AWS Data Firehose and Cortex Integration

Input and output integration overview

This plugin listens for metrics sent via HTTP from AWS Data Firehose in supported data formats, providing real-time data ingestion capabilities.

This plugin enables Telegraf to send metrics to Cortex using the Prometheus remote write protocol, allowing seamless ingestion into Cortex’s scalable, multi-tenant time series storage.

Integration details

AWS Data Firehose

The AWS Data Firehose Telegraf plugin is designed to receive metrics from AWS Data Firehose via HTTP. This plugin listens for incoming data in various formats and processes it according to the request-response schema outlined in the official AWS documentation. Unlike standard input plugins that operate on a fixed interval, this service plugin initializes a listener that remains active, waiting for incoming metrics. This allows for real-time data ingestion from AWS Data Firehose, making it suitable for scenarios where immediate data processing is required. Key features include the ability to specify service addresses, paths, and support for TLS connections for secure data transmission. Additionally, the plugin accommodates optional authentication keys and custom tags, enhancing its flexibility in various use cases involving data streaming and processing.

Cortex

With Telegraf’s HTTP output plugin and the prometheusremotewrite data format you can send metrics directly to Cortex, a horizontally scalable, long-term storage backend for Prometheus. Cortex supports multi-tenancy and accepts remote write requests using the Prometheus protobuf format. By using Telegraf as the collection agent and Remote Write as the transport mechanism, organizations can extend observability into sources not natively supported by Prometheus—such as Windows hosts, SNMP-enabled devices, or custom application metrics—while leveraging Cortex’s high-availability and long-retention capabilities.

Configuration

AWS Data Firehose

[[inputs.firehose]]
  ## Address and port to host HTTP listener on
  service_address = ":8080"

  ## Paths to listen to.
  # paths = ["/telegraf"]

  ## maximum duration before timing out read of the request
  # read_timeout = "5s"
  ## maximum duration before timing out write of the response
  # write_timeout = "5s"

  ## Set one or more allowed client CA certificate file names to
  ## enable mutually authenticated TLS connections
  # tls_allowed_cacerts = ["/etc/telegraf/clientca.pem"]

  ## Add service certificate and key
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"

  ## Minimal TLS version accepted by the server
  # tls_min_version = "TLS12"

  ## Optional access key to accept for authentication.
  ## AWS Data Firehose uses "x-amz-firehose-access-key" header to set the access key.
  ## If no access_key is provided (default), authentication is completely disabled and
  ## this plugin will accept all request ignoring the provided access-key in the request!
  # access_key = "foobar"

  ## Optional setting to add parameters as tags
  ## If the http header "x-amz-firehose-common-attributes" is not present on the
  ## request, no corresponding tag will be added. The header value should be a
  ## json and should follow the schema as describe in the official documentation:
  ## https://docs.aws.amazon.com/firehose/latest/dev/httpdeliveryrequestresponse.html#requestformat
  # parameter_tags = ["env"]

  ## 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"

Cortex

[[outputs.http]]
  ## Cortex Remote Write endpoint
  url = "http://cortex.example.com/api/v1/push"

  ## Use POST to send data
  method = "POST"

  ## Send metrics using Prometheus remote write format
  data_format = "prometheusremotewrite"

  ## Optional HTTP headers for authentication
  # [outputs.http.headers]
  #   X-Scope-OrgID = "your-tenant-id"
  #   Authorization = "Bearer YOUR_API_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

AWS Data Firehose

1. Real-Time Data Analytics: Using the AWS Data Firehose plugin, organizations can stream data in real-time from various sources, such as application logs or IoT devices, directly into analytics platforms. This allows data teams to analyze incoming data as it is generated, enabling rapid insights and operational adjustments based on fresh metrics.

2. Profile Access Patterns for Optimization: By collecting data about how clients interact with applications through AWS Data Firehose, businesses can gain valuable insights into user behavior. This can drive content personalization strategies or optimize server architecture for better performance based on traffic patterns.

3. Automated Alerting Mechanism: Integrating AWS Data Firehose with alerting systems via this plugin allows teams to set up automated alerts based on specific metrics collected. For example, if a particular threshold is reached in the input data, alerts can trigger operations teams to investigate potential issues before they escalate.

Cortex

1. Unified Multi-Tenant Monitoring: Use Telegraf to collect metrics from different teams or environments and push them to Cortex with separate X-Scope-OrgID headers. This enables isolated data ingestion and querying per tenant, ideal for managed services and platform teams.

2. Extending Prometheus Coverage to Edge Devices: Deploy Telegraf on edge or IoT devices to collect system metrics and send them to a centralized Cortex cluster. This approach ensures consistent observability even for environments without local Prometheus scrapers.

3. Global Service Observability with Federated Tenants: Aggregate metrics from global infrastructure by configuring Telegraf agents to push data into regional Cortex clusters, each tagged with tenant identifiers. Cortex handles deduplication and centralized access across regions.

4. Custom App Telemetry Pipeline: Collect app-specific telemetry via Telegraf’s exec or http input plugins and forward it to Cortex. This allows DevOps teams to monitor app-specific KPIs in a scalable, query-efficient format while keeping metrics logically grouped by tenant or service.

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