# Data Analytics with Treasure Data

This article explains how to use [Treasure Data](http://www.fluentd.org/treasuredata) with [Fluentd](http://fluentd.org/) to aggregate semi-structured logs into Treasure Data (TD), which offers Cloud Data Service.

## Background

[Fluentd](http://fluentd.org/) is an advanced open-source log collector originally developed at [Treasure Data, Inc](http://www.fluentd.org/treasuredata). Fluentd is specifically designed to solve the big-data log collection problem.

[Treasure Data](http://www.fluentd.org/treasuredata) provides Cloud Data Service, which Fluentd users can use to easily store and analyze data on the cloud. Fluentd is designed to flexibly connect with many systems via plugins, but Treasure Data should be your top choice if you don't want to spend engineering resources maintaining your backend infrastructure.

This article will show you how to use [Fluentd](http://fluentd.org/) to receive data from HTTP and stream it into TD.

## Architecture

The figure below shows the high-level architecture:

![TreasureData Architecture](https://1982584918-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-LR7OsqPORtP86IQxs6E-694727794%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-49ed04a96366d3754224d2c00c1d1c37b4a35c45%2Ftreasuredata_architecture.png?alt=media)

## Prerequisites

The following software/services are required to be set up correctly:

* [Fluentd](https://www.fluentd.org/)
* [TD Output Plugin](https://github.com/treasure-data/fluent-plugin-td)
* Your Treasure Data (CDP) Services Account

For simplicity, this article will describe how to set up a one-node configuration. Please install the above prerequisites software/services on the same node.

You can install Fluentd via major packaging systems.

* [Installation](https://docs.fluentd.org/installation)

### Install plugin

If `out_td` (fluent-plugin-td) is not installed yet, please install it manually.

See [Plugin Management](https://github.com/fluent/fluentd-docs-gitbook/blob/1.0/installation/post-installation-guide/README.md#plugin-management) section how to install fluent-plugin-td on your environment.

{% hint style="info" %}
If you use `fluent-package`, out\_td (fluent-plugin-td) is bundled by default.
{% endhint %}

## Sign Up

Next, please [sign up](https://console.treasure-data.com/users/sign_up) to TD and get your `apikey` using the `td apikey:show` command:

```
$ td account -f
Enter your Treasure Data credentials.
Email: your.email@gmail.com
Password (typing will be hidden):
$ td apikey:show
kdfasklj218dsakfdas0983120
```

## Fluentd Configuration

Let's start configuring Fluentd. If you used the deb/rpm package, Fluentd's config file is located at `/etc/fluent/fluentd.conf`.

### HTTP Input

For the input source, we will set up Fluentd to accept records from HTTP. The Fluentd configuration file should look like this:

```
<source>
  @type http
  port 8888
</source>
```

### Treasure Data Output

The output destination will be Treasure Data. The output configuration should look like this:

```
<match td.*.*>
  @type tdlog
  apikey YOUR_API_KEY_IS_HERE
  auto_create_table
  use_ssl true
  <buffer>
    @type file
    path /var/log/fluent/buffer/td
  </buffer>
</match>
```

The match section specifies the regexp used to look for matching tags. If a matching tag is found in a log, then the config inside `<match>...</match>` is used (i.e. the log is routed according to the config inside).

## Test

To test the configuration, just post the JSON to Fluentd. Sending a `USR1` signal flushes Fluentd's buffer into TD:

```
$ curl -X POST -d 'json={"action":"login","user":2}' \
  http://localhost:8888/td.testdb.www_access
$ kill -USR1 `cat /var/run/fluent/fluentd.pid`
```

Next, please use the `td tables` command. If the count is not zero, the data was imported successfully.

```
$ td tables
+----------+------------+------+-------+--------+
| Database | Table      | Type | Count | Schema |
+----------+------------+------+-------+--------+
| testdb   | www_access | log  |     1 |        |
+----------+------------+------+-------+--------+
```

You can now issues queries against the imported data:

```
$ td query -w -d testdb \
  "SELECT COUNT(1) AS cnt FROM www_access"
queued...
started at 2012-04-10T23:44:41Z
2012-04-10 23:43:12,692 Stage-1 map = 0%,  reduce = 0%
2012-04-10 23:43:18,766 Stage-1 map = 100%,  reduce = 0%
2012-04-10 23:43:32,973 Stage-1 map = 100%,  reduce = 100%
Status     : success
Result     :
+-----+
| cnt |
+-----+
|   1 |
+-----+
```

It is not advisable to send sensitive user information to the cloud. To assist with this need, `out_tdlog` comes with some anonymization systems. For more details, see [Treasure Data plugin](http://github.com/treasure-data/fluent-plugin-td/).

## Conclusion

Fluentd + Treasure Data gives you a data collection and analysis system in days, not months. Treasure Data is a useful solution if you do not want to spend engineering resources maintaining the backend storage and analytics infrastructure.

## Learn More

* [Fluentd Architecture](https://www.fluentd.org/architecture)
* [Fluentd Get Started](https://docs.fluentd.org/quickstart)
* [Treasure Data](http://www.fluentd.org/treasuredata)
* [Treasure Data: Documentation](http://docs.treasuredata.com/)

If this article is incorrect or outdated, or omits critical information, please [let us know](https://github.com/fluent/fluentd-docs-gitbook/issues?state=open). [Fluentd](http://www.fluentd.org/) is an open-source project under [Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)](https://cncf.io/). All components are available under the Apache 2 License.