OPC UA and Cortex Integration
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Table of Contents
Powerful Performance, Limitless Scale
Collect, organize, and act on massive volumes of high-velocity data. Any data is more valuable when you think of it as time series data. with InfluxDB, the #1 time series platform built to scale with Telegraf.
See Ways to Get Started
Input and output integration overview
The OPC UA plugin provides an interface for retrieving data from OPC UA server devices, facilitating effective data collection and monitoring.
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
OPC UA
The OPC UA Plugin retrieves data from devices that communicate using the OPC UA protocol, allowing you to collect and monitor data from your OPC UA servers.
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
OPC UA
[[inputs.opcua]]
## Metric name
# name = "opcua"
#
## OPC UA Endpoint URL
# endpoint = "opc.tcp://localhost:4840"
#
## Maximum time allowed to establish a connect to the endpoint.
# connect_timeout = "10s"
#
## Maximum time allowed for a request over the established connection.
# request_timeout = "5s"
# Maximum time that a session shall remain open without activity.
# session_timeout = "20m"
#
## Security policy, one of "None", "Basic128Rsa15", "Basic256",
## "Basic256Sha256", or "auto"
# security_policy = "auto"
#
## Security mode, one of "None", "Sign", "SignAndEncrypt", or "auto"
# security_mode = "auto"
#
## Path to cert.pem. Required when security mode or policy isn't "None".
## If cert path is not supplied, self-signed cert and key will be generated.
# certificate = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
#
## Path to private key.pem. Required when security mode or policy isn't "None".
## If key path is not supplied, self-signed cert and key will be generated.
# private_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
#
## Authentication Method, one of "Certificate", "UserName", or "Anonymous". To
## authenticate using a specific ID, select 'Certificate' or 'UserName'
# auth_method = "Anonymous"
#
## Username. Required for auth_method = "UserName"
# username = ""
#
## Password. Required for auth_method = "UserName"
# password = ""
#
## Option to select the metric timestamp to use. Valid options are:
## "gather" -- uses the time of receiving the data in telegraf
## "server" -- uses the timestamp provided by the server
## "source" -- uses the timestamp provided by the source
# timestamp = "gather"
#
## Client trace messages
## When set to true, and debug mode enabled in the agent settings, the OPCUA
## client's messages are included in telegraf logs. These messages are very
## noisey, but essential for debugging issues.
# client_trace = false
#
## Include additional Fields in each metric
## Available options are:
## DataType -- OPC-UA Data Type (string)
# optional_fields = []
#
## Node ID configuration
## name - field name to use in the output
## namespace - OPC UA namespace of the node (integer value 0 thru 3)
## identifier_type - OPC UA ID type (s=string, i=numeric, g=guid, b=opaque)
## identifier - OPC UA ID (tag as shown in opcua browser)
## tags - extra tags to be added to the output metric (optional); deprecated in 1.25.0; use default_tags
## default_tags - extra tags to be added to the output metric (optional)
##
## Use either the inline notation or the bracketed notation, not both.
#
## Inline notation (default_tags not supported yet)
# nodes = [
# {name="", namespace="", identifier_type="", identifier="", tags=[["tag1", "value1"], ["tag2", "value2"]},
# {name="", namespace="", identifier_type="", identifier=""},
# ]
#
## Bracketed notation
# [[inputs.opcua.nodes]]
# name = "node1"
# namespace = ""
# identifier_type = ""
# identifier = ""
# default_tags = { tag1 = "value1", tag2 = "value2" }
#
# [[inputs.opcua.nodes]]
# name = "node2"
# namespace = ""
# identifier_type = ""
# identifier = ""
#
## Node Group
## Sets defaults so they aren't required in every node.
## Default values can be set for:
## * Metric name
## * OPC UA namespace
## * Identifier
## * Default tags
##
## Multiple node groups are allowed
#[[inputs.opcua.group]]
## Group Metric name. Overrides the top level name. If unset, the
## top level name is used.
# name =
#
## Group default namespace. If a node in the group doesn't set its
## namespace, this is used.
# namespace =
#
## Group default identifier type. If a node in the group doesn't set its
## namespace, this is used.
# identifier_type =
#
## Default tags that are applied to every node in this group. Can be
## overwritten in a node by setting a different value for the tag name.
## example: default_tags = { tag1 = "value1" }
# default_tags = {}
#
## Node ID Configuration. Array of nodes with the same settings as above.
## Use either the inline notation or the bracketed notation, not both.
#
## Inline notation (default_tags not supported yet)
# nodes = [
# {name="node1", namespace="", identifier_type="", identifier=""},
# {name="node2", namespace="", identifier_type="", identifier=""},
#]
#
## Bracketed notation
# [[inputs.opcua.group.nodes]]
# name = "node1"
# namespace = ""
# identifier_type = ""
# identifier = ""
# default_tags = { tag1 = "override1", tag2 = "value2" }
#
# [[inputs.opcua.group.nodes]]
# name = "node2"
# namespace = ""
# identifier_type = ""
# identifier = ""
## Enable workarounds required by some devices to work correctly
# [inputs.opcua.workarounds]
## Set additional valid status codes, StatusOK (0x0) is always considered valid
# additional_valid_status_codes = ["0xC0"]
# [inputs.opcua.request_workarounds]
## Use unregistered reads instead of registered reads
# use_unregistered_reads = false
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
OPC UA
-
Basic Configuration: Set up the plugin with your OPC UA server endpoint and desired metrics. This allows Telegraf to start gathering metrics from the configured nodes.
-
Node ID Setup: Use the configuration to specify specific nodes, such as temperature sensors, to monitor their values in real-time. For example, configure node
ns=3;s=Temperature
to gather temperature data directly. -
Group Configuration: Simplify monitoring multiple nodes by grouping them under a single configuration—this sets defaults for all nodes in that group, thereby reducing redundancy in setup.
Cortex
-
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. -
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.
-
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.
-
Custom App Telemetry Pipeline: Collect app-specific telemetry via Telegraf’s
exec
orhttp
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.
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.
Powerful Performance, Limitless Scale
Collect, organize, and act on massive volumes of high-velocity data. Any data is more valuable when you think of it as time series data. with InfluxDB, the #1 time series platform built to scale with Telegraf.
See Ways to Get Started
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