Infinity Values as TAG

1

Hi,
is there a way to have an “infinity value” as tag (such as the jobId). Normally, this raises the number of series dramatically which finally leads to memory issues due to a gigantic index.
However, in some circumstances the time is not as accurate that it is unique per measurement. In our specific situation we have only a time accuracy of a second. During the day there are times where we got several jobs per seconds.
If so, the newer job measurement overwrites the former one.

This issue could be solved by having the jobId as tag. Is there a way to handle that?

thx

Stefan

2

Hi Stefan,

So yes, you are correct in assuming that having infinity values with tags will lead to memory issues down the road because of the growing indexes.

A few options here:

  • InfluxDB currently defaults to tracking time at nanosecond granularity.
  • Could you make jobID a field instead of a tag? This would result in it not being indexed.
  • Could you distinguish jobs using other tags?

Hope this helps!

3

To add onto my previous answer, this use case is a little awkward for InfluxDB since its design is not quite apposite to this situation. We are definitely aware of this and are working on finding a solution to this and improving functionality for future releases.