March 2020 Summaries

I recently set up a "roll-your-own monitoring" solution with Prometheus, TimescaleDB, and Grafana to monitor my personal projects and critical infrastructure at home. I chose this setup because it allowed me to gather data on how our customers might be using our software and get familiar with TimescaleDB, Postgres, and Grafana. The Prometheus server and exporters are hassle-free to set up, making for a quick and easy solution. I was able to compress my Prometheus data using TimescaleDB's native compression feature, which resulted in a 99% space savings. This allows me to retain months worth of data without significant storage usage, enabling me to see much longer usage patterns. The setup generates about 3.5GB of raw data every day, but with compression, I can reduce this amount by 99%.

The Timescale Cloud team member is passionate about using public data and open datasets to gain insight into the world around them. They have experience with public data, including COVID-19, and are looking for creative ways to surface public datasets and the energy around them. A new Virtual Meetup called DataPub has been launched, where community members can share their projects, learn from each other, and discover new technology along the way. The meetup will feature guest speakers who will demo projects using public datasets, data scientists explaining how to analyze and use data, and technology companies showcasing new ways to ingest, store, visualize, or analyze information. The inaugural session is scheduled for March 31st and will be recorded for those unable to attend.