What’s New

OpenTSDB has a thriving community who contributed and requested a number of new features.

3.X (Planned)

While 3.0 is still a ways off, we’ll be pushing some of the new features into a new branch of the repo. Some are in progress and other features are planned. If you have any features that you want to see, let us know.

  • Distributed Queries - Based on the great work of Turn on Splicer we have a distributed query layer to split queries amongst multiple TSDs for greater throughput.

  • Query Caching - Improve queries with time-sharded caching of results.

  • Improved Expressions - Perform group by, downsampling and arithmetic modifications in any order. Potentially support UDFs as well.

  • Anomaly Processing/Forecasting - Integrate with modeling libraries (such as EGADs) for deeper time series analysis.

2.4

  • Rollup/Pre-Aggregates - Support for storing and querying time-based rolled up data and/or pre-aggregated values.

  • Distributed Percentile - Store histograms (or sketches) for calculating proper percentiles over multiple sources.

2.3

  • Expressions - Query time computations using time series data. For example, dividing one metric by another.

  • Graphite Style Functions - Additional filtering and mutation of data at query time using Graphite style functions.

  • Calendar Based Downsampling - The ability to align downsampled data on Gregorian calendar boundaries.

  • Bigtable Support - Run TSDB in the cloud using Google’s hosted Bigtable service.

  • Cassandra Support - Support for running OpenTSDB on legacy Cassandra clusters.

  • Write Filters - Block or allow time series or UID assignments based on plugins or whitelists.

  • New Aggregators - None for returning raw data. First and Last to return the first or last data points during downsampling.

  • Meta Data Cache Plugin - A new API for caching meta data to improve query performance.

  • Startup Plugins - APIs to help with service discovery on TSD startup.

  • Example Java API usage classes.

2.2

  • Appends - Support writing all data points for an hour in a single column. This saves the need for TSD compactions and reduces network traffic at query time.

  • Salting - Enables greater distribution of writes for high cardinality metrics as well as asynchronous scanning for improved query speed. (Non backwards compatible)

  • Random Metric UIDs - Enables better distribution of writes when creating new metrics

  • Storage Exception Plugin - Enables various handling of data points when HBase is unavailable

  • Secure AsyncHBase - Access HBase clusters requiring Kerberos or simple authentication along with optional encryption.

  • Fill Policy - Enable emitting NaNs or Nulls via the JSON query endpoint when data points are “missing”

  • Count and Percentiles - New aggregator functions

  • More Stats - Gives greater insight into query performance via the query stats endpoint and new stats for threads, region clients and the JVM

  • Annotations - Scan for multiple annotations only via the /api/annotations endpoint

  • Query Filters - New filters for flexibility including case (in)sensitive literals, wildcards and regular expressions.

  • Override Tag Widths - You can now override tag widths in the config instead of having to recompile the code.

  • Compaction Tuning - New parameters allow for tuning the TSD compaction process.

  • Delete Data And UIDs - Allow for deleting data at query time as well as removing UIDs from the system.

  • Synchronous Writing - The HTTP Put API now supports synchronous writing to make sure data is flushed to HBase.

  • Query Stats - Query details are now logged that include timing statistics. A new endpoint also shows running and completed queries.

2.1

  • Downsampling - Timestamps are now aligned on modulus boundaries, reducing the need to interpolation across series.

  • Last Data Point API - Query for the last data point for specific time series within a certain time window

  • Duplicates - Handle duplicate data points at query time or during FSCK

  • FSCK - An updated FSCK utility that iterates over the main data table, finding and fixing errors

  • Read/Write Modes - Block assigning UIDs on individual TSDs for backup clusters

  • UID Cache - Preload portions of the UID table on startup to improve writes

2.0

  • Lock-less UID Assignment - Drastically improves write speed when storing new metrics, tag names, or values

  • Restful API - Provides access to all of OpenTSDB’s features as well as offering new options, defaulting to JSON

  • Cross Origin Resource Sharing - For the API so you can make AJAX calls easily

  • Store Data Via HTTP - Write data points over HTTP as an alternative to Telnet

  • Configuration File - A key/value file shared by the TSD and command line tools

  • Pluggable Serializers - Enable different inputs and outputs for the API

  • Annotations - Record meta data about specific time series or data points

  • Meta Data - Record meta data for each time series, metrics, tag names, or values

  • Trees - Flatten metric and tag combinations into a single name for navigation or usage with different tools

  • Search Plugins - Send meta data to search engines to delve into your data and figure out what’s in your database

  • Real-Time Publishing Plugin - Send data to external systems as they arrive to your TSD

  • Ingest Plugins - Accept data points in different formats

  • Millisecond Resolution - Optionally store data with millisecond precision

  • Variable Length Encoding - Use less storage space for smaller integer values

  • Non-Interpolating Aggregation Functions - For situations where you require raw data

  • Rate Counter Calculations - Handle roll-over and anomaly supression

  • Additional Statistics - Including the number of UIDs assigned and available

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to 2.4. Help us out by sharing your ideas and code at GitHub