Lab 16: Visualize simulation data with InfluxDB and Grafana

This lab session demonstrates the visualization of historic simulation data via the web-based Grafana dashboard. For this purpose, VILLASnode persists the simulation data into the InfluxDB time-series database via a dedicated InfluxDB node-type.

This node-type streams the simulation data via UDP to an InfluxDB database using the line protocol.

Further information

• InfluxDB UDP Protocol
• InfluxDB Line Protocol Tutorial

Prerequisites

Up-to-date versions of:

• VILLASnode
• Docker
• docker-compose

1. Prepare Grafana and InfluxDB

We first need to prepare a standard Grafana and InfluxDB setup. For this task we use Docker containers and the following docker-compose.yml file.

docker-compose.yml

influxdb:
  image: influxdb:1.7.10
  container_name: influxdb
  ports:
    - "8083:8083"
    - "8086:8086"
    - "8090:8090"
    - "8089:8089/udp"
  environment:
    - INFLUXDB_DATA_ENGINE=tsm1
    - INFLUXDB_REPORTING_DISABLED=false
    - INFLUXDB_DB=villas
    - INFLUXDB_ADMIN_USER=admin
    - INFLUXDB_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin
    - INFLUXDB_UDP_ENABLED=true
    - INFLUXDB_UDP_DATABASE=villas

grafana:
  image: grafana/grafana:6.6.2
  container_name: grafana
  ports:
    - "3000:3000"
  environment:
    - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER=admin
    - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin
  links:
    - influxdb

Steps

1. Copy the contents of the docker-compose.yml file to a new file on your system.
2. Bring-up Grafana and InfluxDB with: docker-compose up -d from the same directory
3. Open the Grafana web-interface at: http://localhost:3000/
4. Login with the credentials:
   • User:
   • Admin:
5. Follow the setup wizard of Grafana and add a new data source with the following parameters
   • Type: InfluxDB
   • Name: villas
   • URL: http://influxdb:8086
   • Database: villas
   • User: admin
   • Admin: admin

2. Import Demo Dashboard into Grafana

Add a new dashboard to Grafana by importing the following file: VILLAS test dashboard

3. Run dummy simulation to fill InfluxDB with test data

villas.conf

nodes = {
        influx = {
                type = "influxdb",

                server = "influxdb:8089",
                key = "villas"

                # Send updates in batches of 50 samples
                in = {
                        vectorize = 50
                }
        }

        siggen = {
                type = "signal",

                signal = "mixed",
                values = 6
                rate = 50.0
        }
}

paths = (
        {
                in = "siggen"
                out = "influx"
        }
)

Steps

1. Add the following lines to a new file name villas.conf.
2. Run to following command to generate test data which VILLAsnode will store in the InfluxDB database: villas-node villas.conf
3. Return to Grafana to inspect the data

Screenshot

Grafana Dashboard

Go to [lab 17] =>(node-lab-17)