Grafana
Grafana is an open-source observability and data visualization platform that lets you query, visualize, alert on, and understand metrics, logs, and traces from any data source. It connects to dozens of backends—Prometheus, InfluxDB, Elasticsearch, cloud providers, and databases—and renders them as interactive, shareable dashboards. Originally focused on time-series metrics, it has expanded into a full observability suite via the LGTM stack (Loki for logs, Grafana for visualization, Tempo for traces, Mimir for long-term metric storage).
AI companies and cloud-native engineering teams rely on Grafana to monitor model serving infrastructure, track GPU utilization, and measure latency and error rates across distributed ML pipelines in real time. As AI workloads scale on Kubernetes and multi-cloud environments, the ability to build reliable observability dashboards has become a standard expectation for MLOps, SRE, and platform engineering roles. Grafana's integrations with OpenTelemetry and Prometheus have made it the de facto visualization layer for the observability stacks that underpin production AI systems.
🎓 Courses
Observability with Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, Alloy and Tempo
by James Spurin
Best-selling Grafana course on Udemy covering the full LGTM stack end-to-end, including distributed tracing with Tempo, log aggregation with Loki, and large-scale metric storage with Mimir. Covers production-grade HA deployments and cloud integrations (AWS CloudWatch, GCP).
Grafana 11 from ZERO to Advanced
Built specifically on Grafana 11 (released 2024), this course takes learners from installation through advanced dashboard design and configuration, making it the most up-to-date structured course for the current major version.
Grafana Fundamentals Learning Path
by Grafana Labs
Official free learning path from Grafana Labs covering core concepts, hands-on labs in Grafana Cloud, and practical dashboard-building exercises. Each module takes roughly 30 minutes and is kept current with the latest Grafana releases.
Grafana Beginners to Advanced Crash Course
Includes free lab access and covers integrations with Prometheus, InfluxDB, Node Exporter, Azure, and AWS in a hands-on format. Good choice for learners who want to practice in a real cloud environment from day one.
Grafana Tutorials (Official)
by Grafana Labs
Free, regularly updated step-by-step guides directly from Grafana Labs covering alerting, Kubernetes monitoring, dashboard design, and the latest Grafana features including AI-powered observability workflows.
📖 Books
Observability with Grafana
Rob Chapman, Peter Holmes · 2024
The most comprehensive current book on the full LGTM stack (Loki, Grafana, Tempo, Mimir). Covers Kubernetes cluster monitoring, cloud deployments on AWS/GCP/Azure, infrastructure-as-code automation, and AI-driven incident management. Published January 2024 by Packt.
Prometheus: Up & Running
Julien Pivotto, Brian Brazil · 2023
Authoritative O'Reilly reference for Prometheus—the most common Grafana data source—written by a Prometheus server maintainer and its core developer. Covers PromQL, alerting, exporters, and direct code instrumentation. Essential companion to any Grafana learning path.
Learn Grafana 10.x
Eric Salituro · 2023
Beginner-friendly 542-page guide covering Grafana 10.x from installation through building interactive dashboards and observability workflows. A solid structured entry point before moving to more advanced LGTM stack topics.
🛠️ Tutorials & Guides
Get Started with Grafana Open Source
The canonical official starting point: covers installation, first data source connection, and building your first dashboard. Always up to date with the current Grafana stable release (13.x as of 2026).
Build Your First Dashboard
Hands-on walkthrough of the dashboard builder UI, panel types, queries, and visualization configuration. A concise, practical primer before moving to more complex multi-source dashboards.
The Ultimate Guide to Observability with Prometheus, Grafana, Fluent Bit, Loki & Kibana (2025 Edition)
Comprehensive 2025 tutorial covering the full open-source observability stack integration. Useful for practitioners who want to understand how Grafana fits alongside competing and complementary tools like Kibana and Fluent Bit.
🏅 Certifications
Certified Grafana Associate
Grafana Labs · Paid (exam fee; check grafana.com for current pricing)
The only official certification from Grafana Labs. Validates knowledge of observability fundamentals, dashboard design, Grafana Alerting, data-source configuration, and user management. Online-proctored, multiple-choice, ~60 minutes. Relevant for SRE, MLOps, and platform engineering roles.
Learning resources last updated: June 18, 2026