When to connect to a self-managed data source
Grafana Cloud data source connections allow you to visualize metric data directly from where it is stored, meaning the data itself is not sent to nor stored in Grafana Cloud.
Consider connecting to a self-managed metrics data source when:
- The cost of sending metric data to Grafana Cloud is too high
- Compliance requirements prevent storing data off-premise
- You need custom configurations, like support for alpha Prometheus features
- Your retention needs exceed the 13-month limit
- Your team wants to handle the management of the metrics environment internally
- The metrics are already stored and managed in another platform, like Amazon Managed Prometheus or Google Cloud Platform Managed Prometheus
- You prefer to continue with your existing non-Prometheus metric data sources, as you don’t want to transition to Prometheus or Mimir and learn PromQL
More to explore (optional)
At this point in your journey, you can explore the following paths:
Send data from a Prometheus instance
Send data from multiple Prometheus instances
Send data from multiple high-availability Prometheus instances