Comprehensive rejuvenation｜Detailed explanation of the new features of Grafana v9.0.x

Grafana 9.0 is a version that improves the usability of Grafana. It obtains data through a new and improved operation interface, as well as the default Grafana alarm experience.

One of Grafana's main missions is to make observability, data visualization and analysis more accessible to everyone. For popular data sources such as Prometheus and Loki, it may be difficult to write and understand queries. A new visual query generator is provided for these two data sources in Grafana 9.0. These visual query generators will reduce learning costs and help anyone write, understand and learn the underlying query language.

This version also includes a new powerful and fast visualization of thermal diagram, a more accessible navigation menu, improved dashboard search, advanced security and authentication functions, and so on.

List of new and improved features:

• New Prometheus query generator

• New Grafana Loki query generator

• New navigation bar and search

• New Explore features

• New Panel

• New Grafana Alerting

New Prometheus Query Builder

PromQL (Prometheus Query Language) is a powerful query language with very complex and advanced query syntax. However, for novices to Prometheus, even relatively simple query statements are difficult to write and read.

Prometheus' new UI query generator is built to solve this problem. In Grafana 9.0, you will see a new visual query generator interface in Explore, which allows anyone to write and learn how Prometheus queries work.

Metric and Labels

The new query generator allows you to search and select an indicator through multi-word search. You can start by selecting an indicator or a tag filter.

Operate on indicators

The Operations field is used to perform mathematical operations on the indicators of interest through various functions, Range Functions, Aggregations and Binary Operations. You can layer these operations through the+Operation button. Because Operations are presented in the order of execution rather than in the reverse order of text queries, it makes it easier to read and edit queries.

Support multiple ways to write PromQL

You can choose to write PromQL queries in text editing mode (Code) or visual query builder mode (Builder). You can switch between these modes while keeping your PromQL modifications.

PromQL Explain

If you are new to PromQL, you can use the third mode, Explain, to understand the written execution plan of PromQL. You can switch between the Builder mode and the Explain mode, while keeping the query to learn more about the operations performed by the queried indicators.

New Grafana Loki Query Builder

LogQL is a complex and powerful query language. In many ways, it is more complex than PromQL and requires more syntax to remember. The new query generator introduced in Grafana 9.0 will help you write and understand Loki queries without knowing any syntax. Take a look at this log query example.

In the Loki query generator shown in the figure below, you can add and edit tag filters, parsers and functions. Loki query builder supports all the functions of Prometheus query builder listed above, including Explain mode and the function of switching between Code mode and Builder mode.

New navigation bar and search function

Navigation Bar Expandable navigation bar

You can expand the navigation bar to better understand Grafana's features and installed integrations.

Starred Dashboards to the navigation bar

Grafana 9 allows you to add stars to your dashboard and easily access them from the navigation menu.

Command palette

The command panel is a great productivity improvement for users who often use keyboard shortcuts. Using cmd+K (macOS) or ctrl+K (Linux/Windows), you can call up a command panel to make navigation and dashboard search easier. Depending on your position in the Grafana user interface, you can quickly run a query, switch to split view, navigate between dashboards, or change topic preferences.

Dashboard Panel Search

The new search in Grafana 9.0 does not use SQL queries, but uses in-memory full-text indexes. This provides a better search experience and allows searching in the panel title.

New Explore features

Explore directly imports the dashboard panel

Although Grafana has always supported the ability to move from the dashboard to Explore without losing context, the reverse is not true.

Grafana 9.0 released a new workflow from Explore to Dashboard, which allows you to create panels or dashboards directly from the Explore mode. When a complex query works, you no longer need to copy it or rewrite it to a new dashboard.

Explore Query History

Click the Query History button to query the history of all queries running in Explore.

New Panel Features

Heatmap new thermal diagram panel

The new Heatmap panel has undergone architectural changes, making it have higher performance and improved speed by several orders of magnitude. In addition to performance, the resolution on the Heatmap panel is also higher. You can now customize and fine control the color spectrum.

Trace Panel

In Grafana 9.0, you can now add Trace panels to the dashboard and visualize them through the Trace view instead of viewing them in Explore mode.

Panel Preview

This provides a preview of the effects of all available dashboards. After you complete PromQL, Suggestions can help you quickly find the dashboards you need.

New Grafana Alerting alarm

In Grafana 9.0. x, a new alarm UI is provided by default (relative to 8.2. x and earlier versions).

Alarm Status History

• The alarm status history of alerts managed by Grafana indicates the reason for the status

Alert rules can be configured to use the Alert or OK status when rule calculations result in errors or no data conditions. This change tracks the differences between alerts, alerts (NoData), and alerts (Error). This change will also update the UI to handle the new serialization state: filtering, sorting, and shading.

Support multiple creation methods

Grafana Alerting supports the creation of alarms on the dashboard panel. He will pass "dashboard UID" and "panel ID" comments to associate the alarm with it.

Grafana Alerting also supports the direct creation of alerts without any associated dashboards

Notification Policies and Silences

In Notification Policies, you can associate Alert Rules with Contact Points through Machine Labels

When you receive alarm messages too frequently, you can use the Slices to suppress the alarm