Grafana is an open-source tool designed for data visualization and monitoring, primarily focused on time-series data. It supports a wide range of data sources and is widely used to monitor the performance of systems, applications, and infrastructure. Grafana enables the creation of dynamic, interactive dashboards that help visualize metrics, logs, and time-series data.
Key Features of Grafana
- Visualization: Grafana is known for its powerful data visualization options, including:
- Graphs: Line, bar, and stacked area charts.
- Tables: Display data in tabular form.
- Heatmaps: Ideal for visualizing large datasets over time.
- Singlestat: Displays key numerical metrics.
- Alerting: Set thresholds to monitor system health.
- Multi-Data Source Support: Grafana can connect to various data sources, such as:
- Time-Series Databases: Prometheus, InfluxDB, OpenTSDB.
- SQL Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL.
- Cloud Services: AWS CloudWatch, Google Cloud Monitoring, Azure Monitor.
- Logs: Elasticsearch, Loki (Grafana’s log aggregation tool).
- Other Data Sources: Graphite, Datadog, and more.
- Dashboards: Create customizable dashboards that can be shared or tailored for different users, teams, or roles. Dashboards help display data from multiple sources in an organized manner.
- Alerting: Grafana allows users to set data thresholds. When these thresholds are exceeded, alerts are triggered and can be sent via channels like email, Slack, or webhooks.
- Annotations: Annotations in Grafana help mark significant events on graphs, such as deployments or incidents, providing context to the visualized data.
- Templating: Grafana supports dynamic dashboards through templating, where variables like servers, regions, or time periods can be customized, making dashboards reusable across environments.
- Plugins: Grafana has a vast plugin ecosystem that includes:
- Panels: Add new visualization types.
- Data Sources: Integrate with new data sources.
- Apps: Pre-configured apps for monitoring solutions like Kubernetes and Docker.
- Data Transformation: Grafana offers features to manipulate and transform data, such as filtering, aggregation, and mathematical operations, for advanced analysis.
- Authentication and Authorization: Robust authentication options, including LDAP and OAuth integration, and role-based access control (RBAC), allow granular control over who accesses what data.
- Grafana Loki (Log Aggregation): Integrating with Loki, Grafana can aggregate logs alongside metrics, offering a more comprehensive view of infrastructure health.
Use Cases of Grafana
- Infrastructure Monitoring: Grafana is frequently used to monitor server and infrastructure metrics, such as CPU, memory, disk I/O, and network traffic, integrating with tools like Prometheus and InfluxDB.
- Application Monitoring: It helps monitor application performance by tracking key metrics like response times, error rates, and throughput, often combined with APM tools.
- Business Metrics and KPIs: Grafana is also used for visualizing business metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators) like sales, user engagement, and conversion rates.
- Log Analysis: By integrating Grafana with Loki, users can analyze logs alongside metrics, aiding troubleshooting and providing deeper insights into application behavior.
- IoT Monitoring: Grafana is ideal for monitoring large numbers of IoT devices by visualizing time-series data generated by sensors or devices.
- Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring: Integrating with cloud services like AWS and Google Cloud, Grafana helps monitor cloud infrastructure resources such as server uptime and resource utilization.
How Grafana Works
- Data Source Configuration: To get started, you connect Grafana to your data sources (e.g., Prometheus, MySQL). Once connected, Grafana queries the data to visualize it on dashboards.
- Creating Dashboards: After configuring your data sources, you can create dashboards by selecting visualization types and writing queries for your data. Dashboards consist of panels, each displaying a different data visualization.
- Querying Data: Grafana supports various query languages depending on the data source. For instance, Prometheus uses PromQL, while SQL-based sources use SQL queries.
- Alerting: Alerts can be set based on data queries, notifying users via email, Slack, or webhooks when conditions are met, allowing you to take action before problems escalate.
How to Install Grafana
- On Linux (Ubuntu Example):
- Install Grafana from the official repository.
- Start the Grafana service.
- Access the web interface at
http://localhost:3000
.
- On Docker: Grafana can also be run in a Docker container for easier deployment and portability.
- On Windows: Download and install Grafana for Windows directly from the official website.
Grafana vs. Other Tools
Grafana competes with other tools like Kibana, Datadog, and New Relic. While Kibana specializes in log data and is tightly coupled with Elasticsearch, Grafana excels in integrating with a variety of data sources and is more flexible in creating custom dashboards. Grafana’s plugin ecosystem and support for time-series databases make it stand out from other tools.
Grafana is an excellent tool for visualizing time-series data, offering powerful features like customizable dashboards, alerting, and log aggregation. It’s highly versatile, supporting a wide array of data sources and use cases, from infrastructure monitoring to business intelligence. Its flexibility, scalability, and extensive integration options make Grafana an essential tool for anyone working with metrics and logs.
Step 1: Create an Instance
To get started, create a server instance running Ubuntu 24.04.
Access the Dashboard: Log in to your Shape.Host account and navigate to your Dashboard.
Click Create: Click on the “Create” button located in the top-right corner.
Select Instances: From the dropdown menu, choose “Instances” to begin creating a new cloud server.

Select Location: Choose a data center location closest to your target audience for optimal performance.

Choose a Plan: Select a plan based on your project needs (e.g., Standard, CPU-Optimized, or Memory-Optimized).
Choose an Image: Select Ubuntu 24.04 as the operating system.

Authentication and Finalize: Choose your preferred authentication method, either SSH keys or password, and click Create Instance.

- Obtain IP Address
- Once your instance is created, return to the dashboard.
- Find your instance’s IP address under the Resources section and use it to access your server.

Step 2: Connect to Your Instance
Once your instance is ready, connect to it using SSH:
- Linux/macOS: Open a terminal and use:
ssh root@<your_server_ip>
- Windows: Use an SSH client like PuTTY. Enter the IP address, select SSH, and log in as
root
with your password or key.
Step 3: Update and Upgrade System
Update the system package list and upgrade existing packages:
apt update
apt upgrade -y

Step 4: Install Dependencies
Install required tools such as wget
, apt-transport-https
, and software-properties-common
to proceed:
apt install wget apt-transport-https software-properties-common

Step 5: Add the Grafana GPG Key and Repository
Create the keyring directory and download the Grafana GPG key:
mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings/
wget -q -O - https://apt.grafana.com/gpg.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/grafana.gpg > /dev/null

Add the Grafana repository to your system’s sources list:
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/grafana.gpg] https://apt.grafana.com stable main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/grafana.list

Step 6: Install Grafana
Update the package list and install Grafana:
apt update && apt install grafana

Step 7: Start and Enable Grafana Service
Enable and start the Grafana server service:
systemctl enable --now grafana-server.service
The Grafana service will now start automatically at boot, and the server is running.

Step 8: Access the Grafana Web Interface
To access the Grafana web UI, open a browser and navigate to:
http://<your-server-ip>:3000
Replace <your-server-ip>
with your server’s public IP address.
- Default Username:
admin
- Default Password:
admin
You will be prompted to set a new password upon first login.

Note that you are required to change the password after login.


You have successfully installed Grafana on Ubuntu 24.04. You can now use Grafana to monitor and visualize your system or application metrics.
For high-performance and scalable server hosting, consider Shape.Host Cloud VPS. Their services provide the perfect environment for running monitoring tools like Grafana.