Use Grafana to access the Elasticsearch-compatible API of Log Service - Simple Log Service

This topic describes how to use Grafana to access the Elasticsearch-compatible API of Simple Log Service.

Important

This topic is proprietary information of Alibaba Cloud, and describes the capabilities that are provided by Alibaba Cloud to interact with third-party services. Therefore, the names of third-party companies and services may be referenced in this topic.

Prerequisites

Grafana 8.x.x or Grafana 9.x. x is installed. For more information, see Install Grafana.
Data is collected to a Standard Logstore in Simple Log Service. For more information, see Data collection overview.
At least one field index is created. For more information, see Create indexes.
The AccessKey pair of an Alibaba Cloud account is created. For more information, see AccessKey pair.
We recommend that you use the AccessKey pair of a RAM user. The RAM user must have the permissions to query data in the Logstore. You can use the permission assistant feature to grant permissions to a RAM user. For more information, see Configure the permission assistant feature.

Background information

Grafana is an open-source data visualization and monitoring platform that supports multiple data sources, such as Graphite, InfluxDB, Prometheus, and Elasticsearch. Grafana allows you to configure multiple charts and query data.

If you use Grafana to analyze Elasticsearch data, and want to migrate Elasticsearch data to Simple Log Service, you can use the Elasticsearch-compatible API of Simple Log Service. Then, you can use the Elasticsearch data source plug-in of Grafana to access Simple Log Service for data query and analysis.

Simple Log Service also provides the native Grafana data source plug-in. For more information, see Connect Simple Log Service to Grafana. The following table describes the differences between the plug-ins.

Item	Grafana and Elasticsearch-compatible API	Grafana and Simple Log Service native plug-in
Grafana data source plug-in	Elasticsearch data source plug-in that is provided by Grafana by default	Simple Log Service data source plug-in that requires manual installation
Query syntax	Elasticsearch DSL syntax	Simple Log Service index-based query syntax and SQL analysis syntax

Procedure

In this example, Grafana 8.3.3 is used.

Log on to the Grafana console.
In the left-side navigation pane, choose Configuration > Data Sources.
On the Data Sources tab, click Add data source.
Find and click Elasticsearch.

On the Settings tab, configure the parameters and click Save&test. image..png

The following table describes the parameters. You can keep the default values for other parameters.

Section	Parameter	Description
HTTP	URL	The URL that is used to access data. The URL is in the `https://${project}.${sls-endpoint}/es/` format. `${project}` specifies the name of the project. `${sls-endpoint}` specifies the endpoint of the Simple Log Service project. For more information, see Endpoints. Example: `https://etl-guangzhou.cn-guangzhou.log.aliyuncs.com/es/`. Important You must use the HTTPS protocol.
Auth	Basic auth	Turn on Basic auth.
	User	The AccessKey ID of your Alibaba Cloud account. We recommend that you use the AccessKey pair of a RAM user. The RAM user must have the permissions to query data in the Logstore. You can use the permission assistant feature to grant permissions to a RAM user. For more information, see Configure the permission assistant feature. For information about how to obtain an AccessKey pair, see AccessKey pair.
	Password	The AccessKey secret of your Alibaba Cloud account. We recommend that you use the AccessKey pair of a RAM user. The RAM user must have the permissions to query data in the Logstore. You can use the permission assistant feature to grant permissions to a RAM user. For more information, see Configure the permission assistant feature. For information about how to obtain an AccessKey pair, see AccessKey pair.
Elasticsearch details	Index name	The name of the Elasticsearch index pattern. The name must be in the `${Simple Log Service Project name}.${Logstore name}` format. For example, if a project is named etl-guangzhou and a Logstore is named es_test22, you must set the Index name parameter to `etl-guangzhou.es_test22`.
Elasticsearch details	Version	Select 7.10+.

After you create a data source, Grafana can access the data that is stored in Simple Log Service. You can create reports based on the data for data analysis and visualized display.