InfluxData Blog - Navdeep Sidhu

Getting Started with Flux

Navdeep Sidhu (InfluxData) — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 06:15:51 -0700

Recently we concluded a series of six ‘office-hour’ webinars on Flux, InfluxData’s new functional data scripting language designed for querying, analyzing, and interacting with data. The goal was to answer any Flux-related questions and also get community feedback to improve the language. In these sessions, InfluxData’s Flux engineer, Adam Anthony showed cool features in the products, did some amazing demos and even replicated a user’s InfluxQL-based query and re-wrote it in Flux language. These sessions clearly showed the versatility of the language and the capabilities which make it an obvious choice for time series data and beyond.

'Flux - Office Hour' Recordings and Session Overviews

In each webinar, we highlighted a different set of capabilities. Each session was recorded so that it can be replayed by users who could not join. We are highlighting key topics covered in each session in the summary below. The summary will help you jump to the interesting parts in the video if you do not have the time to watch all of them.

Session 1 (Nov. 15th) - In this session you will see an example of switching a complex query using NON_NEGATIVE_DERIVATIVES from InfluxQL to Flux language (FFWD to 17:15). This is a great example to see side-by-side construction of a Flux query which explains from, range, withMeasurement and filter which are basic constructs of Flux to using group, mean, sort, derivative and window functions. Note that the usage of group function has changed since this session and we highlight that in a later session. Adam also shows running sandbox (FFWD 41:40) which is the fastest way to get your hands on Flux.

Session 2 (Nov. 20th) - We revisit using the Sandbox from the last webinar and use Sandbox commands to start with basic constructs of Flux (FFWD 8:10) which helps in getting started with Flux - using the CLI tool to write a Flux query. The test scripts on Github and how you can use them is explained (FFWD 14:01), these scripts reside in flux/functions/transformations/testdata folder and provide the scripts which show how to use for example the derivative function and the expected output as well. Table: key concept is explained (FFWD 24:40) which determines which determines the table structure and how data streams are stored. Group and Window functions are explained (FFWD 29:50) and how adding _start and _stop times can get data into separate groups. Pivot function is explained (FFWD 40:45) which collects values stored vertically (column-wise) in a table and aligns them horizontally (row-wise) into logical sets.

Session 3 (Nov. 27th) - In addition to answering several questions about Flux, our resident expert Adam explains a brand new function called aggregateWindow (FFWD 22:44) which enables users to aggregate data in fixed windows of time. In addition to explaining the function, Adam also explains how to use this function in a Flux query. The percentile functions estimate_tdigest, exact_mean and exact_selector are explained (FFWD 32:30) with an example including input and output data. Furthermore, the use of Pivot function is explained to show (FFWD 38:07) the join of ‘downloaded’ and ‘installed’ data stored in different tables. The use of map function is explained (FFWD 48:53) to calculate ratio of ‘downloaded’ vs. ‘installed’ measurements.

Session 4 (Dec. 6th) - This session explains the new group function. Note that the earlier sessions showed the older implementation of the group function. As the Flux language evolves, the implementation of functions can change as well. Adam discusses the new implementation of the group function (FFWD 20:25) and explains the reasons for the change as well. This is one of the most important functions in the language as it lets developers reshape the data and how you can group, re-group and ungroup data to achieve desired results.

Session 5 (Dec. 13th) - We revisit the breaking change in the syntax of group function and this time with a demo of the new syntax. Adam explains the new syntax for the group function (FFWD 4:05) and how this new syntax is available in the nightlies first and will show up in the next OSS version soon. Adam also shows the new method for testing code (FFWD 15:10) in testingTest which tests a function called simpleMax and loads both input and output files in Flux tables and compares them using assertEquals. The import and standard library design proposals are explained (FFWD 21:02) which make Flux more organized and support packages and namespaces. Additionally, Adam highlights another way of doing maths across measurements (FFWD 29:20) across httpd and write streams using pivot function.

Session 6 (Dec. 20th) - This was the last webinar in the office hour series in 2018. Adam walks through the Github repo for Flux (FFWD 5:52) and ‘helpers.go’ function in flux/functions/tests which is a great way to setup tests using Flux. This is a great way to learn other Flux functions as well. Upcoming Flux features (FFWD 11:50) are highlighted including how to define and import a package. Adam also writes another query example for doing distinct (FFWD 15:05) on multiple columns. The concept of writing helper functions is also explained.

Additional Flux Resources

If you were unable to join the office-hour webinar series, we encourage you to view the recordings linked above and start writing Flux queries using the sandbox which is the fastest way to get your hands on Flux. As a reminder, Flux is still being developed, and we recommend that Flux not be used for Production uses at the moment.

In addition to the Flux documentation and forums, the blog posts will be a good source of getting up to speed. So keep an eye on InfluxData’s blog page and look out for Flux-related posts to learn more about Flux.

Flux Office Hours Scheduled and More Flux Blog Posts Coming Soon

Navdeep Sidhu (InfluxData) — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 09:20:19 -0700

Flux is InfluxData’s new functional data scripting language designed for querying, analyzing, and interacting with data. We recently launched Flux(0.7) as part of the InfluxDB 1.7 and Chronograf 1.7 released last week. The developers who attended last week’s InfluxDays event in San Francisco got to see Flux in action as well. For the community members who have not had the chance to explore Flux, we are starting two initiatives to bring them up to speed on Flux.

Flux Blog Posts

We will be releasing Flux-focused blog posts which will highlight the capabilities of the language with examples to help users get started. The first post in the series is out already. InfluxData’s Tim Hall (VP - Products) wrote Flux 0.7 Technical Preview which outlines key concepts and walks through executing a query.

More posts are planned and will be coming out over the course of the next several weeks. In addition to the Flux documentation and forums, the posts will be a good source of getting up to speed. So keep an eye on InfluxData’s blog page and look out for Flux-related posts to learn more about Flux.

Flux Office Hours

In addition to the blog posts, we want developers to engage with us and have a dialog. We are bringing our top engineering experts to the table so that users can ask them questions around Flux. The goal is to answer any Flux-related questions and also get community feedback to improve the language.

One of the underlying principles behind Flux is that it is a language which is extensible—contributable and shareable. We want to answer Flux-related questions and at the same time hear from the community on what they would like to be added or enhanced.

Sign Up Today for Flux Office Hours

We have just published the list of Flux Office Hours. Please take a look and sign up for the slot that works for you. If you are interested in more than one slot, you can sign up for multiple slots as well.

InfluxData Roadshows Coming to Europe This December

Navdeep Sidhu (InfluxData) — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 09:00:48 -0700

InfluxData Roadshows are coming to Europe this December! Our recent roadshows held in several US cities were very well-received. Based on their tremendous success, we’re hitting 3 European cities Munich, Berlin and Amsterdam all in the first week of December 2018. Many of our most passionate and innovative users are in Europe, and this one-day event series targets local users who reside near the roadshow location. In all 3 of these European roadshows, InfluxData VP of Products Tim Hall will be presenting. InfluxData Roadshow will expand to other major European cities next year.

The ultimate aim of InfluxData Roadshows is to bring our time series data platform closer to our user community. As this community has grown significantly across the globe, roadshows are a great way to bring InfluxData’s product leadership closer to the Platform’s actual users. Whether deploying our open-source, enterprise or cloud solutions, our users have one thing in common: they care deeply about Metrics and Events and are always on the lookout for better ways to use them to observe system and application behavior.

Bringing our time series data platform closer to our user community

Why Attend InfluxData Roadshows?

The InfluxData Roadshow creates a dialog where InfluxData highlights the new features and roadmap while getting feedback from developers, SREs, IoT admins etc. It is a unique hands-on experience for using the industry-leading Time Series Platform. This event is focused on educating and enabling attendees to instrument and automate any system, application and business process across a variety of use cases.

Sessions cover everything from InfluxData’s vision for the platform to some of the latest customer case studies showing how organizations are finding new ways to derive value from time series data. There are always sessions which discuss architecture and best practices for delivering a robust platform. Those of you who live on the bleeding edge will want to learn about our Technical Roadmap and what to expect.

InfluxData Roadshow featuring a broad range of presentations

Register Today

In or near Munich, Berlin or Amsterdam in the first week of December? Click here to register. Seats are limited, and registration is on a first-come-first-serve basis. Don’t miss out on this chance to learn how to power your apps with time series data!

Introducing Developer Support from InfluxData

Navdeep Sidhu (InfluxData) — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 08:00:55 -0700

InfluxData is singularly focused on building the best time series data platform. Our purpose-built stack for metrics and events is becoming the de facto solution for ingesting, querying and processing time series data. As a company, we have always focused on faster ‘Time to Awesome’ for developers and always made concerted efforts to deliver the features needed by the developer community.

Now, we are taking the next step in supporting our vibrant and growing open source community. Our open source users have been asking us to support the open source version of InfluxDB for a while. We have always provided support for Enterprise and Cloud versions, but the developer support for open-source InfluxDB has been missing and developers have been relying on forums etc. to get support from other users. While support from other users is always helpful, sometimes developers are working on time-sensitive projects, they need help in a timely manner to meet their objectives.

Today, we are happy to announce Developer Support for Telegraf, InfluxDB and Chronograf which will help open source users to get formal support from InfluxData. Now, open source users have an option to receive email support to get their questions answered, problems solved and receive guidance on the best practices.

We hope that this new support offering will help developers achieve their goals, speed up InfluxDB adoption and get them on a fast track to solving their time series problems. This new support option does not change how existing Enterprise and Cloud customers are supported. As always, we will continue to provide tutorials, webinars and open documentation to support developers.

You can find more information about this support offering here, and reach out to our team to sign up using the ‘Contact Us’ button on the page or via Chat.