AWS Data Firehose and Snowflake 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.

Telegraf’s SQL plugin allows seamless metric storage in SQL databases. When configured for Snowflake, it employs a specialized DSN format and dynamic table creation to map metrics to the appropriate schema.

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.

Snowflake

Telegraf’s SQL plugin is engineered to dynamically write metrics into an SQL database by creating tables and columns based on the incoming data. When configured for Snowflake, it employs the gosnowflake driver, which uses a DSN that encapsulates credentials, account details, and database configuration in a compact format. This setup allows for the automatic generation of tables where each metric is recorded with precise timestamps, thereby ensuring detailed historical tracking. Although the integration is considered experimental, it leverages Snowflake’s powerful data warehousing capabilities, making it suitable for scalable, cloud-based analytics and reporting solutions.

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"

Snowflake

[[outputs.sql]]
  ## Database driver
  ## Valid options: mssql (Microsoft SQL Server), mysql (MySQL), pgx (Postgres),
  ## sqlite (SQLite3), snowflake (snowflake.com), clickhouse (ClickHouse)
  driver = "snowflake"

  ## Data source name
  ## For Snowflake, the DSN format typically includes the username, password, account identifier, and optional warehouse, database, and schema.
  ## Example DSN: "username:password@account/warehouse/db/schema"
  data_source_name = "username:password@account/warehouse/db/schema"

  ## Timestamp column name
  timestamp_column = "timestamp"

  ## Table creation template
  ## Available template variables:
  ##  {TABLE}        - table name as a quoted identifier
  ##  {TABLELITERAL} - table name as a quoted string literal
  ##  {COLUMNS}      - column definitions (list of quoted identifiers and types)
  table_template = "CREATE TABLE {TABLE} ({COLUMNS})"

  ## Table existence check template
  ## Available template variables:
  ##  {TABLE} - table name as a quoted identifier
  table_exists_template = "SELECT 1 FROM {TABLE} LIMIT 1"

  ## Initialization SQL (optional)
  init_sql = ""

  ## Maximum amount of time a connection may be idle. "0s" means connections are never closed due to idle time.
  connection_max_idle_time = "0s"

  ## Maximum amount of time a connection may be reused. "0s" means connections are never closed due to age.
  connection_max_lifetime = "0s"

  ## Maximum number of connections in the idle connection pool. 0 means unlimited.
  connection_max_idle = 2

  ## Maximum number of open connections to the database. 0 means unlimited.
  connection_max_open = 0

  ## Metric type to SQL type conversion
  ## Defaults to ANSI/ISO SQL types unless overridden. Adjust if needed for Snowflake compatibility.
  #[outputs.sql.convert]
  #  integer       = "INT"
  #  real          = "DOUBLE"
  #  text          = "TEXT"
  #  timestamp     = "TIMESTAMP"
  #  defaultvalue  = "TEXT"
  #  unsigned      = "UNSIGNED"
  #  bool          = "BOOL"

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.

Snowflake

1. Cloud-Based Data Lake Integration: Utilize the plugin to stream real-time metrics from various sources into Snowflake, enabling the creation of a centralized data lake. This integration supports complex analytics and machine learning workflows on cloud data.

2. Dynamic Business Intelligence Dashboards: Leverage the plugin to automatically generate tables from incoming metrics and feed them into BI tools. This allows businesses to create dynamic dashboards that visualize performance trends and operational insights without manual schema management.

3. Scalable IoT Analytics: Deploy the plugin to capture high-frequency data from IoT devices into Snowflake. This use case facilitates the aggregation and analysis of sensor data, enabling predictive maintenance and real-time monitoring at scale.

4. Historical Trend Analysis for Compliance: Use the plugin to log and archive detailed metric data in Snowflake, which can then be queried for long-term trend analysis and compliance reporting. This setup ensures that organizations can maintain a robust audit trail and perform forensic analysis if needed.

Feedback

Thank you for being part of our community! If you have any general feedback or found any bugs on these pages, we welcome and encourage your input. Please submit your feedback in the InfluxDB community Slack.