InfluxDB is a time-series data store for storing data points of events over a time period. It is fast, reliable, scalable, and more importantly, free to use. It also has an extension for JMeter, making it an ideal fit for our use case in this chapter.

InfluxDB is easy to set up and the company's website--https://www.influxdata.com/--has ample installation instructions for various platforms. We have highlighted a few of the most encountered operating systems here. Ensure that you check the mentioned link for the most up-to-date instructions, or if instructions for your target operating system are not captured here.

As of the time of writing, the latest version of InfluxDB is 1.2.4, and that is what we will be using for the rest of this chapter. The following is how InfluxDB can be installed on some of the commonly used operating systems:

• Installing InfluxDB on Mac (via Homebrew):

This assumes you have Homebrew already installed on your Mac. If you don't, see https://brew.sh/ for instructions of how to install it. After installation, proceed as directed below.

brew update 
brew install influxdb

• Installing InfluxDB on Windows:

This assumes you have wget installed on your PC. If you don't, see http://bit.ly/1tfnyP6 for instructions of how to install it. After installation, proceed as directed in the following:

wget https://dl.influxdata.com/influxdb/releases/influxdb-1.2.4_windows_amd64.zip 
unzip influxdb-1.2.4_windows_amd64.zip 

• Installing InfluxDB on Unix and Debian:

wget https://dl.influxdata.com/influxdb/releases/influxdb_1.2.4_amd64.deb 
sudo dpkg -i influxdb_1.2.4_amd64.deb 

• Installing InfluxDB on Red Hat and CentOS:

wget https://dl.influxdata.com/influxdb/releases/influxdb-1.2.4.x86_64.rpm 
sudo yum localinstall influxdb-1.2.4.x86_64.rpm 

• Installing InfluxDB via Docker:

docker pull influxdb 

Ensure that your installation is successful by invoking influx on a new Terminal prompt.