Get started with InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated
InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated is the platform purpose-built to collect, store, and query time series data. It is powered by the InfluxDB 3.0 storage engine which provides a number of benefits including nearly unlimited series cardinality, improved query performance, and interoperability with widely used data processing tools and platforms.
Time series data is a sequence of data points indexed in time order. Data points typically consist of successive measurements made from the same source and are used to track changes over time. Examples of time series data include:
- Industrial sensor data
- Server performance metrics
- Heartbeats per minute
- Electrical activity in the brain
- Rainfall measurements
- Stock prices
This multi-part tutorial walks you through writing time series data to InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated, querying, and then visualizing that data.
Key concepts before you get started
Before you get started using InfluxDB, it’s important to understand how time series data is organized and stored in InfluxDB and some key definitions that are used throughout this documentation.
Data organization
The InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated data model organizes time series data into databases and measurements.
A database can contain multiple measurements. Measurements contain multiple tags and fields.
- Database: Named location where time series data is stored.
A database can contain multiple measurements.
- Measurement: Logical grouping for time series data.
All points in a given measurement should have the same tags.
A measurement contains multiple tags and fields.
- Tags: Key-value pairs that provide metadata for each point–for example, something to identify the source or context of the data like host, location, station, etc. Tag values may be null.
- Fields: Key-value pairs with values that change over time–for example, temperature, pressure, stock price, etc. Field values may be null, but at least one field value is not null on any given row.
- Timestamp: Timestamp associated with the data. When stored on disk and queried, all data is ordered by time. A timestamp is never null.
- Measurement: Logical grouping for time series data.
All points in a given measurement should have the same tags.
A measurement contains multiple tags and fields.
Schema on write
When using InfluxDB, you define your schema as you write your data. You don’t need to create measurements (equivalent to a relational table) or explicitly define the schema of the measurement. Measurement schemas are defined by the schema of data as it is written to the measurement.
Important definitions
The following definitions are important to understand when using InfluxDB:
- Point: Single data record identified by its measurement, tag keys, tag values, field key, and timestamp.
- Series: A group of points with the same measurement, tag keys and values, and field key.
- Primary key: Columns used to uniquely identify each row in a table. Rows are uniquely identified by their timestamp and tag set. A row’s primary key tag set does not include tags with null values.
Example InfluxDB query results
name: weather
time | city | country | temperature | humidity |
---|---|---|---|---|
2022-01-01T12:00:00Z | London | UK | 12.0 | 88.4 |
2022-01-01T12:00:00Z | Cologne | DE | 13.2 | 88.5 |
2022-02-01T12:00:00Z | London | UK | 12.1 | 94.0 |
2022-02-01T12:00:00Z | Cologne | DE | 11.5 | 87.8 |
2022-03-01T12:00:00Z | London | UK | 11.5 | 82.1 |
2022-03-01T12:00:00Z | Cologne | DE | 10.2 | 76.4 |
2022-04-01T12:00:00Z | London | UK | 5.9 | 87.6 |
2022-04-01T12:00:00Z | Cologne | DE | 7.9 | 93.3 |
Tools to use
The following table compares tools that you can use to interact with InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated. This tutorial covers many of the recommended tools.
Tool | Administration | Write | Query |
---|---|---|---|
Chronograf | - | - | |
influx CLI | - | - | - |
influx3 data CLI* | - | ||
influxctl admin CLI | - | - | |
InfluxDB HTTP API | - | ||
InfluxDB user interface | - | - | - |
InfluxDB v3 client libraries* | - | ||
InfluxDB v1 client libraries | - | ||
InfluxDB v2 client libraries | - | - | |
Telegraf | - | - | |
Third-party tools | |||
Flight SQL clients | - | - | |
Grafana | - | - | |
Superset | - | - | |
Tableau | - | - |
Avoid using the influx
CLI with InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated.
While it may coincidentally work, it isn’t supported.
influxctl
admin CLI
The influxctl
command line interface (CLI) performs administrative tasks, such as managing databases and authorization tokens in a cluster.
influx3
data CLI
The influx3
data CLI is a community-maintained tool that lets you write and query data in InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated from a command line.
It uses the HTTP API to write data and uses Flight gRPC to query data.
InfluxDB HTTP API
The InfluxDB HTTP API provides a simple way to let you manage InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated and write and query data using HTTP(S) clients. Examples in this tutorial use cURL, but any HTTP(S) client will work.
The /write
and /query
v1-compatible endpoints work with the username/password authentication schemes and existing InfluxDB 1.x tools and code.
The /api/v2/write
v2-compatible endpoint works with existing InfluxDB 2.x tools and code.
InfluxDB client libraries
InfluxDB client libraries are community-maintained, language-specific clients that interact with InfluxDB APIs.
InfluxDB v3 client libraries are the recommended client libraries for writing and querying data InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated. They use the HTTP API to write data and use Flight gRPC to query data.
InfluxDB v2 client libraries can use /api/v2
HTTP endpoints to manage resources such as buckets and API tokens, and write data in InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated.
InfluxDB v1 client libraries can write data to InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated.
Authorization
InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated requires authentication using tokens.
There are two types of tokens:
Database token: A token that grants read and write access to InfluxDB databases.
Management token: A short-lived (1 hour) Auth0 token used to administer your InfluxDB cluster. These are generated by the
influxctl
CLI and do not require any direct management. Management tokens authorize a user to perform tasks related to:- Account management
- Database management
- Database token management
- Pricing
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Support and feedback
Thank you for being part of our community! We welcome and encourage your feedback and bug reports for InfluxDB and this documentation. To find support, use the following resources:
Customers with an annual or support contract can contact InfluxData Support.