HTTP and Google BigQuery Integration

Input and output integration overview

The HTTP plugin allows for the collection of metrics from specified HTTP endpoints, handling various data formats and authentication methods.

The Google BigQuery plugin allows Telegraf to write metrics to Google Cloud BigQuery, enabling robust data analytics capabilities for telemetry data.

Integration details

HTTP

The HTTP plugin collects metrics from one or more HTTP(S) endpoints, which should have metrics formatted in one of the supported input data formats. It also supports secrets from secret-stores for various authentication options and includes globally supported configuration settings.

Google BigQuery

The Google BigQuery plugin for Telegraf enables seamless integration with Google Cloud’s BigQuery service, a popular data warehousing and analytics platform. This plugin facilitates the transfer of metrics collected by Telegraf into BigQuery datasets, making it easier for users to perform analyses and generate insights from their telemetry data. It requires authentication through a service account or user credentials and is designed to handle various data types, ensuring that users can maintain the integrity and accuracy of their metrics as they are stored in BigQuery tables. The configuration options allow for customization around dataset specifications and handling metrics, including the management of hyphens in metric names, which are not supported by BigQuery for streaming inserts. This plugin is particularly useful for organizations leveraging the scalability and powerful query capabilities of BigQuery to analyze large volumes of monitoring data.

Configuration

HTTP

[[inputs.http]]
  ## One or more URLs from which to read formatted metrics.
  urls = [
    "http://localhost/metrics",
    "http+unix:///run/user/420/podman/podman.sock:/d/v4.0.0/libpod/pods/json"
  ]

  ## HTTP method
  # method = "GET"

  ## Optional HTTP headers
  # headers = {"X-Special-Header" = "Special-Value"}

  ## HTTP entity-body to send with POST/PUT requests.
  # body = ""

  ## HTTP Content-Encoding for write request body, can be set to "gzip" to
  ## compress body or "identity" to apply no encoding.
  # content_encoding = "identity"

  ## Optional Bearer token settings to use for the API calls.
  ## Use either the token itself or the token file if you need a token.
  # token = "eyJhbGc...Qssw5c"
  # token_file = "/path/to/file"

  ## Optional HTTP Basic Auth Credentials
  # username = "username"
  # password = "pa$$word"

  ## OAuth2 Client Credentials. The options 'client_id', 'client_secret', and 'token_url' are required to use OAuth2.
  # client_id = "clientid"
  # client_secret = "secret"
  # token_url = "https://indentityprovider/oauth2/v1/token"
  # scopes = ["urn:opc:idm:__myscopes__"]

  ## HTTP Proxy support
  # use_system_proxy = false
  # http_proxy_url = ""

  ## Optional TLS Config
  ## Set to true/false to enforce TLS being enabled/disabled. If not set,
  ## enable TLS only if any of the other options are specified.
  # tls_enable =
  ## Trusted root certificates for server
  # tls_ca = "/path/to/cafile"
  ## Used for TLS client certificate authentication
  # tls_cert = "/path/to/certfile"
  ## Used for TLS client certificate authentication
  # tls_key = "/path/to/keyfile"
  ## Password for the key file if it is encrypted
  # tls_key_pwd = ""
  ## Send the specified TLS server name via SNI
  # tls_server_name = "kubernetes.example.com"
  ## Minimal TLS version to accept by the client
  # tls_min_version = "TLS12"
  ## List of ciphers to accept, by default all secure ciphers will be accepted
  ## See https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#pkg-constants for supported values.
  ## Use "all", "secure" and "insecure" to add all support ciphers, secure
  ## suites or insecure suites respectively.
  # tls_cipher_suites = ["secure"]
  ## Renegotiation method, "never", "once" or "freely"
  # tls_renegotiation_method = "never"
  ## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

  ## Optional Cookie authentication
  # cookie_auth_url = "https://localhost/authMe"
  # cookie_auth_method = "POST"
  # cookie_auth_username = "username"
  # cookie_auth_password = "pa$$word"
  # cookie_auth_headers = { Content-Type = "application/json", X-MY-HEADER = "hello" }
  # cookie_auth_body = '{"username": "user", "password": "pa$$word", "authenticate": "me"}'
  ## cookie_auth_renewal not set or set to "0" will auth once and never renew the cookie
  # cookie_auth_renewal = "5m"

  ## Amount of time allowed to complete the HTTP request
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## List of success status codes
  # success_status_codes = [200]

  ## 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"

Google BigQuery

# Configuration for Google Cloud BigQuery to send entries
[[outputs.bigquery]]
  ## Credentials File
  credentials_file = "/path/to/service/account/key.json"

  ## Google Cloud Platform Project
  # project = ""

  ## The namespace for the metric descriptor
  dataset = "telegraf"

  ## Timeout for BigQuery operations.
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## Character to replace hyphens on Metric name
  # replace_hyphen_to = "_"

  ## Write all metrics in a single compact table
  # compact_table = ""
  

Input and output integration examples

HTTP

1. Collecting Metrics from Localhost: The plugin can fetch metrics from an HTTP endpoint like http://localhost/metrics, allowing for easy local monitoring.
2. Using Unix Domain Sockets: You can specify metrics collection from services over Unix domain sockets by using the http+unix scheme, for example, http+unix:///path/to/service.sock:/api/endpoint.

Google BigQuery

1. Real-Time Analytics Dashboard: Leverage the Google BigQuery plugin to feed live metrics into a custom analytics dashboard hosted on Google Cloud. This setup would allow teams to visualize performance data in real-time, providing insights into system health and usage patterns. By using BigQuery’s querying capabilities, users can easily create tailored reports and dashboards to meet their specific needs, thus enhancing decision-making processes.

2. Cost Management and Optimization Analysis: Utilize the plugin to automatically send cost-related metrics from various services into BigQuery. Analyzing this data can help businesses identify unnecessary expenses and optimize resource usage. By performing aggregation and transformation queries in BigQuery, organizations can create accurate forecasts and manage their cloud spending efficiently.

3. Cross-Team Collaboration on Monitoring Data: Enable different teams within an organization to share their monitoring data using BigQuery. With the help of this Telegraf plugin, teams can push their metrics to a central BigQuery instance, fostering collaboration. This data-sharing approach encourages best practices and cross-functional awareness, leading to collective improvements in system performance and reliability.

4. Historical Analysis for Capacity Planning: By using the BigQuery plugin, companies can collect and store historical metrics data essential for capacity planning. Analyzing trends over time can help anticipate system needs and scale infrastructure proactively. Organizations can create time-series analyses and identify patterns that inform their long-term strategic decisions.

Feedback

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