NSQ and Clickhouse Integration

Input and output integration overview

The NSQ Telegraf plugin reads metrics from the NSQD messaging system, allowing for real-time data processing and monitoring.

Telegraf’s SQL plugin sends collected metrics to an SQL database using a straightforward table schema and dynamic column generation. When configured for ClickHouse, it adjusts DSN formatting and type conversion settings to ensure seamless data integration.

Integration details

NSQ

The NSQ plugin interfaces with NSQ, a real-time messaging platform, enabling the reading of messages from NSQD. This plugin is categorized as a service plugin, meaning it actively listens for metrics and events rather than polling them at regular intervals. With an emphasis on reliability, it prevents data loss by tracking undelivered messages until they are acknowledged by outputs. The plugin allows for configurations such as specifying NSQLookupd endpoints, topics, and channels, and it supports multiple data formats for flexibility in data handling.

Clickhouse

Telegraf’s SQL plugin is engineered to write metric data into an SQL database by dynamically creating tables and columns based on incoming metrics. When configured for ClickHouse, it utilizes the clickhouse-go v1.5.4 driver, which employs a unique DSN format and a set of specialized type conversion rules to map Telegraf’s data types directly to ClickHouse’s native types. This approach ensures optimal storage and retrieval performance in high-throughput environments, making it well-suited for real-time analytics and large-scale data warehousing. The dynamic schema creation and precise type mapping enable detailed time-series data logging, crucial for monitoring modern, distributed systems.

Configuration

NSQ

# Read metrics from NSQD topic(s)
[[inputs.nsq_consumer]]
  ## Server option still works but is deprecated, we just prepend it to the nsqd array.
  # server = "localhost:4150"

  ## An array representing the NSQD TCP HTTP Endpoints
  nsqd = ["localhost:4150"]

  ## An array representing the NSQLookupd HTTP Endpoints
  nsqlookupd = ["localhost:4161"]
  topic = "telegraf"
  channel = "consumer"
  max_in_flight = 100

  ## 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

  ## 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"

Clickhouse

[[outputs.sql]]
  ## Database driver
  ## Valid options include mssql, mysql, pgx, sqlite, snowflake, clickhouse
  driver = "clickhouse"

  ## Data source name
  ## For ClickHouse, the DSN follows the clickhouse-go v1.5.4 format.
  ## Example DSN: "tcp://localhost:9000?debug=true"
  data_source_name = "tcp://localhost:9000?debug=true"

  ## 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 for ClickHouse.
  ## The conversion maps Telegraf metric types to ClickHouse native data types.
  [outputs.sql.convert]
    conversion_style = "literal"
    integer          = "Int64"
    text             = "String"
    timestamp        = "DateTime"
    defaultvalue     = "String"
    unsigned         = "UInt64"
    bool             = "UInt8"
    real             = "Float64"

Input and output integration examples

NSQ

1. Real-Time Analytics Dashboard: Integrate this plugin with a visualization tool to create a dashboard that displays real-time metrics from various topics in NSQ. By subscribing to specific topics, users can monitor system health and application performance dynamically, allowing for immediate insights and timely responses to any anomalies.

2. Event-Driven Automation: Combine NSQ with a serverless architecture to trigger automated workflows based on incoming messages. This use case could involve processing data for machine learning models or responding to user actions in applications, thus streamlining operations and enhancing user experience through rapid processing.

3. Multi-Service Communication Hub: Use the NSQ plugin to act as a centralized messaging hub among different microservices in a distributed architecture. By enabling services to communicate through NSQ, developers can ensure reliable message delivery while maintaining decoupled service interactions, significantly improving scalability and resilience.

4. Metrics Aggregation for Enhanced Monitoring: Implement the NSQ plugin to aggregate metrics from multiple sources before sending them to an analytics tool. This setup enables businesses to consolidate data from various applications and services, creating a unified view for better decision-making and strategic planning.

Clickhouse

1. Real-Time Analytics for High-Volume Data: Use the plugin to feed streaming metrics from large-scale systems into ClickHouse. This setup supports ultra-fast query performance and near real-time analytics, ideal for monitoring high-traffic applications.

2. Time-Series Data Warehousing: Integrate the plugin with ClickHouse to create a robust time-series data warehouse. This use case allows organizations to store detailed historical metrics and perform complex queries for trend analysis and capacity planning.

3. Scalable Monitoring in Distributed Environments: Leverage the plugin to dynamically create tables per metric type in ClickHouse, making it easier to manage and query data from a multitude of distributed systems without prior schema definitions.

4. Optimized Storage for IoT Deployments: Deploy the plugin to ingest data from IoT sensors into ClickHouse. Its efficient schema creation and native type mapping facilitate the handling of massive volumes of data, enabling real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance.

Feedback

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