Kafka and Thanos Integration
Powerful performance with an easy integration, powered by Telegraf, the open source data connector built by InfluxData.
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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 sends metrics from Telegraf to Thanos using the Prometheus remote write protocol over HTTP, allowing efficient and scalable ingestion into Thanos Receive components.</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>
Thanos
<p>Telegraf’s HTTP plugin can send metrics directly to Thanos via its Remote Write-compatible Receive component. By setting the data format to <code>prometheusremotewrite</code>, Telegraf can serialize metrics into the same protobuf-based format used by native Prometheus clients. This setup enables high-throughput, low-latency metric ingestion into Thanos, facilitating centralized observability at scale. It is particularly useful in hybrid environments where Telegraf is collecting metrics from systems outside Prometheus’ native reach, such as SNMP devices, Windows hosts, or custom apps, and streams them directly to Thanos for long-term storage and global querying.</p>
Configuration
Kafka
Thanos
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>
Thanos
<ol> <li> <p><strong>Agentless Cloud Monitoring</strong>: Deploy Telegraf agents across cloud VMs to collect system and application metrics, then stream them directly into Thanos using Remote Write. This provides centralized observability without requiring Prometheus nodes at each location.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Scalable Windows Host Monitoring</strong>: Use Telegraf on Windows machines to collect OS-level metrics and send them via Remote Write to Thanos Receive. This enables observability across heterogeneous environments with native Prometheus support only on Linux.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Cross-Region Metrics Federation</strong>: Telegraf agents in multiple geographic regions can push data to region-local Thanos Receivers using this plugin. From there, Thanos can deduplicate and query metrics globally, reducing latency and network egress costs.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Integrating Third-Party Data into Thanos</strong>: Collect metrics from custom telemetry sources such as REST APIs or proprietary logs using Telegraf inputs and forward them to Thanos via Remote Write. This brings non-native data into a Prometheus-compatible, long-term analytics pipeline.</p> </li> </ol>
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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