Introduction

Grafana is a leading open-source platform for monitoring and observability, providing a powerful and flexible tool for visualizing time-series data. Whether you are working with system metrics, application logs, or business intelligence data, Grafana allows you to create sophisticated, real-time dashboards that help monitor and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs). This course is designed to teach participants how to develop and deploy interactive dashboards using Grafana, enabling them to visualize data, track trends, and monitor systems in real time. By the end of this course, participants will be able to design dynamic, informative dashboards that offer insights into their data and operations.

Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will:

• Understand the core concepts and components of Grafana, including data sources, panels, and dashboards.
• Learn how to connect Grafana to different data sources such as Prometheus, InfluxDB, MySQL, and others.
• Master how to create and customize interactive visualizations (graphs, tables, heatmaps, etc.).
• Learn to build complex, multi-panel dashboards for monitoring, analysis, and reporting.
• Explore advanced Grafana features like alerting, templating, and dashboard sharing.
• Understand how to deploy and maintain Grafana dashboards on a server or in the cloud.
• Optimize Grafana dashboards for performance and real-time data handling.

Who Should Attend?

This course is ideal for:

• Data analysts, engineers, and developers who need to build real-time, interactive dashboards for monitoring or analytics.
• IT professionals and DevOps engineers interested in visualizing server, application, and network performance.
• Business intelligence analysts who need to present data insights in an interactive, visual format.
• Anyone looking to leverage Grafana’s powerful visualization capabilities for real-time monitoring and analysis.

Day 1: Introduction to Grafana and Setting Up the Environment

Morning Session: Getting Started with Grafana

• Introduction to Grafana: Features, use cases, and capabilities
• Overview of Grafana components: Dashboards, panels, and data sources
• Installing and setting up Grafana on local and cloud environments
• Exploring the Grafana interface: Navigation, layout, and configuration
• Connecting to different data sources (e.g., Prometheus, InfluxDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL)

Afternoon Session: Basic Dashboard Creation

• Creating and organizing Grafana dashboards
• Introduction to panels: Graphs, tables, heatmaps, and single stat panels
• Data queries and visualization options: Selecting metrics and time ranges
• Customizing panels: Axis labels, legends, colors, and thresholds
• Hands-on: Building a simple dashboard with graphs and tables for real-time monitoring

Day 2: Advanced Visualizations and Customization

Morning Session: Advanced Visualizations in Grafana

• Exploring advanced panel types: Heatmaps, histograms, pie charts, and bar charts
• Visualizing time-series data: Understanding Grafana’s time range and interval settings
• Working with data transformations: Aggregations, calculations, and filtering
• Using multiple axes and multi-metric queries in visualizations
• Hands-on: Creating a multi-metric graph for system monitoring (CPU, memory, disk usage)

Afternoon Session: Customizing Dashboards and Panels

• Customizing dashboard layout and design: Grid-based arrangement, spacing, and alignment
• Using Grafana’s themes and custom CSS for visual appeal
• Panel templating: Variables and dynamic queries for reusable panels
• Adding dynamic titles, tooltips, and interactions to dashboards
• Hands-on: Designing an interactive sales or business intelligence dashboard with dynamic variables

Day 3: Working with Alerts and Notifications

Morning Session: Setting Up Alerts in Grafana

• Introduction to Grafana alerts: How and when to use them
• Configuring alert conditions: Thresholds, operators, and comparison settings
• Adding alert notifications: Email, Slack, and other notification channels
• Testing and debugging alert configurations
• Hands-on: Setting up an alert for system resource usage (CPU usage threshold)

Afternoon Session: Managing Alerts and Anomalies

• Managing alert state: Acknowledging, silencing, and resolving alerts
• Exploring advanced alerting features: Alert groups, alerting policies, and escalation
• Integrating Grafana with monitoring tools like Prometheus Alertmanager
• Setting up anomaly detection alerts based on custom metrics or thresholds
• Hands-on: Configuring anomaly detection in a Grafana dashboard with time-series analysis

Day 4: Grafana Dashboard Templating and Advanced Features

Morning Session: Advanced Dashboard Templating

• Introduction to dashboard templating: Dynamic dashboards using variables
• Setting up template variables for dynamic data sources, queries, and dashboards
• Using drop-downs, text boxes, and other input options to interact with dashboards
• Creating reusable panels with variable-driven queries
• Hands-on: Building a templated dashboard for server performance, enabling users to select various servers dynamically

Afternoon Session: Grafana Plugins and Integrations

• Extending Grafana with plugins: Panel plugins, data source plugins, and app plugins
• Integrating Grafana with external tools like Zabbix, Kibana, or cloud services (AWS, Azure, etc.)
• Using Grafana’s API for programmatic access and custom dashboard creation
• Securing Grafana: User roles, permissions, and authentication
• Hands-on: Integrating Grafana with InfluxDB and deploying a custom panel plugin

Day 5: Deploying and Optimizing Grafana Dashboards

Morning Session: Optimizing Grafana Dashboards for Performance

• Best practices for optimizing Grafana performance: Query optimization, panel caching, and efficient data handling
• Monitoring Grafana’s performance: Analyzing dashboard load times and resource consumption
• Ensuring data freshness: Handling large datasets and real-time data visualization
• Troubleshooting common performance issues: Slow queries, resource bottlenecks, and lag
• Hands-on: Optimizing a Grafana dashboard for large-scale data visualization

Afternoon Session: Deploying Grafana Dashboards and Course Wrap-Up

• Deploying Grafana dashboards on cloud servers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud)
• Grafana sharing options: Embedding dashboards, sharing links, and creating snapshots
• Integrating Grafana into larger enterprise monitoring stacks
• Course wrap-up: Final project presentation and feedback
• Hands-on: Deploying a fully functional Grafana dashboard with real-time data integration and performance monitoring

Materials and Tools:

• Required tools: Grafana, Prometheus, InfluxDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Grafana Cloud
• Example codebases and datasets for hands-on activities
• Access to Grafana’s documentation and community resources
• Recommended reading on monitoring best practices and performance optimization