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Grafana Monitoring Guide

Grafana is an open-source tool for monitoring and visualizing metrics from various data sources, helping users track server performance and application health through dynamic dashboards. Key components include dashboards, which organize panels of visualizations, and support for numerous data sources like Prometheus and Elasticsearch. The document also outlines setting up monitoring for microservices, the differences between logs, metrics, and traces, and configuring alerts and notifications for system performance monitoring.

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12 views4 pages

Grafana Monitoring Guide

Grafana is an open-source tool for monitoring and visualizing metrics from various data sources, helping users track server performance and application health through dynamic dashboards. Key components include dashboards, which organize panels of visualizations, and support for numerous data sources like Prometheus and Elasticsearch. The document also outlines setting up monitoring for microservices, the differences between logs, metrics, and traces, and configuring alerts and notifications for system performance monitoring.

Uploaded by

cooljiit
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Grafana and Monitoring - Detailed Guide

What is Grafana?

Grafana is an open-source analytics and interactive visualization web application. It is mainly used for

monitoring and observability. Grafana allows users to query, visualize, alert on, and explore metrics from

various data sources.

In a backend system, Grafana is used to monitor server performance, application health, databases, network

systems, etc., through dynamic dashboards. It helps engineers detect issues early and analyze system

behavior.

What are Dashboards and Panels in Grafana?

- Dashboards: A collection of panels arranged on a single screen. Dashboards offer an organized view of

different metrics and KPIs.

- Panels: The building blocks of a dashboard. Each panel represents a single visualization, such as a graph,

gauge, or table.

What Data Sources Can Grafana Connect To?

Grafana supports a wide range of data sources, such as:

- Prometheus (popular for time-series metrics)

- Elasticsearch (for logs and search capabilities)

- InfluxDB (optimized time-series database)

- Graphite

- MySQL, PostgreSQL

- Azure Monitor, Google Cloud Monitoring, AWS CloudWatch

- Loki (Grafana's log aggregation system)

What Kind of Metrics Would You Monitor for a Backend Service?

- CPU Usage

- Memory Consumption

- Disk I/O

- Network Throughput
Grafana and Monitoring - Detailed Guide

- API Latency

- Error Rates (4xx, 5xx errors)

- Database Query Times

- Cache Hit/Miss Ratios

- Queue Length (if using message queues)

Intermediate Level

How Do You Set Up Monitoring for a New Microservice?

1. Expose Metrics: Integrate a metrics library (e.g., Micrometer for Java, Prometheus client libraries).

2. Set Up Prometheus: Configure Prometheus to scrape metrics endpoints.

3. Create Grafana Dashboards: Connect Prometheus as a data source and build dashboards.

4. Set Alerts: Define thresholds and set up alerts.

5. Notification Channels: Configure notification channels (Slack, Email).

Explain the Difference Between Logs, Metrics, and Traces

- Logs: Text records of events that happen in a system (e.g., error messages, debug statements).

- Metrics: Numerical data measured over time (e.g., CPU usage percentage, request count).

- Traces: Information that shows the path of a request through various services (critical for understanding

distributed systems).

How Would You Monitor an API Endpoint's Latency and Error Rates?

- Latency: Measure the time taken for a request to be processed. Expose as a metric (e.g., histogram or

summary).

- Error Rates: Count HTTP response codes. 4xx and 5xx errors are particularly important.

- Visualization: Create Grafana panels showing trends.

- Alerting: Set thresholds for acceptable latency and error rates.

How Do Alerts Work in Grafana? How Would You Set Up an Alert for High CPU Usage?

- Grafana alerts evaluate queries periodically against defined conditions.

Steps for High CPU Usage Alert:

1. Create a panel with CPU usage metrics.


Grafana and Monitoring - Detailed Guide

2. Add an alert rule (e.g., trigger if CPU > 80% for 5 minutes).

3. Set up notification channels (Slack, Email).

4. Test and activate the alert.

If a Service Suddenly Slows Down, How Would You Use Grafana to Debug It?

- Check CPU, memory, and disk utilization metrics.

- Look at latency and error rate panels.

- Review deployment changes or increased traffic.

- Drill down into specific time ranges.

- Correlate with logs and traces if available.

Hands-On / Practical

Have You Created Custom Grafana Dashboards? What Did You Monitor?

Yes, I created dashboards to monitor:

- API request counts and latency

- Database performance (query times, deadlocks)

- Cache usage

- Queue sizes (Kafka, RabbitMQ)

- Kubernetes pod health and resource usage

Can You Explain How Prometheus Scrapes Metrics, and How Grafana Visualizes Them?

- Prometheus periodically scrapes /metrics endpoints exposed by services.

- It stores time-series data efficiently.

- Grafana queries Prometheus using PromQL, then visualizes data through panels (graphs, tables, gauges).

What Are Some Useful Panels You Have Used?

- Graph Panel: For trends over time.

- Gauge Panel: For KPIs like CPU usage, response times.

- Table Panel: For tabular display (e.g., top 10 slowest queries).

- Stat Panel: Single value display (e.g., system uptime).

- Heatmap Panel: Distribution of values over time.


Grafana and Monitoring - Detailed Guide

Have You Configured Alert Notifications from Grafana?

Yes, I configured alert notifications to:

- Slack (via Webhooks)

- Email (via SMTP)

- PagerDuty (for critical production issues)

Process:

- Set up Notification Channel

- Create Alert Rules

- Associate rules with notification policies

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