gNMI and M3DB Integration
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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
Input and output integration overview
The gNMI (gRPC Network Management Interface) Input Plugin collects telemetry data from network devices using the gNMI Subscribe method. It supports TLS for secure authentication and data transmission.
This plugin allows Telegraf to stream metrics to M3DB using the Prometheus Remote Write protocol, enabling scalable ingestion through the M3 Coordinator.
Integration details
gNMI
This input plugin is vendor-agnostic and can be used with any platform that supports the gNMI specification. It consumes telemetry data based on the gNMI Subscribe method, allowing for real-time monitoring of network devices.
M3DB
This configuration uses Telegraf’s HTTP output plugin with prometheusremotewrite
format to send metrics directly to M3DB through the M3 Coordinator. M3DB is a distributed time series database designed for scalable, high-throughput metric storage. It supports ingestion of Prometheus remote write data via its Coordinator component, which manages translation and routing into the M3DB cluster. This approach enables organizations to collect metrics from systems that aren’t natively instrumented for Prometheus (e.g., Windows, SNMP, legacy systems) and ingest them efficiently into M3’s long-term, high-performance storage engine. The setup is ideal for high-scale observability stacks with Prometheus compatibility requirements.
Configuration
gNMI
[[inputs.gnmi]]
## Address and port of the gNMI GRPC server
addresses = ["10.49.234.114:57777"]
## define credentials
username = "cisco"
password = "cisco"
## gNMI encoding requested (one of: "proto", "json", "json_ietf", "bytes")
# encoding = "proto"
## redial in case of failures after
# redial = "10s"
## gRPC Keepalive settings
## See https://pkg.go.dev/google.golang.org/grpc/keepalive
## The client will ping the server to see if the transport is still alive if it has
## not see any activity for the given time.
## If not set, none of the keep-alive setting (including those below) will be applied.
## If set and set below 10 seconds, the gRPC library will apply a minimum value of 10s will be used instead.
# keepalive_time = ""
## Timeout for seeing any activity after the keep-alive probe was
## sent. If no activity is seen the connection is closed.
# keepalive_timeout = ""
## gRPC Maximum Message Size
# max_msg_size = "4MB"
## Enable to get the canonical path as field-name
# canonical_field_names = false
## Remove leading slashes and dots in field-name
# trim_field_names = false
## Guess the path-tag if an update does not contain a prefix-path
## Supported values are
## none -- do not add a 'path' tag
## common path -- use the common path elements of all fields in an update
## subscription -- use the subscription path
# path_guessing_strategy = "none"
## Prefix tags from path keys with the path element
# prefix_tag_key_with_path = false
## Optional client-side TLS to authenticate the device
## Set to true/false to enforce TLS being enabled/disabled. If not set,
## enable TLS only if any of the other options are specified.
# tls_enable =
## Trusted root certificates for server
# tls_ca = "/path/to/cafile"
## Used for TLS client certificate authentication
# tls_cert = "/path/to/certfile"
## Used for TLS client certificate authentication
# tls_key = "/path/to/keyfile"
## Password for the key file if it is encrypted
# tls_key_pwd = ""
## Send the specified TLS server name via SNI
# tls_server_name = "kubernetes.example.com"
## Minimal TLS version to accept by the client
# tls_min_version = "TLS12"
## List of ciphers to accept, by default all secure ciphers will be accepted
## See https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#pkg-constants for supported values.
## Use "all", "secure" and "insecure" to add all support ciphers, secure
## suites or insecure suites respectively.
# tls_cipher_suites = ["secure"]
## Renegotiation method, "never", "once" or "freely"
# tls_renegotiation_method = "never"
## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
# insecure_skip_verify = false
## gNMI subscription prefix (optional, can usually be left empty)
## See: https://github.com/openconfig/reference/blob/master/rpc/gnmi/gnmi-specification.md#222-paths
# origin = ""
# prefix = ""
# target = ""
## Vendor specific options
## This defines what vendor specific options to load.
## * Juniper Header Extension (juniper_header): some sensors are directly managed by
## Linecard, which adds the Juniper GNMI Header Extension. Enabling this
## allows the decoding of the Extension header if present. Currently this knob
## adds component, component_id & sub_component_id as additional tags
# vendor_specific = []
## YANG model paths for decoding IETF JSON payloads
## Model files are loaded recursively from the given directories. Disabled if
## no models are specified.
# yang_model_paths = []
## Define additional aliases to map encoding paths to measurement names
# [inputs.gnmi.aliases]
# ifcounters = "openconfig:/interfaces/interface/state/counters"
[[inputs.gnmi.subscription]]
## Name of the measurement that will be emitted
name = "ifcounters"
## Origin and path of the subscription
## See: https://github.com/openconfig/reference/blob/master/rpc/gnmi/gnmi-specification.md#222-paths
##
## origin usually refers to a (YANG) data model implemented by the device
## and path to a specific substructure inside it that should be subscribed
## to (similar to an XPath). YANG models can be found e.g. here:
## https://github.com/YangModels/yang/tree/master/vendor/cisco/xr
origin = "openconfig-interfaces"
path = "/interfaces/interface/state/counters"
## Subscription mode ("target_defined", "sample", "on_change") and interval
subscription_mode = "sample"
sample_interval = "10s"
## Suppress redundant transmissions when measured values are unchanged
# suppress_redundant = false
## If suppression is enabled, send updates at least every X seconds anyway
# heartbeat_interval = "60s"
M3DB
# Configuration for sending metrics to M3
[outputs.http]
## URL is the address to send metrics to
url = "https://M3_HOST:M3_PORT/api/v1/prom/remote/write"
## HTTP Basic Auth credentials
username = "admin"
password = "password"
## Data format to output.
data_format = "prometheusremotewrite"
## Outgoing HTTP headers
[outputs.http.headers]
Content-Type = "application/x-protobuf"
Content-Encoding = "snappy"
X-Prometheus-Remote-Write-Version = "0.1.0"
Input and output integration examples
gNMI
-
Monitoring Cisco Devices: Use the gNMI plugin to collect telemetry data from Cisco IOS XR, NX-OS, or IOS XE devices for performance monitoring.
-
Real-time Network Insights: With the gNMI plugin, network administrators can gain insights into real-time metrics such as interface statistics and CPU usage.
-
Secure Data Collection: Configure the gNMI plugin with TLS settings to ensure secure communication while collecting sensitive telemetry data from devices.
-
Flexible Data Handling: Use the subscription options to customize which telemetry data you want to collect based on specific needs or requirements.
-
Error Handling: The plugin includes troubleshooting options to handle common issues like missing metric names or TLS handshake failures.
M3DB
-
Large-Scale Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring: Deploy Telegraf agents across thousands of virtual machines and containers to collect metrics and stream them into M3DB through the M3 Coordinator. This provides reliable, long-term visibility with minimal storage overhead and high availability.
-
Legacy System Metrics Ingestion: Use Telegraf to gather metrics from older systems that lack native Prometheus exporters (e.g., Windows servers, SNMP devices) and forward them to M3DB via remote write. This bridges modern observability workflows with legacy infrastructure.
-
Centralized App Telemetry Aggregation: Collect application-specific telemetry using Telegraf’s plugin ecosystem (e.g.,
exec
,http
,jolokia
) and push it into M3DB for centralized storage and query via PromQL. This enables unified analytics across diverse data sources. -
Hybrid Cloud Observability: Install Telegraf agents on-prem and in the cloud to collect and remote-write metrics into a centralized M3DB cluster. This ensures consistent visibility across environments while avoiding the complexity of running Prometheus federation layers.
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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