AMQP and Thanos Integration

Input and output integration overview

The AMQP Consumer Input Plugin allows you to ingest data from an AMQP 0-9-1 compliant message broker, such as RabbitMQ, enabling seamless data collection for monitoring and analytics purposes.

This plugin sends metrics from Telegraf to Thanos using the Prometheus remote write protocol over HTTP, allowing efficient and scalable ingestion into Thanos Receive components.

Integration details

AMQP

This plugin provides a consumer for use with AMQP 0-9-1, a prominent implementation of which is RabbitMQ. AMQP, or Advanced Message Queuing Protocol, was originally developed to enable reliable, interoperable messaging between diverse systems in a network. The plugin reads metrics from a topic exchange using a configured queue and binding key, delivering a flexible and efficient means of collecting data from AMQP-compliant messaging systems. This enables users to leverage existing RabbitMQ implementations to monitor their applications effectively by capturing detailed metrics for analysis and alerting.

Thanos

Telegraf’s HTTP plugin can send metrics directly to Thanos via its Remote Write-compatible Receive component. By setting the data format to prometheusremotewrite, Telegraf can serialize metrics into the same protobuf-based format used by native Prometheus clients. This setup enables high-throughput, low-latency metric ingestion into Thanos, facilitating centralized observability at scale. It is particularly useful in hybrid environments where Telegraf is collecting metrics from systems outside Prometheus’ native reach, such as SNMP devices, Windows hosts, or custom apps, and streams them directly to Thanos for long-term storage and global querying.

Configuration

AMQP

[[inputs.amqp_consumer]]
  ## Brokers to consume from.  If multiple brokers are specified a random broker
  ## will be selected anytime a connection is established.  This can be
  ## helpful for load balancing when not using a dedicated load balancer.
  brokers = ["amqp://localhost:5672/influxdb"]

  ## Authentication credentials for the PLAIN auth_method.
  # username = ""
  # password = ""

  ## Name of the exchange to declare.  If unset, no exchange will be declared.
  exchange = "telegraf"

  ## Exchange type; common types are "direct", "fanout", "topic", "header", "x-consistent-hash".
  # exchange_type = "topic"

  ## If true, exchange will be passively declared.
  # exchange_passive = false

  ## Exchange durability can be either "transient" or "durable".
  # exchange_durability = "durable"

  ## Additional exchange arguments.
  # exchange_arguments = { }
  # exchange_arguments = {"hash_property" = "timestamp"}

  ## AMQP queue name.
  queue = "telegraf"

  ## AMQP queue durability can be "transient" or "durable".
  queue_durability = "durable"

  ## If true, queue will be passively declared.
  # queue_passive = false

  ## Additional arguments when consuming from Queue
  # queue_consume_arguments = { }
  # queue_consume_arguments = {"x-stream-offset" = "first"}

  ## A binding between the exchange and queue using this binding key is
  ## created.  If unset, no binding is created.
  binding_key = "#"

  ## Maximum number of messages server should give to the worker.
  # prefetch_count = 50

  ## Max undelivered messages
  ## This plugin uses tracking metrics, which ensure messages are read to
  ## outputs before acknowledging them to the original broker to ensure data
  ## is not lost. This option sets the maximum messages to read from the
  ## broker that have not been written by an output.
  ##
  ## This value needs to be picked with awareness of the agent's
  ## metric_batch_size value as well. Setting max undelivered messages too high
  ## can result in a constant stream of data batches to the output. While
  ## setting it too low may never flush the broker's messages.
  # max_undelivered_messages = 1000

  ## Timeout for establishing the connection to a broker
  # timeout = "30s"

  ## Auth method. PLAIN and EXTERNAL are supported
  ## Using EXTERNAL requires enabling the rabbitmq_auth_mechanism_ssl plugin as
  ## described here: https://www.rabbitmq.com/plugins.html
  # auth_method = "PLAIN"

  ## Optional TLS Config
  # tls_ca = "/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
  ## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

  ## Content encoding for message payloads, can be set to
  ## "gzip", "identity" or "auto"
  ## - Use "gzip" to decode gzip
  ## - Use "identity" to apply no encoding
  ## - Use "auto" determine the encoding using the ContentEncoding header
  # content_encoding = "identity"

  ## Maximum size of decoded message.
  ## Acceptable units are B, KiB, KB, MiB, MB...
  ## Without quotes and units, interpreted as size in bytes.
  # max_decompression_size = "500MB"

  ## Data format to consume.
  ## Each data format has its own unique set of configuration options, read
  ## more about them here:
  ## https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/blob/master/docs/DATA_FORMATS_INPUT.md
  data_format = "influx"

Thanos

[[outputs.http]]
  ## Thanos Receive endpoint for remote write
  url = "http://thanos-receive.example.com/api/v1/receive"

  ## HTTP method
  method = "POST"

  ## Data format set to Prometheus remote write
  data_format = "prometheusremotewrite"

  ## Optional headers (authorization, etc.)
  # [outputs.http.headers]
  #   Authorization = "Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"

  ## Optional TLS configuration
  # tls_ca = "/path/to/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/path/to/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/path/to/key.pem"
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

  ## Request timeout
  timeout = "10s"

Input and output integration examples

AMQP

1. Integrating Application Metrics with AMQP: Use the AMQP Consumer plugin to gather application metrics that are published to a RabbitMQ exchange. By configuring the plugin to listen to specific queues, teams can gain insights into application performance, track request rates, error counts, and latency metrics, all in real-time. This setup not only aids in anomaly detection but also provides valuable data for capacity planning and system optimization.

2. Event-Driven Monitoring: Configure the AMQP Consumer to trigger specific monitoring events whenever certain conditions are met within an application. For instance, if a message indicating a high error rate is received, the plugin can feed this data into monitoring tools, generating alerts or scaling events. This integration can improve responsiveness to issues and automate parts of the operations workflow.

3. Cross-Platform Data Aggregation: Leverage the AMQP Consumer plugin to consolidate metrics from various applications distributed across different platforms. By utilizing RabbitMQ as a centralized message broker, organizations can unify their monitoring data, allowing for comprehensive analysis and dashboarding through Telegraf, thus maintaining visibility across heterogeneous environments.

4. Real-Time Log Processing: Extend the use of the AMQP Consumer to capture log data sent to a RabbitMQ exchange, processing logs in real time for monitoring and alerting purposes. This application ensures that operational issues are detected and addressed swiftly by analyzing log patterns, trends, and anomalies as they occur.

Thanos

1. Agentless Cloud Monitoring: Deploy Telegraf agents across cloud VMs to collect system and application metrics, then stream them directly into Thanos using Remote Write. This provides centralized observability without requiring Prometheus nodes at each location.

2. Scalable Windows Host Monitoring: Use Telegraf on Windows machines to collect OS-level metrics and send them via Remote Write to Thanos Receive. This enables observability across heterogeneous environments with native Prometheus support only on Linux.

3. Cross-Region Metrics Federation: Telegraf agents in multiple geographic regions can push data to region-local Thanos Receivers using this plugin. From there, Thanos can deduplicate and query metrics globally, reducing latency and network egress costs.

4. Integrating Third-Party Data into Thanos: Collect metrics from custom telemetry sources such as REST APIs or proprietary logs using Telegraf inputs and forward them to Thanos via Remote Write. This brings non-native data into a Prometheus-compatible, long-term analytics pipeline.

Feedback

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