Azure Event Hubs and OSI PI Integration

Input and output integration overview

<p>The Azure Event Hubs Input Plugin allows Telegraf to consume data from Azure Event Hubs and Azure IoT Hub, enabling efficient data processing and monitoring of event streams from these cloud services.</p>

<p>This setup converts Telegraf into a lightweight PI Web API publisher, letting you push any Telegraf metric into the OSI PI System with a simple HTTP POST.</p>

Integration details

Azure Event Hubs

<p>This plugin serves as a consumer for Azure Event Hubs and Azure IoT Hub, allowing users to ingest data streams from these platforms efficiently. Azure Event Hubs is a highly scalable data streaming platform and event ingestion service capable of receiving and processing millions of events per second, while Azure IoT Hub enables secure device-to-cloud and cloud-to-device communication in IoT applications. The Event Hub Input Plugin interacts seamlessly with these services, providing reliable message consumption and stream processing capabilities. Key features include dynamic management of consumer groups, message tracking to prevent data loss, and customizable settings for prefetch counts, user agents, and metadata handling. This plugin is designed to support a range of use cases, including real-time telemetry data collection, IoT data processing, and integration with various data analysis and monitoring tools within the broader Azure ecosystem.</p>

OSI PI

<p>OSI PI is an data management and analytics platform used in energy, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure. The PI Web API is its REST interface, exposing endpoints such as <strong>/piwebapi/streams/{WebId}/value</strong> that accept JSON payloads containing a <code>Timestamp</code> and <code>Value</code>. By pairing Telegraf’s flexible HTTP output with this endpoint, any metric Telegraf collects—SNMP counters, Modbus readings, Kubernetes stats—can be written directly into PI without installing proprietary interfaces. The configuration above authenticates with Basic or Kerberos, serializes each batch to JSON, and renders a minimal body template that aligns with PI Web API’s single-value write contract. Because Telegraf already supports batching, TLS, proxies, and custom headers, this approach scales from edge gateways to cloud VMs, allowing organizations to back-fill historical data, stream live telemetry, or mirror non-PI sources (e.g., Prometheus) into the PI data archive. It also sidesteps older SDK dependencies and enables hybrid architectures where PI remains on-prem while Telegraf agents run in containers or IIoT devices.</p>

Configuration

Azure Event Hubs

OSI PI

Input and output integration examples

Azure Event Hubs

<ol> <li> <p><strong>Real-Time IoT Device Monitoring</strong>: Use the Azure Event Hubs Plugin to monitor telemetry data from IoT devices like sensors and actuators. By streaming device data into monitoring dashboards, organizations can gain insights into system performances, track usage patterns, and quickly respond to irregularities. This setup allows for proactive management of devices, improving operational efficiency and reducing downtime.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Event-Driven Data Processing Workflows</strong>: Leverage this plugin to trigger data processing workflows in response to events received from Azure Event Hubs. For instance, when a new event arrives, it can initiate data transformation, aggregation, or storage processes, allowing businesses to automate their workflows more effectively. This integration enhances responsiveness and streamlines operations across systems.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Integration with Analytics Platforms</strong>: Implement the plugin to funnel event data into analytics platforms like Azure Synapse or Power BI. By integrating real-time streaming data into analytics tools, organizations can perform comprehensive data analysis, drive business intelligence efforts, and create interactive visualizations that inform decision-making.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Cross-Platform Data Sync</strong>: Utilize the Azure Event Hubs Plugin to synchronize data streams across diverse systems or platforms. By consuming data from Azure Event Hubs and forwarding it to other systems like databases or cloud storage, organizations can maintain consistent and up-to-date information across their entire architecture, enabling cohesive data strategies.</p> </li> </ol>

OSI PI

<ol> <li> <p><strong>Remote Pump Stations Telemetry Bridge</strong>: Install Telegraf on edge gateways at oil-field pump stations, gather flow-meter and vibration readings over Modbus, and POST them to the PI Web API. Operations teams view real-time data in PI Vision without deploying heavyweight PI interfaces, while bandwidth-friendly batching keeps satellite links economical.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Green-Energy Micro-Grid Dashboard</strong>: Export inverter, battery, and weather metrics from MQTT into Telegraf, which relays them to PI. PI AF analytics can calculate real-time power balance and feed a campus dashboard; historical deltas inform sustainability reports.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Brownfield SCADA Modernization</strong>: Legacy PLCs logged to CSV are ingested by Telegraf’s <code>tail</code> input; each row is parsed and immediately sent to PI via HTTP, creating a live data stream that co-exists with archival files while the SCADA upgrade proceeds incrementally.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Synthetic Data Generator for Training</strong>: Telegraf’s <code>exec</code> input can run a script that emits simulated sensor patterns. Posting those metrics to a non-production PI server through the Web API supplies realistic datasets for PI Vision training sessions without risking production tags.</p> </li> </ol>

Feedback

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