Cloud service providers like AWS offer valuable tools for collection and management of data, like message queues and data storage, but often setup and use of these services is specific to the cloud provider. At balena our mission is to reduce friction for our fleet owners. So we provide a Data Relay block container, whose aim is to provide a simple, consistent interface to these services, configured by application variables.

The Data Relay block also provides access to other data services that are not specific to a cloud provider, like InfluxDB for time series data. These services may be accessed wherever they are located, on premises or in the cloud.