Simulate an IoT sensor dataset

Simulate an IoT sensor dataset for testing and development with Tiger Cloud

The Internet of Things (IoT) describes a trend where computing capabilities are embedded into IoT devices. That is, physical objects, ranging from light bulbs to oil wells. Many IoT devices collect sensor data about their environment and generate time-series datasets with relational metadata.

It is often necessary to simulate IoT datasets. For example, when you are testing a new system. This tutorial shows how to simulate a basic dataset in your Tiger Cloud service, and then run simple queries on it.

To simulate a more advanced dataset, see Time-series Benchmarking Suite (TSBS).

To follow the steps on this page:

Create a target Tiger Cloud service with the Real-time analytics capability.

You need your connection details. This procedure also works for self-hosted TimescaleDB.

Simulate a dataset

To simulate a dataset, run the following queries:

Create the sensors table

CREATE TABLE sensors(
  id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  type VARCHAR(50),
  location VARCHAR(50)
);

Create the sensor_data hypertable
CREATE TABLE sensor_data ( time TIMESTAMPTZ NOT NULL, sensor_id INTEGER, temperature DOUBLE PRECISION, cpu DOUBLE PRECISION, FOREIGN KEY (sensor_id) REFERENCES sensors (id) ) WITH ( tsdb.hypertable );
When you create a hypertable using CREATE TABLE … WITH …, the default partitioning column is automatically the first column with a timestamp data type. Also, TimescaleDB creates a columnstore policy that automatically converts your data to the columnstore, after an interval equal to the value of the chunk_interval, defined through after in the policy. This columnar format enables fast scanning and aggregation, optimizing performance for analytical workloads while also saving significant storage space. In the columnstore conversion, hypertable chunks are compressed by up to 98%, and organized for efficient, large-scale queries.

You can customize this policy later using alter_job. However, to change after or created_before, the compression settings, or the hypertable the policy is acting on, you must remove the columnstore policy and add a new one.

You can also manually convert chunks in a hypertable to the columnstore.

Populate the sensors table

INSERT INTO sensors (type, location) VALUES
('a','floor'),
('a', 'ceiling'),
('b','floor'),
('b', 'ceiling');

Verify that the sensors have been added correctly

SELECT * FROM sensors;

Sample output:

 id | type | location
----+------+----------
  1 | a    | floor
  2 | a    | ceiling
  3 | b    | floor
  4 | b    | ceiling
(4 rows)

Generate and insert a dataset for all sensors

INSERT INTO sensor_data (time, sensor_id, cpu, temperature)
SELECT
  time,
  sensor_id,
  random() AS cpu,
  random()*100 AS temperature
FROM generate_series(now() - interval '24 hour', now(), interval '5 minute') AS g1(time), generate_series(1,4,1) AS g2(sensor_id);

Verify the simulated dataset

SELECT * FROM sensor_data ORDER BY time;

Sample output:

             time              | sensor_id |    temperature     |         cpu
-------------------------------+-----------+--------------------+---------------------
 2020-03-31 15:56:25.843575+00 |         1 |   6.86688972637057 |   0.682070567272604
 2020-03-31 15:56:40.244287+00 |         2 |    26.589260622859 |   0.229583469685167
 2030-03-31 15:56:45.653115+00 |         3 |   79.9925176426768 |   0.457779890391976
 2020-03-31 15:56:53.560205+00 |         4 |   24.3201029952615 |   0.641885648947209
 2020-03-31 16:01:25.843575+00 |         1 |   33.3203678019345 |  0.0159163917414844
 2020-03-31 16:01:40.244287+00 |         2 |   31.2673618085682 |   0.701185956597328
 2020-03-31 16:01:45.653115+00 |         3 |   85.2960689924657 |   0.693413889966905
 2020-03-31 16:01:53.560205+00 |         4 |   79.4769988860935 |   0.360561791341752
...

Run basic queries

After you simulate a dataset, you can run some basic queries on it. For example:

Average temperature and CPU by 30-minute windows:

SELECT
  time_bucket('30 minutes', time) AS period,
  AVG(temperature) AS avg_temp,
  AVG(cpu) AS avg_cpu
FROM sensor_data
GROUP BY period;

Sample output:

         period         |     avg_temp     |      avg_cpu
------------------------+------------------+-------------------
 2020-03-31 19:00:00+00 | 49.6615830013373 | 0.477344429974134
 2020-03-31 22:00:00+00 | 58.8521540844037 | 0.503637770501276
 2020-03-31 16:00:00+00 | 50.4250325243144 | 0.511075591299838
 2020-03-31 17:30:00+00 | 49.0742547437549 | 0.527267253802468
 2020-04-01 14:30:00+00 | 49.3416377226822 | 0.438027751864865
 ...

Average and last temperature, average CPU by 30-minute windows:

SELECT
  time_bucket('30 minutes', time) AS period,
  AVG(temperature) AS avg_temp,
  last(temperature, time) AS last_temp,
  AVG(cpu) AS avg_cpu
FROM sensor_data
GROUP BY period;

Sample output:

         period         |     avg_temp     |    last_temp     |      avg_cpu
------------------------+------------------+------------------+-------------------
 2020-03-31 19:00:00+00 | 49.6615830013373 | 84.3963081017137 | 0.477344429974134
 2020-03-31 22:00:00+00 | 58.8521540844037 | 76.5528806950897 | 0.503637770501276
 2020-03-31 16:00:00+00 | 50.4250325243144 | 43.5192013625056 | 0.511075591299838
 2020-03-31 17:30:00+00 | 49.0742547437549 |  22.740753274411 | 0.527267253802468
 2020-04-01 14:30:00+00 | 49.3416377226822 | 59.1331578791142 | 0.438027751864865
...

Query the metadata:

SELECT
  sensors.location,
  time_bucket('30 minutes', time) AS period,
  AVG(temperature) AS avg_temp,
  last(temperature, time) AS last_temp,
  AVG(cpu) AS avg_cpu
FROM sensor_data JOIN sensors on sensor_data.sensor_id = sensors.id
GROUP BY period, sensors.location;

Sample output:

 location |         period         |     avg_temp     |     last_temp     |      avg_cpu
----------+------------------------+------------------+-------------------+-------------------
 ceiling  | 2020-03-31 15:30:00+00 | 25.4546818090603 |  24.3201029952615 | 0.435734559316188
 floor    | 2020-03-31 15:30:00+00 | 43.4297036845237 |  79.9925176426768 |  0.56992522883229
 ceiling  | 2020-03-31 16:00:00+00 | 53.8454438598516 |  43.5192013625056 | 0.490728285357666
 floor    | 2020-03-31 16:00:00+00 | 47.0046211887772 |  23.0230117216706 |  0.53142289724201
 ceiling  | 2020-03-31 16:30:00+00 | 58.7817596504465 |  63.6621567420661 | 0.488188337767497
 floor    | 2020-03-31 16:30:00+00 |  44.611586847653 |  2.21919436007738 | 0.434762630766879
 ceiling  | 2020-03-31 17:00:00+00 | 35.7026890735142 |  42.9420990403742 | 0.550129583687522
 floor    | 2020-03-31 17:00:00+00 | 62.2794370166957 |  52.6636955793947 | 0.454323202022351
...

You have now successfully simulated and run queries on an IoT dataset.

Simulate an IoT sensor dataset

Prerequisites for this tutorial

Simulate a dataset

Run basic queries

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