2. Data Collection
Demonstration
Alan Pope - Engineering Manager, InfluxData

3. Discover some of the many data collection options that InfluxDB offers.
This session includes a demonstration of a new feature that allows
users to quickly build custom Telegraf binaries. Telegraf is InfluxDB’s
open source data collection agent that has 300+ plugins.
Alan Pope
Engineering Manager, InfluxData
Alan Pope is an Engineering Manager for Telegraf at
InfluxData. He’s been an active Open Source contributor for
over a decade. Alan previously worked on Ubuntu and in a
past life taught SAP training course. In his spare time, he
presents a long-running podcast with friends. He enjoys
conversations about the intersection of technology and
humanity. Alan loves cats.
Data Collectors Demonstration

4. Agenda
1. Review Data Collection Options
2. Telegraf Custom Build Feature
3. Demo time

5. InfluxDB Platform - Reference Architecture
Data Sources
Application
Workflows
Infrastructure
Insights
Telegraf
Client Libraries
HTTP
Syslog
Kubernetes
Apache Kafka
Python
Arduino
Node.js
JavaScript
Go
Data Systems
Mobile apps
Web apps
Cloud Services
Devices
Sensors
Databases
Networks
Message Queues
APIs
IoT Platforms
CRMs
InfluxDB Platform
IoT
Actions
InfluxDB
Purpose-Built Time Series Database
Visualization, Query & Task Engine
Collect
Downsample
Trigger
Alert
Transform
…
200+ Plugins
20+ Languages
…
New Square
Native Ecosystems
JMeter
NiFi
AWS Kinesis
Azure Event Hubs
GCP PubSub
Java
.NET/C#
PHP
Ruby
Vector
Fluentd

6. Data Collection Options
Agent-based Push (aka Telegraf)
Agentless Pull (aka Scrapers)
Client Libraries
Native/Ecosystem
• 200+ Telegraf plugins
• Regular cadence of releases
• Why use it?
○ No code
○ Large community
○ Lightweight but powerful
○ Customizable
• Prometheus scraper (OSS only)
• Flux prometheus.from
• Flux csv.from(url)
• Why use them?
○ Get data in quickly
○ Doesn’t require agent downloads on
monitoring device
• 7 Libraries: Python, C#, Java, GO,
Javascript/Node.js, Ruby, PHP
• Handles batching, chunking, setting right
headers, etc.
• Why use them?
○ Easy way to get started
○ Need libraries when building custom
applications
• Source system speaks line protocol
• Examples: JMeter, NiFi, Vector, Fluentd
• Influx CLI CSV Import
• Why use them?
○ Know what you want to monitor,
quick and easy integration

7. Multiple InfluxDB Ingestion Options
Native Collectors Telegraf Client Libraries
Scrapers Ecosystem InfluxDB API
Interfaces directly with Cloud
data sources (in this case, MQTT
Brokers)
Offers over 300 plugins to collect
data from many data sources
Available for many popular
development languages: Make
API Calls to write data to
InfluxDB Cloud
Scrape Prometheus-formatted
metrics from an HTTP-accessible
endpoint and store them in
InfluxDB.
Configure third-party
technologies to send line
protocol directly to InfluxDB.
Build your own with the
InfluxDB API, which provides a
programmatic interface for
interactions with InfluxDB

8. Telegraf:
Agent for Collecting Metrics & Events
Plugin-driven server agent
for collecting and reporting
metrics
• Written in Go
• Single Binary, No external
dependencies
• Minimal memory footprint
• Optimized for writing to
InfluxDB
• Optimized for streaming data
Telegraf
HTTP
Syslog
Kubernetes
Apache Kafka
InfluxDB
Purpose-Built Time Series Database
Visualization, Query & Task Engine
Collect
Downsample
Trigger
Alert
Transform
200+ Plugins
AWS Kinesis
Azure Event Hubs
GCP PubSub

9. Telegraf Binary growth
+18Mb AWS EC2 Metadata
processor plugin
+10Mb Aliyuncms
input plugin
+8Mb SQL input plugin

10. Telegraf Custom Builder
make build_tools
./tools/custom_builder/custom_builder
--config ~/telegraf.conf
Enable users to easily build custom Telegraf agents only with
desired plugins

11. How does the custom build
feature work?

12. Demo: Using Telegraf Custom
Build

13. Additional Resources
Free InfluxDB: OSS or Cloud - influxdata.com/cloud
Forums: community.influxdata.com
Slack: influxcommunity.slack.com
Reddit: r/InfluxData
Influx Community (GH): github.com/InfluxCommunity
Book: awesome.influxdata.com
Docs: docs.influxdata.com
Blogs: influxdata.com/blog
InfluxDB University: influxdata.com/university
How-to guides: docs.influxdata.com/resources/how-to-guides/

14. T H A N K Y O U