November 2021 Summaries

The NVIDIA Jetson Series is a powerful tool for building vision AI pipelines that can be used in various applications such as home security systems. In this article, Jay Clifford provides an overview of the NVIDIA DeepStream and its ecosystem of Vision analytics (Tensor RT) and IoT plugins (MQTT, Kafka). The author also discusses how to build a vision AI pipeline using GStreamer components and utilize Telegraf and InfluxDB for further analytics. By leveraging these open-source projects, developers can accelerate their time to develop complex vision AI solutions.

This article introduces time series forecasting with TensorFlow and InfluxDB. Time series data is unique in that it has autocorrelation, meaning data points are correlated with each other. This makes working with time series data for machine learning different compared to other domains. The author explains the use of TensorFlow, an open-source framework for machine learning created by Google, and InfluxDB, a purpose-built database for storing and working with time series data. They also discuss the differences between machine learning models and statistical models in terms of their suitability for forecasting tasks. The article concludes with a discussion on why TensorFlow is a good choice for working with time series data and how InfluxDB can simplify many problems related to data engineering and the overall data pipeline.

This tutorial guides developers on how to use the InfluxDB Go client library for interfacing with an InfluxDB database. It covers setting up a local InfluxDB instance using Docker, connecting to the database from a Go application, and inserting and querying data. The tutorial also discusses best practices such as enabling SSL/TLS encryption and batching data writes. Finally, it provides sample code for testing the integration of a Go application with InfluxDB.

InfluxDB has introduced a new feature called notebook sharing that allows users to share their favorite notebooks with others, even if they don't have an InfluxDB Cloud account. The shared notebook can be viewed for the time range selected by the user who created it. Notebooks are a recently added feature in the InfluxDB UI that make it easy to build Flux queries, add visualizations and explanatory notes, and incorporate queries into tasks or applications.

Telegraf 1.20.4 has been released as a maintenance update with improvements and plugin fixes. The update includes build removals for Modbus Input Plugin on OpenBSD, input plugin updates for Intel RDT, NVIDIA SMI, MySQL, Proxmox, output plugin updates for Loki, and dependency updates for BurntSushi/toml, gosnmp, and go.opentelemetry.io/otel. The latest Telegraf release can be downloaded from the InfluxData website.

The article discusses how to monitor smart home devices with InfluxDB and IFTTT without any coding involved. It explains what IFTTT is and its capabilities, as well as introduces InfluxDB, a time series database that can track metrics and events from devices over time. The author then demonstrates an example of monitoring motion and sound events from Wyze cameras using these two tools. The integration requires no code and involves creating accounts on IFTTT and InfluxDB Cloud, setting up triggers and actions in IFTTT, and sending data to InfluxDB using the Line Protocol. Finally, the author provides a Flux query for aggregating motion events over a 10-minute window and visualizing the results in InfluxDB's Notebook feature.

InfluxData, a leading time series platform creator, will sponsor and exhibit at AWS re:Invent 2021 from November 29-December 3 in Las Vegas. The company's experts will be on hand to discuss how developers are expediting application building with InfluxDB Cloud on AWS. Over 25,000 users now run on AWS, including MuleSoft, Robinhood, and Bboxx.

The article discusses how to monitor internet speed using Telegraf and InfluxDB Cloud. It explains that with the release of Telegraf 1.20, a new internet speed monitoring plugin was introduced to collect download, upload, and latency statistics. The author guides readers through setting up Telegraf and getting data into InfluxDB Cloud for analysis. They also explain how to use features like Notebooks, dashboards, annotations, and alerts in the InfluxDB platform to better understand internet performance. Finally, they suggest using InfluxDB Templates to easily import configurations and dashboards related to internet speed monitoring.

The article discusses how IoT specialists can use InfluxDB's geodata tools to enhance monitoring and response times for emergency generators in remote regions during a power shortage. Geodata is described as comprising two forms of geographical data, spatial and spatial-temporal. The solution involves using Flux to prepare the data and then visualizing it within InfluxDB Cloud's Map panel or Grafana's Geomap panel. The author also proposes a feature request for adding static geodata and suggests a hybrid approach of combining time series and relational storage.

InfluxDB Cloud now supports API Invokable Scripts in Flux, allowing developers to add custom functionality to their time series applications without having to introduce query resources into their client-side services and code. These scripts are parameterized queries hosted and invoked by the InfluxDB Cloud server. Currently, they can only be used with InfluxDB Cloud via the v2 API but will eventually be available in the CLI, User Interface, and InfluxDB OSS v2.x.

Michelle Luu shares her positive experience as a Tech Doc Intern at InfluxData. She highlights the supportive work environment, hands-on experience in technical writing tasks, and remote team building activities that made this internship stand out. The company's efforts to bridge distances between employees through various events contributed significantly to her overall experience.

InfluxDB OSS 2.1.0 has been released with new features such as notebooks, annotations, visualization updates, VS Code Flux Extension, API and CLI updates, token updates, and support for the latest Flux and Telegraf releases. The influx CLI has also been moved to its own GitHub repository.

The InfluxData Community Awards were announced at InfluxDays North America 2021, a virtual event where developers shared their expertise on implementing Telegraf and the InfluxDB platform within organizations. The awards recognize developers who have contributed significantly to the community through blogs, forums, webinars, and other events. This year's winners include Tristan Su (InfluxDB), Sven Rebhan (Telegraf), Desmond Hokin (Flux), Jorge de la Cruz (Community), and Jamie Milton (Founder's Choice). These individuals have made significant contributions to the global InfluxDB community, helping developers worldwide by providing support, speaking at events, and sharing their expertise.

InfluxData is heading to AWS re:Invent at the end of November in Las Vegas. The team will be hosting live demos showcasing how easy it is to build an application on InfluxDB with their developer tools, and attendees can also enter a contest for a chance to win some fun prizes. Additionally, participants can complete a partner passport by visiting all the participating booths for a chance to win a $200 Amazon gift card. The team will be at the AWS Marketplace Pavilion on Tuesday to answer questions about running InfluxDB on AWS and simplifying billing and procurement processes. Lastly, visitors can enter to win $1,000 in AWS credit by visiting their event page.

The Telegraf 1.20.3 release has changed its official DockerHub image to no longer run the Telegraf service as root. This change enhances security given the wide extensibility and array of plugins available in Telegraf, aligning with best practices from both Docker's published guidelines and the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Docker Benchmark. Users may need to modify how they use the Telegraf Docker image due to this change, ensuring that the telegraf user or group has access to any additional required services, sockets, files, etc., for operation.

This tutorial teaches how to use JavaScript and InfluxDB together for reading a data stream, storing it as a time series into InfluxDB, and running queries over the data using InfluxDB's JavaScript client library. The code is available on GitHub. Time series databases like InfluxDB are specialized in handling high-volume streaming data. The tutorial also covers how to install the required libraries, make a connection with InfluxDB, insert data into it, and query data from it. It uses real-world examples of server-side events provided by the Wikimedia Foundation.

The article discusses how to parse JSON data with Telegraf into InfluxDB Cloud. It introduces the new JSON v2 parser in Telegraf 1.19, which offers improvements over the original JSON parser (json_v1). Key enhancements include independent GJSON queries, more verbose but clearer configuration, more control over field types, and control over resulting tag/field names. The article provides a detailed guide on how to configure Telegraf to ingest JSON data using the new parser, including setting up measurements, tags, fields, and objects. It also includes examples of migrating configurations from json_v1 to v2 and additional use cases for the new JSON parser.

Flux, a language for processing time series data, has introduced full time zone support to enable users to perform aggregations within specific time zones. The feature allows for dynamic offsets to account for clock changes due to daylight savings or other reasons. Time zone support can be enabled by importing the timezone package and setting the location option to a desired location. This update aims to provide more accurate data processing and enable new use cases for time series data in Flux.

Will Wilbrink has joined InfluxData as a Technical Support Engineer after spending most of his career in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). He was attracted to InfluxData due to its time series platform, which he saw as an extension of his work in GIS. The interview process impressed him with its straightforward conversation and company values. Wilbrink appreciates the "can do" spirit within the company and is fortunate to have joined the InfluxData team.