Kafka and M3DB 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.
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Input and output integration overview
<p>This plugin allows you to gather metrics from Kafka topics in real-time, enhancing data monitoring and collection capabilities within your Telegraf setup.</p>
<p>This plugin allows Telegraf to stream metrics to M3DB using the Prometheus Remote Write protocol, enabling scalable ingestion through the M3 Coordinator.</p>
Integration details
Kafka
<p>The Kafka Telegraf plugin is designed to read data from Kafka topics and create metrics using supported input data formats. As a service input plugin, it listens continuously for incoming metrics and events, differing from standard input plugins that operate at fixed intervals. This particular plugin can utilize features from various Kafka versions and is capable of consuming messages from specified topics, applying configurations such as security credentials using SASL, and managing message processing with options for message offsets and consumer groups. The flexibility of this plugin allows it to handle a wide array of message formats and use cases, making it a valuable asset for applications relying on Kafka for data ingestion.</p>
M3DB
<p>This configuration uses Telegraf’s HTTP output plugin with <code>prometheusremotewrite</code> format to send metrics directly to M3DB through the M3 Coordinator. M3DB is a distributed time series database designed for scalable, high-throughput metric storage. It supports ingestion of Prometheus remote write data via its Coordinator component, which manages translation and routing into the M3DB cluster. This approach enables organizations to collect metrics from systems that aren’t natively instrumented for Prometheus (e.g., Windows, SNMP, legacy systems) and ingest them efficiently into M3’s long-term, high-performance storage engine. The setup is ideal for high-scale observability stacks with Prometheus compatibility requirements.</p>
Configuration
Kafka
M3DB
Input and output integration examples
Kafka
<ol> <li> <p><strong>Real-Time Data Processing</strong>: Use the Kafka plugin to feed live data from a Kafka topic into a monitoring system. This can be particularly useful for applications that require instant feedback on performance metrics or user activity, allowing businesses to react more swiftly to changing conditions in their environments.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Dynamic Metrics Collection</strong>: Leverage this plugin to dynamically adjust the metrics being captured based on events occurring within Kafka. For instance, by integrating with other services, users can have the plugin reconfigure itself on-the-fly, ensuring relevant metrics are always collected according to the needs of the business or application.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Centralized Logging and Monitoring</strong>: Implement a centralized logging system using the Kafka Consumer Plugin to aggregate logs from multiple services into a unified monitoring dashboard. This setup can help identify issues across different services and improve overall system observability and troubleshooting capabilities.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Anomaly Detection System</strong>: Combine Kafka with machine learning algorithms for real-time anomaly detection. By constantly analyzing streaming data, this setup can automatically identify unusual patterns, triggering alerts and mitigating potential issues more effectively.</p> </li> </ol>
M3DB
<ol> <li> <p><strong>Large-Scale Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring</strong>: Deploy Telegraf agents across thousands of virtual machines and containers to collect metrics and stream them into M3DB through the M3 Coordinator. This provides reliable, long-term visibility with minimal storage overhead and high availability.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Legacy System Metrics Ingestion</strong>: Use Telegraf to gather metrics from older systems that lack native Prometheus exporters (e.g., Windows servers, SNMP devices) and forward them to M3DB via remote write. This bridges modern observability workflows with legacy infrastructure.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Centralized App Telemetry Aggregation</strong>: Collect application-specific telemetry using Telegraf’s plugin ecosystem (e.g., <code>exec</code>, <code>http</code>, <code>jolokia</code>) and push it into M3DB for centralized storage and query via PromQL. This enables unified analytics across diverse data sources.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Hybrid Cloud Observability</strong>: Install Telegraf agents on-prem and in the cloud to collect and remote-write metrics into a centralized M3DB cluster. This ensures consistent visibility across environments while avoiding the complexity of running Prometheus federation layers.</p> </li> </ol>
Feedback
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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.
See Ways to Get Started
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