

April 5th is a special holiday for all Trekkies out in the universe, celebrating First Contact Day and all things Star Trek. This day marks 43 years from now when Zefram Cochrane will make first contact with an alien species at warp speed. The year is 2063, and planes are only capable of traveling at the speed of sound, making this achievement significant. On that day, Captain Picard's crew will attempt to stop the Borg from altering the timeline by stopping humans from meeting Vulcans. To preserve the timeline, they must destroy the Borg sphere, ensuring first contact with Vulcans still occurs. The Temporal Prime Directive allows Star Fleet crews to intervene when necessary, and this event is crucial for the establishment of the United Federation of Planets or Star Fleet. Various characters in the Star Trek universe will celebrate First Contact Day, including Captain Janeway, who points out that as a child, it was just a day off from school. The Vulcan who greets Zefram Cochrane is believed to be Spock's grandfather. InfluxData celebrates First Contact Day by asking users about their favorite species in the Star Trek universe and provides fun facts about Gene Roddenberry's wife Majel Barrett and King Abdullah II, a Trekkie who guest-starred in a 1996 episode of "Star Trek: Voyager". The article also includes a review of the new TV show "Star Trek Picard", which explores Captain Jean-Luc Picard's final days on his family's vineyard in France.