Kibana and Databricks Integration

Input and output integration overview

The Kibana plugin enables users to obtain status metrics from Kibana, a data visualization tool for Elasticsearch. By connecting to the Kibana API, this plugin captures various performance indicators and the health status of the Kibana service.

Use Telegraf’s HTTP output plugin to push metrics straight into a Databricks Lakehouse by calling the SQL Statement Execution API with a JSON-wrapped INSERT or volume PUT command.

Integration details

Kibana

The Kibana input plugin is designed to query the Kibana API to gather service status information. This plugin allows users to monitor their Kibana instances effectively by pulling metrics related to its health, performance, and operational metrics. By querying the Kibana API, this plugin provides insights into key parameters such as the current health status (green, yellow, red), uptime, heap memory usage, and request performance metrics. This information is crucial for administrators and operational teams looking to maintain optimal system performance and quickly address any issues that may arise. The configuration settings allow for flexible integration with other components in a microservices architecture, facilitating comprehensive monitoring solutions aligned with organizational needs, making it an essential tool for those leveraging the Elastic Stack in their infrastructure.

Databricks

This configuration turns Telegraf into a lightweight ingestion agent for the Databricks Lakehouse. It leverages the Databricks SQL Statement Execution API 2.0, which accepts authenticated POST requests containing a JSON payload with a statement field. Each Telegraf flush dynamically renders a SQL INSERT (or, for file-based workflows, a PUT ... INTO /Volumes/... command) that lands the metrics into a Unity Catalog table or volume governed by Lakehouse security. Under the hood Databricks stores successful inserts as Delta Lake transactions, enabling ACID guarantees, time-travel, and scalable analytics. Operators can point the warehouse_id at any serverless or classic SQL warehouse, and all authentication is handled with a PAT or service-principal token—no agents or JDBC drivers required. Because Telegraf’s HTTP output supports custom headers, batching, TLS, and proxy settings, the same pattern scales from edge IoT gateways to container sidecars, consolidating infrastructure telemetry, application logs, or business KPIs directly into the Lakehouse for BI, ML, and Lakehouse Monitoring. Unity Catalog volumes provide a governed staging layer when file uploads and COPY INTO are preferred, and the approach aligns with Databricks’ recommended ingestion practices for partners and ISVs.

Configuration

Kibana

[[inputs.kibana]]
  ## Specify a list of one or more Kibana servers
  servers = ["http://localhost:5601"]

  ## Timeout for HTTP requests
  timeout = "5s"

  ## HTTP Basic Auth credentials
  # username = "username"
  # password = "pa$$word"

  ## Optional TLS Config
  # tls_ca = "/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
  ## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = false
 
  ## If 'use_system_proxy' is set to true, Telegraf will check env vars such as
  ## HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, and NO_PROXY (or their lowercase counterparts).
  ## If 'use_system_proxy' is set to false (default) and 'http_proxy_url' is
  ## provided, Telegraf will use the specified URL as HTTP proxy.
  # use_system_proxy = false
  # http_proxy_url = "http://localhost:8888"

Databricks

[[outputs.http]]
  ## Databricks SQL Statement Execution API endpoint
  url = "https://{{ env "DATABRICKS_HOST" }}/api/2.0/sql/statements"

  ## Use POST to submit each Telegraf batch as a SQL request
  method = "POST"

  ## Personal-access token (PAT) for workspace or service principal
  headers = { Authorization = "Bearer {{ env "DATABRICKS_TOKEN" }}" }

  ## Send JSON that wraps the metrics batch in a SQL INSERT (or PUT into a Volume)
  content_type = "application/json"

  ## Serialize metrics as JSON so they can be embedded in the SQL statement
  data_format = "json"
  json_timestamp_units = "1ms"

  ## Build the request body.  Telegraf replaces the template variables at runtime.
  ## Example inserts a row per metric into a Unity-Catalog table.
  body_template = """
  {
    \"statement\": \"INSERT INTO ${TARGET_TABLE} VALUES {{range .Metrics}}(from_unixtime({{.timestamp}}/1000), {{.fields.usage}}, '{{.tags.host}}'){{end}}\",
    \"warehouse_id\": \"${WAREHOUSE_ID}\"
  }
  """

  ## Optional: add batching limits or TLS settings
  # batch_size = 500
  # timeout     = "10s"

Input and output integration examples

Kibana

1. Kibana Health Monitoring: Implement a dedicated dashboard to periodically poll the metrics from Kibana. This setup allows operations teams to have a real-time view of their Kibana instances’ health and metrics, enabling proactive performance management and immediate response capabilities in case of service degradation or failure.

2. Automated Alerting System: Integrate the metrics gathered from the Kibana plugin with an alerting system using tools like Prometheus or PagerDuty. By setting thresholds for key metrics (e.g., response time or heap usage), this integration can automatically notify the relevant personnel of performance issues, thereby reducing downtime and improving the response time for operational issues.

3. Resource Optimization Strategy: Use the memory usage and response time metrics collected by this plugin to formulate strategies for optimizing resource allocation in Kubernetes or other orchestration platforms. By analyzing trends over time, teams can adjust resource limits and requests dynamically, ensuring that Kibana instances function efficiently without over-provisioning resources.

Databricks

1. Edge-to-Lakehouse Telemetry Pipe: Deploy Telegraf on factory PLCs to sample vibration metrics and post them every second to a serverless SQL warehouse. Delta tables power PowerBI dashboards that alert engineers when thresholds drift.
2. Blue-Green CI/CD Rollout Metrics: Attach a Telegraf sidecar to each Kubernetes canary pod; it inserts container stats into a Unity Catalog table tagged by deployment_id, letting Databricks SQL compare error-rate percentiles and auto-rollback underperforming versions.
3. SaaS Usage Metering: Insert per-tenant API-call counters via the HTTP plugin; a nightly Lakehouse query aggregates usage into invoices, eliminating custom metering micro-services.
4. Security Forensics Lake: Upload JSON batches of Suricata IDS events to a Unity Catalog volume using PUT commands, then run COPY INTO for near-real-time enrichment with Delta Live Tables, producing a searchable threat-intel lake that joins network logs with user session data.

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