September 2020 Summaries

The InfluxDB 2.0 Release Candidate (RC) is now available for download, marking a significant milestone in its development as it moves towards general availability. This release represents a final version of the software and aims to provide users with almost no breaking changes, while still encouraging feedback and triaging issues through the Slack Community channel. The RC includes several new capabilities, such as support for InfluxQL APIs from the API, InfluxDB Templates in the user interface, faster Flux language performance, and enhanced command line tooling. However, users are advised to exercise caution when upgrading from existing Alpha or Beta versions due to potential breaking changes and the need to migrate data. The RC also brings several known breaking changes, including a change in default port numbers and the removal of certain endpoints. As InfluxDB 2.0 approaches general availability, the community is invited to join the Slack Channel to provide feedback and help build amazing software.

The upcoming Flux Training by InfluxData will be held on October 27-28, 2020, and is designed for individuals looking to learn about IoT-sensor-enabled pizza making using the data scripting and query language Flux. The training aims to empower developers with Flux's point-and-click scripting capabilities, combining the power of InfluxQL and TICKscripts into a single unified syntax. Trained by experienced instructors from InfluxData, including professors from Politecnico di Milano and the University of Tartu, attendees will gain hands-on experience with Flux while discussing its applications in data engineering, analysis, and visualization. The training is part of InfluxDays North America 2020 Virtual Experience and offers a unique opportunity to learn about Flux while enjoying pizza-making sessions and interacting with InfluxDB experts.

As a career changer from music education into software development, Jess Ingrassellino was drawn to InfluxData due to its strong open source community values and commitment to user experience. She was impressed by the company's product, outreach, and community involvement, and felt humbled and excited to be part of a team that develops a solid, dependable, widely used open-source product. Jess looks forward to contributing to the community and learning from her peers, and is eager to experiment with InfluxData technology and see innovative use cases for it.

Cribl will be sponsoring the InfluxDays North America 2020 Virtual Experience, an industry event focused on time series data, and their Lead Evangelist Steve Litras will present on "The Power of Infinite Choice". Cribl is a company that unlocks business value from an enterprise's machine data universe with its flagship product LogStream, which routes security and observability data where it has the most value. The company is active in the InfluxDB community and shares knowledge and expertise with everyone at InfluxDays, making it a great addition to the event lineup.

InfluxDB Cloud is now available on Microsoft Azure East US, located in Virginia, USA, expanding its presence to two continents - Europe and North America, with five locations across three major cloud providers. This expansion brings InfluxDB Cloud's time series data platform to customers seeking storage in the United States, offering effortless scaling, flexible pricing, and integration with Azure time series data. The service can be accessed through a step-by-step sign-up process, and users can customize their experience with tailored code snippets for Azure US East. InfluxDB Cloud integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Azure products, allowing users to ingest data from various sources, including Telegraf, Flux, and SQL databases, and analyze time series data using advanced functions like statistical analysis and forecasting. The service also supports sending alerts to popular messaging platforms and pulling data into custom applications. Additionally, InfluxDB Cloud will soon be available in the Azure Marketplace, allowing users to consolidate their Azure expenses and take advantage of committed use discounts.

To use the InfluxDB CLI with InfluxDB Cloud, users need to install the local InfluxDB 2.0 CLI and obtain authorization parameters such as URL, org, and token for their InfluxDB Cloud account. Once installed, users can create a configuration profile using the `influx config` command and access the Flux REPL by running the `./influx repl` command. Users can also write regular CSV files to InfluxDB Cloud using the `influx write` command, which requires specifying the bucket name, organization, retention policy, and data formats. Additionally, users can switch between different configuration settings using the `influx config` command and exit the Flux REPL session by pressing CMD+D on MacOS or CTRL+D on Linux variants.

This summary highlights key points from a tutorial on using Flux functions in InfluxDB for custom aggregations. The tutorial explains how to use `findRecord()`, `findColumn()`, and `reduce()` functions to extract specific values, perform aggregate calculations, and visualize scalars within the context of time series data. It provides examples and best practices for utilizing these functions to enhance data analysis and visualization in InfluxDB.

Texas Instruments, a company that makes calculators among other electronic systems, uses InfluxDB to monitor and analyze data from its manufacturing processes. Michael Hinkle, a supervisor at Texas Instruments, was impressed by the ease-of-use of InfluxDB after initially using it to monitor his daughter's pulse oximeter. He implemented InfluxDB in his work to improve data-driven decision-making, particularly for understanding production levels and tool utilization. However, he encountered challenges such as data retention policies and integrating with other tools like Grafana, and is now interested in learning more about Flux and advanced analytics.

Telegraf 1.15.3 is a new maintenance release that includes improvements to various plugins, such as Agent, Event Hub Consumer Input, HTTP Listener Input Plugin, Modbus Input, Ping Input, SQL Server Input, and vSphere Input, addressing issues like agent error messages, string conversion errors, and missing cluster names. Additionally, this release enhances the Starlark documentation and adds features for Application Insights Output and Open TSDB Output plugins. The update aims to improve security, extensibility, and overall performance of Telegraf.

The article provides a step-by-step guide on how to send StatsD metrics to Telegraf, which then forwards them to InfluxDB. The use of UDP protocol is discussed as it allows for fast transmission without waiting for responses. A standard setup for collecting StatsD metrics involves installing Telegraf with the statsd plugin and configuring it with the --sample-config option. The article also covers various types of metrics that can be sent, including counters, gauges, timings, and histograms, along with their respective configuration options. Additionally, it highlights the importance of sampling and aggregation in reducing memory footprint while ensuring accurate data collection.

InfluxDB clustering is a high availability and scalability solution for InfluxDB Enterprise, allowing for two separate software processes: data nodes and meta nodes. The meta nodes expose an HTTP API that allows system operators to perform operations on the cluster like adding and removing servers, moving shards around, and other administrative tasks. Data nodes communicate with each other through a TCP Protobuf protocol, while meta nodes use the HashiCorp implementation of Raft as the underlying consensus protocol. For optimal clustering, 3 meta nodes are recommended, with an even number of data nodes that is evenly divisible by the replication factor. Meta nodes hold metadata such as node roles, databases, and retention policies, while data nodes hold raw time series data and metadata.

InfluxData's developer team implemented a Naive Bayes classifier in Flux, a data scripting and query language, to classify Slack incidents. The classifier predicts the probability of an animal being airborne given its aquatic status based on a binary dataset of zoo animals. The implementation utilizes Flux's functional programming capabilities and data-intensive operations. The demo showcases how Flux can be used for machine learning tasks, making it accessible to developers with zero experience in ML or Flux.

InfluxDB is being used by Jeremy White, a Senior Network Automation Consultant, to monitor his 200-gallon salt-water aquariums. He uses InfluxDB's time-series database capabilities to collect data from various sensors, including water temperature, salinity, pH levels, and more. The data is stored in InfluxDB and can be visualized using Grafana. Jeremy has set up automation rules using InfluxDB and Grafana to control aspects of his aquariums, such as turning on fans when the temperature rises above a certain level or adding water when the level drops too low. By monitoring his tanks continuously, Jeremy has been able to identify issues and make adjustments to improve the health and growth of his coral. He plans to use InfluxDB and Grafana to conduct controlled studies on home aquariums and eventually help improve the natural coral reefs by aquaculture.

In today's remote work environment, maintaining company culture is crucial for business continuity, especially during unprecedented times like a pandemic. To foster a positive culture among remote employees, companies can communicate their cultural goals through virtual all-hands meetings, schedule regular meetings and calls to keep everyone informed and valued, celebrate employee milestones and team achievements, host virtual team-building events such as games nights and contests, enjoy shared breaks and meals together, involve employees' families by sharing photos and stories of their "coworkers", and prioritize maintaining a positive culture through ongoing attention and intention.

The InfluxDays Virtual Experience is returning on November 10-11, 2020, offering a lineup of amazing speakers with both live and on-demand sessions on new InfluxDB 2.0 and its ecosystem. The event will be free for all attendees, including those attending for the first time or returning for more. InfluxData has successfully held virtual editions of their conferences in the past, including a record-breaking turnout at their June event, and is using this experience to improve future events. The conference will kick off with Paul Dix, CTO of InfluxData, along with other speakers from InfluxData and its ecosystem, discussing innovations happening in and around InfluxDB, Telegraf, and Flux.

InfluxDB Cloud now offers a usage-based pricing plan that allows customers to control their cloud database spend by fine-tuning their budget based on four vectors of usage: Data In, Queries, Storage, and Data Out. This change aims to provide more flexibility and transparency, allowing users to adjust their spending according to their business needs. The new pricing model eliminates the need for per-server pricing, which can be complex and prone to errors, such as overestimating or underestimating workload profiles. By pricing based on data usage, InfluxDB Cloud encourages customers to store only what they need, reducing wasted budget and making it easier to forecast monthly expenses. The free tier remains available, providing a pace for developers to explore InfluxDB Cloud at their own speed, while the annual plan offers additional discounts and flexibility for businesses with varying usage patterns.