Time series data is special — not just in the unique data that it captures, but also in the ways we interact with that data. Time series data is evanescent and voluminous, which is to say, it comes and goes quickly and in great number. That calls for different considerations for storage and retrieval than other types of data. In this webinar, we will define what time series data is (and isn’t), how the problem domain time series differs from more traditional data workloads like full-text search, how it’s being used in the industry, and the benefits of storing time series data in a time series database.

1. Why Should I Use a
Time Series
Database?

2. HII’m Katy Farmer.
I’m a Developer Advocate at InfluxData, where we build a time series platform for
metrics and events.
InfluxData is open-source, too!

3. What Is Time Series Data?
● High Volume
● Natural time order
● Value is increased by
timestamp
● More valuable as a data
set than as individual
points
Characteristics of time series data Think of Weather Data

4. What Is Time Series Data?
NOT TIME SERIES TIME SERIES

5. Why Do We Use Time Series Databases?
Scalability
Usability
Specialty

6. Scalability

7. ∎ 1500 hours flight time
∎ Reporting every 5s
∎ >1M data points for a single device
Time Series databases specialize in
higher writes with eventual
consistency, even across distributed
systems.

8. Usability

9. Interacting with our time series data should be easy
Modular tools allow for
customizable and specific
architecture
Specialized query languages to
interact w/data in the context
of time

10. Specialty

11. Time Series Data Is Special
● Tools can determine how we spend our resources
○ Time spent learning/optimizing tools
● Time series databases are optimized for time series data
○ Efficient
○ Performant
● Solution-focused

12. Time Series Is the Fastest Growing Category

13. Top Reasons Time Series Is the Fastest Growing
Database
Explosion of
Connected Things
Time Series Solves
Problems
Data-Driven Businesses Real-Time
Requirements
Adoption of
Monitoring
Processes

14. How is it being used?
Forecasting
Meteorology, finance,
machine learning
Internet of
Things
Smart homes, lights, drones,
or anything we can connect
to the Internet
14
Analytics
Track behavior, pattern
recognition
DevOps
Monitoring, log/error
reporting, decision pipeline

15. InfluxData Use Cases
Monitoring of the systems
and sensors across solar
and battery installations
providing greater visibility
and insight into energy
usage and maintenance.
“We analyze over 70,000
hours of data every night, half
a billion data points, to
produce alerts for our
technicians. Having this real-
time data in the cloud makes
it possible to identify trends,
usage patterns & even detect
problems before they exist!”
David McLean
Lead Developer at BBOXX
“InfluxDB has changed the
way that we work and
operate our platforms.”
“We couldn’t support our
services without it.”
Rob Frohnapfel
Director of Engineering
Comcast

16. What Now?
● Download InfluxDB--and its friends Telegraf, Chronograf, & Kapacitor
○ Open Source
○ Free
○ Takes 5 minutes
○ Makes you happy
○ https://portal.influxdata.com/downloads
● Visit our community site
○ Ask questions
○ Read user feedback
○ Makes you happy
○ https://community.influxdata.com/

17. THANKS!
Any questions?
@influxdb
@thekatertot
katy@influxdata.com
Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free:
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