Time-series database provider InfluxData Inc. today updated its platforms with support for “ephemeral data,” which is increasingly being generated by new technology deployments such as software containers, Kubernetes and “internet of things” sensors.

Ephemeral data refers to data that only exists for a very short period of time. For example, much of the data stored on computers, such as data stored in random access memory and caches, is temporary and therefore referred to as “ephemeral.” These temporary, transient files are deleted as often as every few hours.

Ephemeral data is becoming increasingly common within organizations that are adopting technologies such as IoT and containers, which allow applications to be run on multiple computer environments. But one problem for enterprises is that the nature of this data makes it troublesome for existing database solutions, which run into performance issues and query bottlenecks as they struggle to keep up with the influx of this temporary data.

Compounding those problems is the fact that many organizations are required to store this ephemeral data for as much as seven years to meet audit and compliance responsibilities.

InfluxData has built two time-series databases called InfluxDB and InfluxEnterprises, which are designed to query time-stamped metrics, events and measurements more efficiently than traditional relational databases. It boasts a significant number of users, including IBM Corp. which uses the platform to analyze operational information in real time.

Just last week, the company announced it had raised $35 million from a consortium headed by Battery Ventures, saying it plans to use the capital to scale up its operations.

It seems as if InfluxData is wasting little time in doing so. The company said its support for ephemeral data is a natural extension of its platform, enabled by the addition of a Time Series Index. The new TSI is able to move ephemeral data to files on disk that can be mapped in memory. What that means is that InfluxDB and InfluxEnterprise can now gather and store metrics from things like containers, which normally lose their data after being shut down.

“After our community’s requests and support testing this new release, we are pleased to make these new capabilities generally available to help developers be more effective,” said Tim Hall, InfluxData’s vice president of products. “This new release focuses on this ephemeral data because organizations need to keep this data in a long-term store for audit purposes.”

The company said InfluxEnterprise 1.5 and InfluxDB 1.5 are available now as part of the InfluxData platform and InfluxCloud service, with pricing starting at $249/month.

Image: InfluxData