VMware vSphere and Databricks Integration

Input and output integration overview

The VMware vSphere Telegraf plugin provides a means to collect metrics from VMware vCenter servers, allowing for comprehensive monitoring and management of virtual resources in a vSphere environment.

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

VMware vSphere

This plugin connects to VMware vSphere servers to gather a variety of metrics from virtual environments, enabling efficient monitoring and management of virtual resources. It interfaces with the vSphere API to collect statistics regarding clusters, hosts, resource pools, VMs, datastores, and vSAN entities, presenting them in a format suitable for analysis and visualization. The plugin is particularly valuable for administrators who manage VMware-based infrastructures, as it helps to track system performance, resource usage, and operational issues in real-time. By aggregating data from multiple sources, the plugin empowers users with insights that facilitate informed decision-making regarding resource allocation, troubleshooting, and ensuring optimal system performance. Additionally, the support for secret-store integration allows secure handling of sensitive credentials, promoting best practices in security and compliance assessments.

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

VMware vSphere

[[inputs.vsphere]]
  vcenters = [ "https://vcenter.local/sdk" ]
  username = "[email protected]"
  password = "secret"

  vm_metric_include = [
    "cpu.demand.average",
    "cpu.idle.summation",
    "cpu.latency.average",
    "cpu.readiness.average",
    "cpu.ready.summation",
    "cpu.run.summation",
    "cpu.usagemhz.average",
    "cpu.used.summation",
    "cpu.wait.summation",
    "mem.active.average",
    "mem.granted.average",
    "mem.latency.average",
    "mem.swapin.average",
    "mem.swapinRate.average",
    "mem.swapout.average",
    "mem.swapoutRate.average",
    "mem.usage.average",
    "mem.vmmemctl.average",
    "net.bytesRx.average",
    "net.bytesTx.average",
    "net.droppedRx.summation",
    "net.droppedTx.summation",
    "net.usage.average",
    "power.power.average",
    "virtualDisk.numberReadAveraged.average",
    "virtualDisk.numberWriteAveraged.average",
    "virtualDisk.read.average",
    "virtualDisk.readOIO.latest",
    "virtualDisk.throughput.usage.average",
    "virtualDisk.totalReadLatency.average",
    "virtualDisk.totalWriteLatency.average",
    "virtualDisk.write.average",
    "virtualDisk.writeOIO.latest",
    "sys.uptime.latest",
  ]

  host_metric_include = [
    "cpu.coreUtilization.average",
    "cpu.costop.summation",
    "cpu.demand.average",
    "cpu.idle.summation",
    "cpu.latency.average",
    "cpu.readiness.average",
    "cpu.ready.summation",
    "cpu.swapwait.summation",
    "cpu.usage.average",
    "cpu.usagemhz.average",
    "cpu.used.summation",
    "cpu.utilization.average",
    "cpu.wait.summation",
    "disk.deviceReadLatency.average",
    "disk.deviceWriteLatency.average",
    "disk.kernelReadLatency.average",
    "disk.kernelWriteLatency.average",
    "disk.numberReadAveraged.average",
    "disk.numberWriteAveraged.average",
    "disk.read.average",
    "disk.totalReadLatency.average",
    "disk.totalWriteLatency.average",
    "disk.write.average",
    "mem.active.average",
    "mem.latency.average",
    "mem.state.latest",
    "mem.swapin.average",
    "mem.swapinRate.average",
    "mem.swapout.average",
    "mem.swapoutRate.average",
    "mem.totalCapacity.average",
    "mem.usage.average",
    "mem.vmmemctl.average",
    "net.bytesRx.average",
    "net.bytesTx.average",
    "net.droppedRx.summation",
    "net.droppedTx.summation",
    "net.errorsRx.summation",
    "net.errorsTx.summation",
    "net.usage.average",
    "power.power.average",
    "storageAdapter.numberReadAveraged.average",
    "storageAdapter.numberWriteAveraged.average",
    "storageAdapter.read.average",
    "storageAdapter.write.average",
    "sys.uptime.latest",
  ]

  datacenter_metric_include = [] ## if omitted or empty, all metrics are collected
  datacenter_metric_exclude = [ "*" ] ## Datacenters are not collected by default.

  vsan_metric_include = [] ## if omitted or empty, all metrics are collected
  vsan_metric_exclude = [ "*" ] ## vSAN are not collected by default.

  separator = "_"
  max_query_objects = 256
  max_query_metrics = 256
  collect_concurrency = 1
  discover_concurrency = 1
  object_discovery_interval = "300s"
  timeout = "60s"
  use_int_samples = true
  custom_attribute_include = []
  custom_attribute_exclude = ["*"]
  metric_lookback = 3
  ssl_ca = "/path/to/cafile"
  ssl_cert = "/path/to/certfile"
  ssl_key = "/path/to/keyfile"
  insecure_skip_verify = false
  historical_interval = "5m"
  disconnected_servers_behavior = "error"
  use_system_proxy = true
  http_proxy_url = ""

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

VMware vSphere

1. Dynamic Resource Allocation: Utilize this plugin to monitor resource usage across a fleet of VMs and automatically adjust resource allocations based on performance metrics. This scenario could involve triggering scaling actions in real time based on CPU and memory usage metrics collected from the vSphere API, ensuring optimal performance and cost-efficiency.

2. Capacity Planning and Forecasting: Leverage the historical metrics gathered from vSphere to conduct capacity planning. Analyzing the trends of CPU, memory, and storage usage over time helps administrators anticipate when additional resources will be needed, avoiding outages and ensuring that the virtual infrastructure can handle growth.

3. Automated Alerting and Incident Response: Integrate this plugin with alerting tools to set up automated notifications based on the metrics gathered. For example, if the CPU usage on a host exceeds a specified threshold, it could trigger alerts and automatically initiate predefined remediation steps, such as migrating VMs to less utilized hosts.

4. Performance Benchmarking Across Clusters: Use the metrics collected to compare the performance of clusters in different vCenters. This benchmarking provides insights into which cluster configurations yield the best resource efficiency and can guide future infrastructure enhancements.

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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