Project: VictoriaMetrics (Observability and Analysis / Observability)
File: migrate-from-influx.md

title: Migrate from InfluxDB to VictoriaMetrics weight: 8 menu: docs: parent: "guides" weight: 8 aliases: /guides/migrate-from-influx.html InfluxDB is a well-known time series database built for monitoring, Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and analytics. It has its query language, unique data model, and rich tooling for collecting and processing metrics. Nowadays, the volume of time series data grows constantly, as well as requirements for durable time series storage. And sometimes old known solutions just can't keep up with the new expectations. VictoriaMetrics is a high-performance opensource time series database specifically designed to deal with huge volumes of monitoring data while remaining cost-efficient at the same time. Many companies are choosing to migrate from InfluxDB to VictoriaMetrics specifically for performance and scalability reasons. Along them see case studies provided by and . This guide will cover the differences between two solutions, most commonly asked questions, and approaches for migrating from InfluxDB to VictoriaMetrics. While readers are likely familiar with , the data model of VictoriaMetrics is something . Let's start with similarities and differences: both solutions are schemaless*, which means there is no need to define metrics or their tags in advance; multidimensional data support is implemented via in InfluxDB and via in VictoriaMetrics. However, labels in VictoriaMetrics are always `strings`, while InfluxDB supports multiple data types; timestamps are stored with nanosecond resolution in InfluxDB, while in VictoriaMetrics it is milliseconds*; in VictoriaMetrics metric value is always `float64`, while InfluxDB supports multiple data types. there are no or in VictoriaMetrics, metric name contains it all. If measurement contains more than 1 field, then for VictoriaMetrics it will be multiple metrics; there are no , or . All data in VictoriaMetrics is stored in a global namespace or within a . See more about multi-tenancy . Let's consider the following borrowed from InfluxDB docs as an example: | measurement | field | location | scientist | value | time | |--|--|-|-|--|-| | census | bees | klamath | anderson | 23 | 2019-08-18T00:00:00Z | | census | ants | portland | mullen | 30 | 2019-08-18T00:00:00Z | | census | bees | klamath | anderson | 28 | 2019-08-18T00:06:00Z | | census | ants | portland | mullen | 32 | 2019-08-18T00:06:00Z | In VictoriaMetrics data model this sample will have the following form: | metric name | labels | value | time | |-|:|-|-| | census_bees | {location="klamath", scientist="anderson"} | 23 | 2019-08-18T00:00:00Z | | census_ants | {location="portland", scientist="mullen"} | 30 | 2019-08-18T00:00:00Z | | census_bees | {location="klamath", scientist="anderson"} | 28 | 2019-08-18T00:06:00Z | | census_ants | {location="portland", scientist="mullen"} | 32 | 2019-08-18T00:06:00Z | Actually, metric name for VictoriaMetrics is also a label with static name `name`, and example above can be converted to `{name="census_bees", location="klamath", scientist="anderson"}`. All labels are indexed by VictoriaMetrics, so lookups by names or labels have the same query speed. VictoriaMetrics supports for data

For example, to write a measurement to VictoriaMetrics we need to send an HTTP POST request with payload in a line protocol format: ```sh curl -d 'census,location=klamath,scientist=anderson bees=23 1566079200000' -X POST 'http://<victoriametric-addr>:8428/write' ``` _hint: timestamp in the example might be out of configured retention for VictoriaMetrics. Consider increasing the retention period or changing the timestamp, if that is the case._ Please note, an arbitrary number of lines delimited by `\n` (aka newline char) can be sent in a single request. To get the written data back let's export all series matching the `location="klamath"` filter: ```sh curl -G 'http://<victoriametric-addr>:8428/api/v1/export' -d 'match={location="klamath"}' ``` The expected response is the following: ```json { "metric": { "name": "census_bees", "location": "klamath", "scientist": "anderson" }, "values": [ 23 ], "timestamps": [ 1566079200000 ] } ``` Please note, VictoriaMetrics performed additional to the data ingested via InfluxDB line protocol. Support of InfluxDB line protocol also means VictoriaMetrics is compatible with . To configure Telegraf, simply add `http://<victoriametric-addr>:8428` URL to Telegraf configs: ``` [[outputs.influxdb]] urls = ["http://<victoriametrics-addr>:8428"] ``` In addition to InfluxDB line protocol, VictoriaMetrics supports many other ways for . VictoriaMetrics does not have a command-line interface (CLI). Instead, it provides an for serving read queries. This API is used in various integrations such as . The same API is also used by - a graphical User Interface for querying and visualizing metrics: <img src="migrate-from-influx_vmui.webp"> See more about . Let's take a closer look at querying specific with the following data sample: ```sql foo ,instance=localhost bar=1.00 1652169600000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=2.00 1652169660000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=3.00 1652169720000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=5.00 1652169840000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=5.50 1652169960000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=5.50 1652170020000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=4.00 1652170080000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=3.50 1652170260000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=3.25 1652170320000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=3.00 1652170380000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=2.00 1652170440000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=1.00 1652170500000000000 foo,instance=localhost bar=4.00 1652170560000000000 ``` The data sample consists data points for a measurement `foo` and a field `bar` with additional tag `instance=localhost`. If we would like plot this data as a time series in Grafana it might have the following look: <img src="migrate-from-influx_data-sample-in-influx.webp"> The query used for this panel is written in : ```sql SELECT last ("bar") FROM "foo" WHERE ("instance" = 'localhost') AND $timeFilter GROUP BY time (1m) ``` Having this, let's import the same data sample in VictoriaMetrics and plot it in Grafana as well. To understand how the InfluxQL query might be translated to MetricsQL let's break it into components first: `SELECT last("bar") FROM "foo"` - all requests to or VictoriaMetrics APIs are reads, so no need to specify the `SELECT` statement. There are no `measurements` or `fields` in VictoriaMetrics, so the whole expression can be replaced with `foo_bar` in MetricsQL; `WHERE ("instance" = 'localhost')`- in MetricsQL requires specifying the filter in curly braces next to the metric name. So in MetricsQL filter expression will be translated to `{instance="localhost"}`; `WHERE $timeFilter` - filtering by time is done via request params sent along with query, so in MetricsQL no need to specify this filter; `GROUP BY time(1m)` - grouping by time is done by default in API according to specified `step` param. This param is also a part of params sent along with request. See how to perform additional

In result, executing the `foo_bar{instance="localhost"}` MetricsQL expression with `step=1m` for the same set of data in Grafana will have the following form: <img src="migrate-from-influx_data-sample-in-vm.webp"> Visualizations from both databases are a bit different - VictoriaMetrics shows some extra points filling the gaps in the graph. This behavior is described in more detail . In InfluxDB, we can achieve a similar behavior by adding `fill(previous)` to the query. VictoriaMetrics fills the gaps on the graph assuming time series are always continuous and not discrete. To limit the interval on which VictoriaMetrics will try to fill the gaps, set `-search.setLookbackToStep` command-line flag. This limits the gap filling to a single `step` interval passed to . This behavior is close to InfluxDB data model. The good thing is that knowing the basics and some aggregation functions is often enough for using MetricsQL or PromQL. Let's consider one of the most popular Grafana dashboards . It has almost 15 million downloads and about 230 PromQL queries in it! But a closer look at those queries shows the following: ~120 queries are just selecting a metric with label filters, e.g. `nodetextfilescrape_error{instance="$node",job="$job"}`; ~80 queries are using function for selected metric, e.g. `rate(nodenetstatTcp_InSegs{instance=\"$node\",job=\"$job\"})` and the rest are like or . To get a better understanding of how MetricsQL works, see the following resources: ; ; . Migrating data from other TSDBs to VictoriaMetrics is as simple as importing data via any of . But migration from InfluxDB might get easier when using - VictoriaMetrics command-line tool. See more about migrating . Migrating data from InfluxDB v2.x is not supported yet. But there is useful for this. Please note, that data migration is a backfilling process. So, please consider . How does VictoriaMetrics compare to InfluxDB? Why don't VictoriaMetrics support Remote Read API, so I don't need to learn MetricsQL? The PromQL and MetricsQL are often mentioned together - why is that? _MetricsQL - query language inspired by PromQL. MetricsQL is backward-compatible with PromQL, so Grafana dashboards backed by Prometheus datasource should work the same after switching from Prometheus to VictoriaMetrics. Both languages mostly share the same concepts with slight differences._ Query returns more data points than expected - why? _VictoriaMetrics may return non-existing data points if `step` param is lower than the actual data resolution. See more about this ._ How do I get the `real` last data point, not `ephemeral`? _ function can be used for limiting the lookbehind window for calculated data. For example, `lastovertime(metric[10s])` would return calculated samples only if the real samples are located closer than 10 seconds to the calculated timestamps according to `start`, `end` and `step` query args passed to ._ How do I get raw data points with MetricsQL? _For getting raw data points specify the interval at which you want them in square brackets and send as . For example, `GET api/v1/query?query=mymetric[5m]&time=<time>` will return raw samples for `mymetric` in interval from `<time>` to `<time>-5m`._ Can you have multiple aggregators in a MetricsQL query, e.g. `SELECT MAX(field), MIN(field) ...`? Yes, try the following query `( alias(max(field), "max"), alias(min(field), "min") )`. How to translate Influx `percentile` function to MetricsQL? How to translate Influx `stddev` function to MetricsQL?