Documentation

Manage databases

An InfluxDB 3 Enterprise database is a named location where time series data is stored. Each database can contain multiple tables.

If coming from InfluxDB v1, the concepts of databases and retention policies have been combined into a single concept–database. Retention policies are no longer part of the InfluxDB data model. However, InfluxDB 3 Enterprise does support InfluxQL, which requires databases and retention policies. See InfluxQL DBRP naming convention.

If coming from InfluxDB v2, InfluxDB Cloud (TSM), or InfluxDB Cloud Serverless, database and bucket are synonymous.

Retention periods

A database retention period is the maximum age of data stored in the database. The age of data is determined by the timestamp associated with each point. When a point’s timestamp is beyond the retention period (relative to now), the point is marked for deletion and is removed from the database the next time the retention enforcement service runs.

The maximum retention period is infinite (none) meaning data does not expire and will never be removed by the retention enforcement service.

Database, table, and column limits

InfluxDB 3 Enterprise places the following limits on databases, tables, and columns:

Database limit

Maximum number of databases: 100

Table limit

Maximum number of tables across all databases: 10000

InfluxDB 3 Enterprise limits the number of tables you can have across all databases to 10000 by default. You can configure the table limit using the --num-table-limit configuration option. InfluxDB doesn’t limit how many tables you can have in an individual database, as long as the total across all databases is below the limit.

Having more tables affects your InfluxDB 3 Enterprise installation in the following ways:

May improve query performance View more info

More PUTs into object storage View more info

More work for the compactor View more info

Column limit

Maximum number of columns per table: 500

Each row must include a time column, with the remaining columns representing tags and fields. As a result, by default, a table can have one time column and up to 499 combined field and tag columns. If you attempt to write to a table and exceed the column limit, the write request fails and InfluxDB returns an error.

You can configure the maximum number of columns per table using the num-total-columns-per-table-limit configuration option.

Higher numbers of columns has the following side-effects:

May adversely affect system performance


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The future of Flux

Flux is going into maintenance mode. You can continue using it as you currently are without any changes to your code.

Read more

New in InfluxDB 3.4

Key enhancements in InfluxDB 3.4 and the InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.2.

See the Blog Post

InfluxDB 3.4 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, which introduces offline token generation for use in automated deployments and configurable license type selection that lets you bypass the interactive license prompt. InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.2 is also available, which includes InfluxDB cache management and other new features.

For more information, check out: