InfluxDB simplifies working with time-series data with revamped script editor and more

San Francisco-based InfluxData, the company behind InfluxDB platform, today announced new feature updates to help developers easily work with time series data for building real-time IoT, analytics and cloud applications.

Time series data is a sequence of information indexed over a period of time. These time-stamped data points typically consist of successive measurements made from the same source and are used to track changes to key business aspects (like sales). To this end, platforms like InfluxDB come into play, helping enterprises mobilize the data and build applications for analyzing it, detecting patterns and making predictions.

InfluxDB provides organizations with two key components: a time series engine to ingest millions of data points – metrics, events, logs, traces – from different sources and a set of APIs & tools to easily transform, understand and visualize it. The latter includes a RESTful API, client libraries, a script editor and Flux, a functional, open-source data scripting language for query, analysis, action on the data.

With the latest update, announced at the ongoing InfluxDays event, the company is focusing on enhancing this tooling bit of its platform, making it easier for developers to use.

“At InfluxData, we strive to facilitate as many options as possible to make the experience of building applications with time series data fast and efficient for every use case,” Rick Spencer, VP of products at InfluxData, said. “These new capabilities support developers at every stage of writing their apps so they can build them better and faster. Time…is critical for developers – the sooner we help the developer get underway with InfluxDB, the sooner they can move onto larger problem-solving in their project.”

So, what’s new in InfluxDB?

First, the script editor, which allows companies to understand the shape of their data and create scripts for storage and retrieval,  is getting an improved query experience with an intuitive interface and workflows, enabling developers to uncover faster insights from their data. 

“On the query side, we have totally revamped our Script Editor. It now features a familiar and powerful schema browser, along with the ability to save and load your scripts right in the InfluxDB UI, something our community has been eager for. It also has improved performance when working with large data sets, and, in preparation for the IOx storage engine (the new storage engine of InfluxDB), supports multiple scripting languages,” Spencer told VentureBeat.

Then, there’s a new version 1.0 of Flux, which now includes capabilities that allow users to easily share and repurpose Flux scripts across disparate buckets and sources so they can do more with less effort. It also includes Flux Editions, which allow developers to opt-in to new Flux features without breaking changes, further ensuring stability, longevity, and granular control.

“Announcing that Flux has reached 1.0 is all about bringing more collaboration and stability to the language. For example, we’ve introduced Polymorphism, which makes it easy to interact with external data sources, especially JSON,” Spencer added.

Finally, InfluxDB’s open-source data collection agent Telegraf, which offers over 300 input and transformation plugins, is getting a custom builder that allows developers to reduce the footprint of the agent by only including the plugins they need with each build. Developers could use the builder’s simple, low-code interface to build a customized Telegraf binary for their needs, saving space and compute resources.

Notably, the features come just a few days after the launch of InfluxDB IOx, which removes limits on cardinality and is built to support the full range of time series use cases: real-time applications that rely on metrics, events, traces, and other high-cardinality time-stamped data. The new storage engine also brings SQL to InfluxDB for the first time – a move that will greatly increase the reach of the platform, ensuring more developers, more business users, and more data scientists feel right at home.

Both the custom builder for Telegraf and revamped script editor are now available for InfluxDB users, while Flux 1.0 will be launching later this quarter.

Originally appeared on: TheSpuzz