Visualize data
Overview
A Grafana dashboard is a set of one or more panels that provide an at-a-glance view of related information. These panels are the basic building block in Grafana dashboards, and they’re created using components that query and transform raw data from a data source into charts, graphs, and other visualizations.
A data source can be an SQL database, Grafana Loki, Grafana Mimir, or a JSON-based API. It can even be a basic CSV file. Queries allow you to reduce the entirety of your data to a specific dataset, providing a more manageable visualization. Data source plugins take a query you want answered, retrieve the data from the data source, and reconcile the differences between the data model of the data source and the data model of Grafana dashboards.
The growing suite of Grafana visualizations, ranging from time series graphs to heatmaps to cutting-edge 3D charts, provide you several different ways to present your data within a panel, depending on what best suits the data and your needs. If the data format in a visualization doesn’t meet your requirements, you can apply a transformation that manipulates the data returned by a query.
With 150+ data source plugins, you can unify all your data sources into a single dashboard to streamline data monitoring and troubleshooting. With Grafana, you can translate, transform, and visualize data in flexible and versatile dashboards.
Explore
Was this page helpful?
Related resources from Grafana Labs
