Grafana Course

Lesson 1 • Grafana Architecture Overview

Explains Grafana's server-client model, plugin system, and data source abstraction. Provides the mental model needed to configure and extend Grafana effectively.

Lesson 2 • Installing and Configuring Grafana

Guides students through installation on Linux, Docker, and cloud environments. Covers initial configuration files and environment variables essential for production readiness.

Lesson 3 • Navigating the Grafana UI

Introduces the main navigation sidebar, search, and global settings panels. Students gain confidence moving through the interface before building dashboards.

Lesson 1 • Data Source Concepts and Types

Distinguishes time-series, log, tracing, and relational data source categories. Sets expectations for how each type behaves inside Grafana panels.

Lesson 2 • Managing and Securing Data Sources

Teaches credential management, TLS configuration, and data source permissions. Ensures students can maintain secure, production-grade data source connections.

Lesson 3 • Connecting Loki for Log Data

Covers Loki data source setup, label-based log querying, and derived fields. Builds on Prometheus knowledge by introducing log-specific configuration differences.

Lesson 1 • Optimizing PromQL Queries

Addresses query performance, cardinality reduction, and recording rules. Students write efficient queries that minimize load on Prometheus and Grafana.

Lesson 2 • Binary Operations and Matching

Teaches arithmetic, comparison, and logical binary operators with vector matching rules. Enables students to combine multiple metrics into composite expressions.

Lesson 3 • PromQL Data Model and Syntax

Explains metric names, labels, sample values, and the instant vs. range vector distinction. Provides the grammar foundation for all subsequent PromQL expressions.

Lesson 1 • Parsing and Extracting Log Fields

Covers JSON, logfmt, regex, and pattern parsers to extract structured fields from logs. Enables metric-like aggregations over unstructured log data.

Lesson 2 • LogQL Fundamentals

Introduces log stream selectors, filter expressions, and pipeline stages. Establishes the query structure that all LogQL expressions follow.

Lesson 3 • Correlating Logs and Metrics

Demonstrates linking log panels to metric panels using shared labels and Explore split view. Reinforces the observability pillar integration introduced in Chapter 1.

Lesson 1 • Dashboard Organization and Folders

Covers folder structure, tagging, starred dashboards, and playlist creation. Prepares students to manage dashboards at organizational scale.

Lesson 2 • Panel Editor Deep Dive

Explores query editor, field overrides, transformations, and display options within the panel editor. Connects visualization choices to the underlying data model.

Lesson 3 • Templating with Dashboard Variables

Teaches query, custom, constant, and interval variable types to make dashboards dynamic. Students build reusable dashboards that adapt to different environments.

Lesson 4 • Panel Types and Visualizations

Surveys time-series, stat, gauge, bar chart, table, and heatmap panel types. Students select the appropriate visualization for each metric category.

Lesson 1 • Contact Points and Notification Policies

Covers email, Slack, PagerDuty, and webhook contact points with routing policy trees. Students route alerts to the correct team based on labels and severity.

Lesson 2 • Unified Alerting Architecture

Explains the Grafana Alertmanager, alert rule evaluation engine, and notification pipeline. Distinguishes unified alerting from legacy dashboard alerts.

Lesson 3 • Testing and Troubleshooting Alerts

Demonstrates the test alert feature, alert rule preview, and common misconfiguration patterns. Students validate alert behavior before deploying to production.

Lesson 4 • Silences, Inhibitions, and Mute Timings

Teaches how to suppress alerts during maintenance windows using silences and mute timings. Prevents alert fatigue while maintaining coverage outside planned downtime.

Lesson 1 • Advanced Transformations

Explores merge, join by field, group by, and organize fields transformations for complex data reshaping. Enables panels to display multi-source data without backend changes.

Lesson 2 • Grafana Plugin Ecosystem

Surveys panel, data source, and app plugins available in the Grafana plugin catalog. Students install and configure plugins to extend default Grafana capabilities.

Lesson 3 • Canvas and Geomap Panels

Introduces the Canvas panel for custom element layouts and the Geomap panel for geographic data. Students build specialized visualizations beyond standard chart types.

Lesson 4 • Annotations and Event Overlays

Covers manual, query-based, and alert-driven annotations to mark events on time-series panels. Students contextualize metric changes with deployment and incident markers.

Lesson 1 • Provisioning Grafana as Code

Teaches YAML-based provisioning of dashboards, data sources, and alert rules for repeatable deployments. Connects to GitOps workflows for version-controlled Grafana configuration.

Lesson 2 • Authentication and SSO Integration

Configures OAuth2, SAML, and LDAP authentication providers for enterprise environments. Students enable single sign-on and map external groups to Grafana roles.

Lesson 3 • Role-Based Access Control

Covers organizations, teams, users, and RBAC roles to enforce least-privilege access. Students design permission models that separate viewer, editor, and admin capabilities.

Lesson 4 • Monitoring Grafana Itself

Uses Grafana's built-in metrics endpoint and internal dashboards to track server health. Students detect performance degradation and capacity issues in the Grafana platform.