VMware vSphere and PostgreSQL Integration
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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.
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Input and output integration overview
The VMware vSphere Telegraf plugin provides a means to collect metrics from VMware vCenter servers, allowing for comprehensive monitoring and management of virtual resources in a vSphere environment.
The Telegraf PostgreSQL plugin allows you to efficiently write metrics to a PostgreSQL database while automatically managing the database schema.
Integration details
VMware vSphere
This plugin connects to VMware vSphere servers to gather a variety of metrics from virtual environments, enabling efficient monitoring and management of virtual resources. It interfaces with the vSphere API to collect statistics regarding clusters, hosts, resource pools, VMs, datastores, and vSAN entities, presenting them in a format suitable for analysis and visualization. The plugin is particularly valuable for administrators who manage VMware-based infrastructures, as it helps to track system performance, resource usage, and operational issues in real-time. By aggregating data from multiple sources, the plugin empowers users with insights that facilitate informed decision-making regarding resource allocation, troubleshooting, and ensuring optimal system performance. Additionally, the support for secret-store integration allows secure handling of sensitive credentials, promoting best practices in security and compliance assessments.
PostgreSQL
The PostgreSQL plugin enables users to write metrics to a PostgreSQL database or a compatible database, providing robust support for schema management by automatically updating missing columns. The plugin is designed to facilitate integration with monitoring solutions, allowing users to efficiently store and manage time series data. It offers configurable options for connection settings, concurrency, and error handling, and supports advanced features such as JSONB storage for tags and fields, foreign key tagging, templated schema modifications, and support for unsigned integer data types through the pguint extension.
Configuration
VMware vSphere
[[inputs.vsphere]]
vcenters = [ "https://vcenter.local/sdk" ]
username = "[email protected]"
password = "secret"
vm_metric_include = [
"cpu.demand.average",
"cpu.idle.summation",
"cpu.latency.average",
"cpu.readiness.average",
"cpu.ready.summation",
"cpu.run.summation",
"cpu.usagemhz.average",
"cpu.used.summation",
"cpu.wait.summation",
"mem.active.average",
"mem.granted.average",
"mem.latency.average",
"mem.swapin.average",
"mem.swapinRate.average",
"mem.swapout.average",
"mem.swapoutRate.average",
"mem.usage.average",
"mem.vmmemctl.average",
"net.bytesRx.average",
"net.bytesTx.average",
"net.droppedRx.summation",
"net.droppedTx.summation",
"net.usage.average",
"power.power.average",
"virtualDisk.numberReadAveraged.average",
"virtualDisk.numberWriteAveraged.average",
"virtualDisk.read.average",
"virtualDisk.readOIO.latest",
"virtualDisk.throughput.usage.average",
"virtualDisk.totalReadLatency.average",
"virtualDisk.totalWriteLatency.average",
"virtualDisk.write.average",
"virtualDisk.writeOIO.latest",
"sys.uptime.latest",
]
host_metric_include = [
"cpu.coreUtilization.average",
"cpu.costop.summation",
"cpu.demand.average",
"cpu.idle.summation",
"cpu.latency.average",
"cpu.readiness.average",
"cpu.ready.summation",
"cpu.swapwait.summation",
"cpu.usage.average",
"cpu.usagemhz.average",
"cpu.used.summation",
"cpu.utilization.average",
"cpu.wait.summation",
"disk.deviceReadLatency.average",
"disk.deviceWriteLatency.average",
"disk.kernelReadLatency.average",
"disk.kernelWriteLatency.average",
"disk.numberReadAveraged.average",
"disk.numberWriteAveraged.average",
"disk.read.average",
"disk.totalReadLatency.average",
"disk.totalWriteLatency.average",
"disk.write.average",
"mem.active.average",
"mem.latency.average",
"mem.state.latest",
"mem.swapin.average",
"mem.swapinRate.average",
"mem.swapout.average",
"mem.swapoutRate.average",
"mem.totalCapacity.average",
"mem.usage.average",
"mem.vmmemctl.average",
"net.bytesRx.average",
"net.bytesTx.average",
"net.droppedRx.summation",
"net.droppedTx.summation",
"net.errorsRx.summation",
"net.errorsTx.summation",
"net.usage.average",
"power.power.average",
"storageAdapter.numberReadAveraged.average",
"storageAdapter.numberWriteAveraged.average",
"storageAdapter.read.average",
"storageAdapter.write.average",
"sys.uptime.latest",
]
datacenter_metric_include = [] ## if omitted or empty, all metrics are collected
datacenter_metric_exclude = [ "*" ] ## Datacenters are not collected by default.
vsan_metric_include = [] ## if omitted or empty, all metrics are collected
vsan_metric_exclude = [ "*" ] ## vSAN are not collected by default.
separator = "_"
max_query_objects = 256
max_query_metrics = 256
collect_concurrency = 1
discover_concurrency = 1
object_discovery_interval = "300s"
timeout = "60s"
use_int_samples = true
custom_attribute_include = []
custom_attribute_exclude = ["*"]
metric_lookback = 3
ssl_ca = "/path/to/cafile"
ssl_cert = "/path/to/certfile"
ssl_key = "/path/to/keyfile"
insecure_skip_verify = false
historical_interval = "5m"
disconnected_servers_behavior = "error"
use_system_proxy = true
http_proxy_url = ""
PostgreSQL
# Publishes metrics to a postgresql database
[[outputs.postgresql]]
## Specify connection address via the standard libpq connection string:
## host=... user=... password=... sslmode=... dbname=...
## Or a URL:
## postgres://[user[:password]]@localhost[/dbname]?sslmode=[disable|verify-ca|verify-full]
## See https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/libpq-connect.html#LIBPQ-CONNSTRING
##
## All connection parameters are optional. Environment vars are also supported.
## e.g. PGPASSWORD, PGHOST, PGUSER, PGDATABASE
## All supported vars can be found here:
## https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/libpq-envars.html
##
## Non-standard parameters:
## pool_max_conns (default: 1) - Maximum size of connection pool for parallel (per-batch per-table) inserts.
## pool_min_conns (default: 0) - Minimum size of connection pool.
## pool_max_conn_lifetime (default: 0s) - Maximum age of a connection before closing.
## pool_max_conn_idle_time (default: 0s) - Maximum idle time of a connection before closing.
## pool_health_check_period (default: 0s) - Duration between health checks on idle connections.
# connection = ""
## Postgres schema to use.
# schema = "public"
## Store tags as foreign keys in the metrics table. Default is false.
# tags_as_foreign_keys = false
## Suffix to append to table name (measurement name) for the foreign tag table.
# tag_table_suffix = "_tag"
## Deny inserting metrics if the foreign tag can't be inserted.
# foreign_tag_constraint = false
## Store all tags as a JSONB object in a single 'tags' column.
# tags_as_jsonb = false
## Store all fields as a JSONB object in a single 'fields' column.
# fields_as_jsonb = false
## Name of the timestamp column
## NOTE: Some tools (e.g. Grafana) require the default name so be careful!
# timestamp_column_name = "time"
## Type of the timestamp column
## Currently, "timestamp without time zone" and "timestamp with time zone"
## are supported
# timestamp_column_type = "timestamp without time zone"
## Templated statements to execute when creating a new table.
# create_templates = [
# '''CREATE TABLE {{ .table }} ({{ .columns }})''',
# ]
## Templated statements to execute when adding columns to a table.
## Set to an empty list to disable. Points containing tags for which there is no column will be skipped. Points
## containing fields for which there is no column will have the field omitted.
# add_column_templates = [
# '''ALTER TABLE {{ .table }} ADD COLUMN IF NOT EXISTS {{ .columns|join ", ADD COLUMN IF NOT EXISTS " }}''',
# ]
## Templated statements to execute when creating a new tag table.
# tag_table_create_templates = [
# '''CREATE TABLE {{ .table }} ({{ .columns }}, PRIMARY KEY (tag_id))''',
# ]
## Templated statements to execute when adding columns to a tag table.
## Set to an empty list to disable. Points containing tags for which there is no column will be skipped.
# tag_table_add_column_templates = [
# '''ALTER TABLE {{ .table }} ADD COLUMN IF NOT EXISTS {{ .columns|join ", ADD COLUMN IF NOT EXISTS " }}''',
# ]
## The postgres data type to use for storing unsigned 64-bit integer values (Postgres does not have a native
## unsigned 64-bit integer type).
## The value can be one of:
## numeric - Uses the PostgreSQL "numeric" data type.
## uint8 - Requires pguint extension (https://github.com/petere/pguint)
# uint64_type = "numeric"
## When using pool_max_conns>1, and a temporary error occurs, the query is retried with an incremental backoff. This
## controls the maximum backoff duration.
# retry_max_backoff = "15s"
## Approximate number of tag IDs to store in in-memory cache (when using tags_as_foreign_keys).
## This is an optimization to skip inserting known tag IDs.
## Each entry consumes approximately 34 bytes of memory.
# tag_cache_size = 100000
## Enable & set the log level for the Postgres driver.
# log_level = "warn" # trace, debug, info, warn, error, none
Input and output integration examples
VMware vSphere
-
Dynamic Resource Allocation: Utilize this plugin to monitor resource usage across a fleet of VMs and automatically adjust resource allocations based on performance metrics. This scenario could involve triggering scaling actions in real time based on CPU and memory usage metrics collected from the vSphere API, ensuring optimal performance and cost-efficiency.
-
Capacity Planning and Forecasting: Leverage the historical metrics gathered from vSphere to conduct capacity planning. Analyzing the trends of CPU, memory, and storage usage over time helps administrators anticipate when additional resources will be needed, avoiding outages and ensuring that the virtual infrastructure can handle growth.
-
Automated Alerting and Incident Response: Integrate this plugin with alerting tools to set up automated notifications based on the metrics gathered. For example, if the CPU usage on a host exceeds a specified threshold, it could trigger alerts and automatically initiate predefined remediation steps, such as migrating VMs to less utilized hosts.
-
Performance Benchmarking Across Clusters: Use the metrics collected to compare the performance of clusters in different vCenters. This benchmarking provides insights into which cluster configurations yield the best resource efficiency and can guide future infrastructure enhancements.
PostgreSQL
-
Real-Time Analytics with Complex Queries: Leverage the PostgreSQL plugin to store metrics from various sources in a PostgreSQL database, enabling real-time analytics using complex queries. This setup can help data scientists and analysts uncover patterns and trends, as they manipulate relational data across multiple tables while utilizing PostgreSQL’s robust query optimization features. Specifically, users can create sophisticated reports with JOIN operations across different metric tables, revealing insights that would typically remain hidden in embedded systems.
-
Integrating with TimescaleDB for Time-Series Data: Utilize the PostgreSQL plugin within a TimescaleDB instance to efficiently handle and analyze time-series data. By implementing hypertables, users can achieve greater performance and partitioning of topics over the time dimension. This integration allows users to run analytical queries over large amounts of time-series data while retaining the full power of PostgreSQL’s SQL queries, ensuring reliability and efficiency in metrics analysis.
-
Data Versioning and Historical Analysis: Implement a strategy using the PostgreSQL plugin to maintain different versions of metrics over time. Users can set up an immutable data table structure where older versions of tables are retained, enabling easy historical analysis. This approach not only provides insights into data evolution but also aids compliance with data retention policies, ensuring that the historical integrity of the datasets remains intact.
-
Dynamic Schema Management for Evolving Metrics: Use the plugin’s templating capabilities to create a dynamically changing schema that responds to metric variations. This use case allows organizations to adapt their data structure as metrics evolve, adding necessary fields and ensuring adherence to data integrity policies. By leveraging templated SQL commands, users can extend their database without manual intervention, facilitating agile data management practices.
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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