Usage events: data-ingestion APIs

Overview

You can integrate Zenskar in your application workflow by configuring a data-ingestion API. You can call this API like any other REST API and help Zenskar ingest your raw metrics or aggregates. Zenskar expects the input data in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format: a universal data-interchange format like XML.

Set up a data-ingestion API in Zenskar

1. To set up a data-ingestion API, navigate to Metering > Usage Events page.
2. Click on the + ADD USAGE EVENT button.
3. On the Add Usage Event page, fill in the following details.

4. Click on the ADD USAGE EVENT button to save the API.

Some examples are shown below:

1. If you are providing a compute resource (for example, CPU time) for rent, a raw metric schema in JSON form may look like the following:

{
    "data": {
        "cpu_usage_hours_per_day": "5"
    },
    "timestamp": "2023-05-21 09:30:38.731",
    "customer_id": "[email protected]"
}

2. If you are providing a compute resource (for example, CPU time) for rent, a JSON aggregate data may look like the following:

{
    "data": {
        "cpu_usage_hours_per_month": "300"
    },
    "timestamp": "2023-05-21 09:30:38.731",
    "customer_id": "[email protected]"
}

The customer_id and timestamp are mandatory fields. A combination of these mandatory fields provides Zenskar the capability to uniquely identify a raw metric or an aggregate.

Sample API calls to send raw metrics or aggregate data to Zenskar would look like the following. The examples below use curl utility which can act as a REST client. However, the same can be done from any REST client:

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.zenskar.com/usage/test_1' \
-H 'organisation: <YOUR_ORGANISATION_KEY_HERE>' \
-H 'x-api-key: <YOUR_API_KEY_HERE>' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{"data":{"cpu_usage_hours_per_day":5},"timestamp":"2023-05-21 09:30:38.731","customer_id":"[email protected]"}'

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.zenskar.com/usage/test_1' \
-H 'organisation: <YOUR_ORGANISATION_KEY_HERE>' \
-H 'x-api-key: <YOUR_API_KEY_HERE>' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{"data":{"cpu_usage_hours_per_day":5},"timestamp":"2023-05-21 09:30:38.731","customer_id":"[email protected]"}'

The JSON data you send us is securely stored in our database as a table after the requisite transformations are applied.

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Note

Irrespective of the data source type, Zenskar stores all ingested data in the form of RDBMS tables.

Tables are database objects that contain all the data in a database. In tables, data is logically organized in a row-and-column format similar to a spreadsheet.

Push data to Zenskar

Integrate the data-ingestion APIs in your application workflow

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Engineering effort required

Integrating Zenskar data-ingestion REST API in your application workflow will require engineering effort. However, to test all you need is a REST client. Prominent examples of REST clients are Postman (feature-rich) and Thunder Client (lightweight).

👍 Pros and 👎 cons

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Note

If data ingestion via Zenskar's APIs does not suit your needs, you may look at the following options:

• Data ingestion via data-source connectors
• Data ingestion via Zenskar-compatible CSV file
• Data ingestion via Zenskar's web form