Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

July 2024

The MING Stack: What It Is and How It Works

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly reshaping the world. From smart devices in our homes to connected sensors in industrial settings, the amount of data generated is rapidly increasing. But what use is this data if we can’t collect and analyze it in real-time to gain key insights? This is where the MING stack (which includes Mosquitto/MQTT, InfluxDB, Node-RED, and Grafana) comes in. This powerful combination of open-source tools is intended to simplify IoT data management.

Predictive Analytics Pipelines: Real-World AI, Predictive Maintenance, and Time Series Data

There’s so much talk about AI these days that it seems we quickly forget that AI isn’t a single type of technology. It’s a category, almost an umbrella term for a wide range of different technologies, applications, and approaches. The terms “Generative AI” and “Machine Learning AI” (often referred to as “Real-World AI”) describe two different branches that fall under the broader AI heading.

Unified Namespace and InfluxDB: Streamlining IIoT Operations for Industry 4

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has revolutionized the way industries operate, enabling businesses to collect and analyze data from their operations in real-time. However, managing and analyzing data from diverse sources can be a challenge. While sensors and systems may use the same transport protocols, the shape and type of data generated can vary from one device to another. A lack of uniform, clean data creates challenges and obstacles when it comes to getting timely insights.

Rewriting InfluxDB: Perspectives From InfluxData's Staff Engineers

Veteran developers and staff engineers at InfluxData, Nga Tran and Andrew Lamb, discuss what it was like to rewrite InfluxDB for version 3.0. Several factors prevent companies, especially startups, from rewriting their products. But what does the process look like once a company embarks on a rewrite? And how do they balance innovation with user feedback?

Real World Software Development: Finding, Reproducing, and Fixing Bugs

Veteran developers and staff engineers at InfluxData, Nga Tran and Andrew Lamb, have an honest conversation about dealing with software bugs. Bugs can be frustrating, but they can also be thrilling. They are a sign that people are actually using your software - and that's a good thing! Andrew and Nga talk through a recent bug their team encountered, how they approached resolving the issue, and what considerations go into building a permanent fix.

Optimizing Space Technology: Fast Data Access with InfluxDB and Apache Parquet

To win the space race, aerospace and aviation companies must be fast. The end-to-end cycle of testing, visualizing test data, and making improvements demands swiftness, especially when a single launch yields billions of data points. It starts with real-time access to data. Real-time data analysis with nanosecond precision is crucial for monitoring environmental and habitat conditions when lives are at stake. Speeding up the iteration pipeline is essential but not sufficient. Cost efficiency matters too.

InfluxDB 3.0 Product Update Round-up: Q2 2024

Wrapping up another quarter provides an ideal time to look back on the features we rolled out across various products. Software is never finished, and our engineers have been working hard to deliver improvements to InfluxDB 3.0. This roundup highlights some of the developments and releases over the last few months.

Why we used open source Apache projects to build InfluxDB 3.0

To the unfamiliar, building with open source tools may seem like the kind of chaos that leads to Boaty McBoatface-like decisions. Andrew Lamb, staff engineer at InfluxData and PMC for the Apache DataFusion project, provides insight from a developer and a PMC perspective about what it's like to build with, and manage a major open source project. InfluxData recently rebuilt its core database using Apache projects: Flight, DataFusion, Arrow, and Parquet, dubbed the FDAP stack.

How the FDAP stack drives innovation with open source Apache projects

Using open source projects from the Apache foundation to build low-level database software drives innovation. Andrew Lamb, Staff Engineer at InfluxData and PMC for the Apache DataFusion project, discusses the components of the FDAP stack - Flight, Arrow, DataFusion, and Parquet, explaining how building with these tools helps companies focus on innovation instead of spending dev cycles reinventing the wheel.

Dealing with Mountains of IoT Data: An IIoT World Webinar Reflection

We’ve made the case many times that instrumentation is critical for understanding changes in the physical and virtual worlds. During this recent webinar, panelists discussed the challenges and opportunities of integrating IoT sensors into existing infrastructure, ensuring data quality and accuracy, and leveraging sensor data for operational efficiency and productivity.

A Guide to CI/CD Pipeline Performance Monitoring

In the modern software development landscape, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines have become essential. They automate the process of integrating code changes, running tests, and deploying applications. The efficiency and reliability of these pipelines are critical to the overall success of a software project, and CI/CD pipeline monitoring plays a vital role in maintaining and improving these attributes.