Time Series Databases: New Ways to Store and Access Data

Chapter 4. Practical Time Series Tools

“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.”

—Albert Einstein

As valuable as theory is, practice matters more. Chapter 3 described the theory behind high-performance time series databases leading up to the hybrid and direct-insertion blob architecture that allows very high ingest and analysis rates. This chapter describes how that theory can be implemented using open source software. The open source tools described in this chapter mainly comprise those listed in Table 4-1.

Table 4-1. Open source tools useful for preparing, loading, and accessing data in high-performance NoSQL time series databases.

Open Source Tool	Author	Purpose
Open TSDB	Benoit Sigoure (originally)	Collect, process, and load time series data into storage tier
Extensions to Open TSDB	MapR Technologies	Enable direct blog insertion
Grafana	Torkel Ödegaard and Coding Instinct AB	User interface for accessing and visualizing time series data

We also show how to analyze Open TSDB time series data using open source tools such as R and Apache Spark. At the end of this chapter, we describe how you can attach Grafana, an open source dashboarding tool, to Open TSDB to make it much more useful.

Introduction to Open TSDB: Benefits and Limitations

Originally just for systems monitoring, Open TSDB has proved far more versatile and useful than might have been imagined originally. Part of this versatility and longevity is due to the fact that the underlying storage engine, based ...