Feature Request

Proposal:

I would like to define the precise time when an input plugin is being executed. Currently telegraf triggers all input plugins on startup which generates a lot of load on 3rd party systems (and a lot of duplicated data)

Current behavior:

Input plugins are triggered on startup and then every $interval.

Desired behavior:

Add an option to the plugin configuration:

[[input.pluginname]]
interval="24h"
offset = "+3h"

the plugin will be started at 3am

[[input.pluginname]]
interval="1h"
offset = "-10m"

the plugin will be started at 0:50, 1:50, 2:50,...

Use case:

• I have a plugin that collects 50k measurements. If this plugin is triggered at every startup of telegraf, the output TSDB gets flooded with lots of duplicate data (the data doesn't change more than once per 24h, but the TSDB doesn't know this as the timestamp is updated)