Kafka and OSI PI Integration
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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 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
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>
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
Kafka
OSI PI
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>
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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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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