January 2022 Summaries

This article guides readers through creating data visualizations with InfluxDB and plotly.js, a JavaScript graphing library built on top of d3.js and stack.gl. To get started, users set up an instance of InfluxDB on their local machines, query data from the database using Node/Express and the influx-js client library, and then use plotly.js to create custom time series visualizations. The article provides a step-by-step approach to creating interactive plots with multiple lines and colors, including a compass-style chart for displaying wind sensor data.

InfluxDB Cloud has introduced a new feature that makes it easier to know when data is rejected due to invalid syntax or other errors. When writing data to InfluxDB Cloud using the command-line influx tool, if there are any issues with the syntax, an error message will be returned, along with information about which point was rejected and why. The rejected points are written to a bucket in the _monitoring bucket under the rejected_points measurement, which provides detailed information including the reason for rejection and the number of rejected points. This feature helps users identify and troubleshoot issues with their data more efficiently. Additionally, the article discusses the importance of line-protocol syntax and has introduced a new formal definition document to clarify areas where different implementations or documentation disagreed previously.

Telegraf 1.21.3 has been released with several updates and fixes for its input plugins, including SNMP, HTTP, OPC-UA, and IPset. The release also includes improvements to the output plugins, such as AMQP, Timestream, Stackdriver, Syslog, and parser plugins like Nagios Parser, JSON v2 Parser, and Wavefront Parser. Additionally, the release updates several dependencies, including grpc, google.golang.org/api, antchfx/xmlquery, nsqio/go-nsq, prometheus/common, cloud.google.com/go/pubsub, influxdata/influxdb-observability/influx2otel, shirou/gopsutil/v3, jackc/pgx/v4, Azure/azure-event-hubs-go/v3, gosnmp/gosnmp, hashicorp/consul/api, antchfx/xpath, and antchfx/jsonquery. Users can download the latest Telegraf release from the InfluxData website and report any issues or questions to the InfluxDB Community Slack channel.

Algist Bruggeman, a Belgian company that supplies yeast to various industries, partnered with Factry to implement a digital factory built on open source technologies, including InfluxDB. The new system automatically loads recipe data from ERP systems and SCADA servers, eliminating manual intervention and creating gaps for input errors. The company now collects granular data from PLCs and sends it to InfluxDB at 1 Hz resolution, providing greater observability into production processes, deeper insights that drive optimization, and better quality control. This shift has also brought unexpected benefits such as efficient material requirements planning, predictive maintenance, and anomaly detection, ultimately transforming industrial fermentation with the power of time series data and open source technologies like InfluxDB.

Kapacitor 1.6.3 has been released with several enhancements, including security improvements, TICKscript updates, and extensibility additions. The new version deprecates weak ciphers as part of the sweet32 attack, while also introducing configuration options for BigPanda and Alerta event handlers. Additionally, Kapacitor now supports custom attributes in its alert configuration group, allows adjusting topic queue length, and includes improved error messages associated with Flux-based tasks. These updates are made possible by an upgraded Golang library and provide compatibility with a new library. The release is available for download on the InfluxDB downloads page.

As a seasoned Account Executive in the IT & Cloud space, I was drawn to InfluxData because of its unique company culture, strong market fit for time series databases, and effective product, particularly InfluxDB. The company's emphasis on work-life balance and community engagement resonated with me, as did the level of technical expertise displayed by both employees and customers. With a growing demand for time series databases in IoT and other industries, I believed that joining InfluxData would allow me to be part of a winning team on an inspiring mission.

This tutorial teaches how to use Flux query language to enrich time series data stored in InfluxDB by combining it with metadata stored in a relational database like PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon RDS, Microsoft SQL Server, SQLite, or Google BigQuery. The tutorial provides an example of joining relation and time series data using the air sensor sample dataset provided by InfluxDB. It also discusses real-world use cases for combining external data with InfluxDB, such as enhancing data visualizations, creating more flexible dashboards or templates, and creating alerts based on external data. Finally, it suggests additional resources for readers who want to get a deeper understanding of InfluxDB and Flux.

This article provides best practices for configuring and monitoring Telegraf, an open-source data collection tool used in observability systems. It covers maintaining large configuration files, naming plugins, using tags, routing plugins, bucket tagging, sensitive configuration parameters, new config debugging, improving Telegraf's efficiency, and remote monitoring. The author also discusses the use of multiple Telegraf instances for increased durability.

Volvo faced challenges with its legacy DevOps monitoring solution that failed to produce actionable data for developers due to outdated or inaccurate thresholds. The company's DevOps Enablement team developed a new monitoring and alerting solution using InfluxDB, Telegraf, and Grafana. This new system provides more accurate and actionable data, proactive alerting, and greater transparency for the entire development team. By granting wide access to the new monitoring system, Volvo improved monitoring transparency, increased developer accountability, and streamlined development processes, making it easier and more effective for developers to build and deploy code.

HighByte, an industrial software company, has partnered with InfluxData to provide critical data for manufacturers transitioning from Industry 3.0 to Industry 4.0 environments. The collaboration aims to bridge the gap between differing architectures in Industry 3.0 and 4.0, as well as Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) approaches to data infrastructure. HighByte's Intelligence Hub enables industrial operators to create models or profiles of their equipment, products, and processes, while InfluxDB serves as a time series database for storing and processing all this industrial data. The partnership allows manufacturers to achieve better observability and deeper insights into manufacturing operations and overall equipment efficiency (OEE).

Texas Instruments is utilizing InfluxDB to monitor its manufacturing operation and detect issues before they become costly. The company's Probe Engineering and Manufacturing Supervisor, Michael Hinkle, discovered InfluxDB while searching for a way to identify and troubleshoot problems in real-time on the production line. Texas Instruments designs, manufactures, tests, and sells semiconductors that power many high-tech instruments and appliances. With upwards of 1,000 different signals of potential trouble to monitor, the end goal is to build apps that can surface only the critical issues and eventually, take action themselves.

Telegraf, an open-source server agent for collecting metrics from various sources, has released a new version (v1.21.2) that includes support for Apple's M1-based systems and the RISC-V architecture. The updated version offers downloads for macOS ARM64 to support Apple M1 devices and Linux riscv64 binary along with pre-built DEB and RPM packages for easy installation on RISC-V systems.

InfluxDB Cloud has updated its API tokens UI to conform with industry best practices for token generation and retrieval. After generating a token, users must immediately store it in a secure vault of their choosing. The token value itself becomes hidden after initial viewing, but other information such as creation date, creator, last usage, and permissions remain visible. Users can now create all-access or custom API tokens by selecting any combination of resources within the InfluxDB Cloud user interface. They can also filter across buckets, Telegraf configurations, and other resources using a search box on the creation and edit overlays.

This tutorial teaches how to create a custom data visualization with ReactJS using the Recharts charting library to display time series data stored with InfluxDB. The author explains what Recharts and InfluxDB are, provides an overview of their features, and then demonstrates how to use them together in a practical example. The tutorial covers setting up InfluxDB, installing project requirements, writing data to InfluxDB, querying data from InfluxDB, and visualizing the data with Recharts. It also suggests ways to extend the project for further learning.

This article discusses best practices for designing effective dashboards in software applications. It emphasizes the importance of user-first design, understanding the types of dashboards (operational, analytical, strategic), and following fundamental design principles such as color design, removing unnecessary elements, using proportions, and not distorting reality. The article also provides dashboard design best practices including information hierarchy, consistent layout, providing context, adhering to the 5-second rule, and ensuring performance optimization.

InfluxData has released Telegraf 1.21.2 with support for M1 MacOS and RISC-V Linux builds. The update includes several SNMP plugin bug fixes, as well as arm64 MacOS builds and RISC-V64 Linux builds. Additionally, the release features numerous changes to CircleCI config to ensure more timely completion and clearer execution flow.

AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that enables running code without managing servers. It provides autoscaling and billing based on compute time usage. Common use cases include file processing, stream processing, and acting as a backend for web and mobile applications. AWS Lambda functions can be invoked by external HTTP requests or events triggered by over 200 different AWS services. To simplify monitoring of AWS Lambda functions with InfluxDB, a pre-built template has been created that makes getting Lambda function metrics into InfluxDB straightforward. This article explains what InfluxDB Templates are and how to set up the AWS Lambda Template.

This tutorial demonstrates how to set up InfluxDB with a sample Ruby application. It covers the installation of InfluxDB on a local machine, integration with Ruby using the influxdb-client-ruby package, and basic database operations such as inserting data and reading data through the InfluxDB UI or from a Ruby script. The tutorial also provides tips for optimizing the use of InfluxDB library in Ruby applications.