Mastering Monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana

3 days

Welcome to “Mastering Monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana”! This course will equip you with the knowledge and skills to implement robust monitoring solutions using two of the most powerful open-source tools in the field.

Throughout this course, you’ll learn how to set up Prometheus for efficient data collection and Grafana for creating insightful visualisations. You’ll master advanced querying techniques, explore alerting mechanisms, and discover best practices for scaling your monitoring infrastructure. By the end of this course, you’ll be well-equipped to design and implement comprehensive monitoring solutions that provide deep insights into your systems and applications.

Let’s dive in and unlock the full potential of Prometheus and Grafana to take your monitoring game to the next level!

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

Set up and configure Prometheus and Grafana in various environments
Implement effective data collection strategies using Prometheus exporters
Write and optimise PromQL queries for efficient data analysis
Design informative and visually appealing dashboards in Grafana
Implement alerting and notification systems for proactive monitoring
Scale Prometheus for large infrastructures and high-availability setups
Integrate Prometheus and Grafana with other tools in the observability stack
Apply best practices for securing your monitoring infrastructure

Your Instructor

The course is led by Peter Munro, a seasoned IT trainer and software developer with over 30 years of experience, Peter’s extensive background in software development and systems administration allows him to offer unique insights into how these tools can be leveraged to solve real-world problems. His practical, hands-on approach ensures that you’ll not only understand the concepts but also be able to apply them effectively in your own environments.

Course Outline

Module 1: Introduction to Monitoring and Observability

Understanding the importance of monitoring in modern infrastructure
Key concepts: metrics, logs, and traces
Overview of the Prometheus and Grafana ecosystem
Comparing Prometheus with other monitoring solutions

Module 2: Setting Up Prometheus

Installing and configuring Prometheus
Understanding Prometheus architecture and components
Configuring targets and scrape intervals
Basic Prometheus security considerations
Running Prometheus in containers (Docker)

Module 3: Data Collection with Prometheus

Understanding Prometheus data model and metric types
Exploring built-in exporters
Setting up and using popular exporters (node_exporter, blackbox_exporter)
Creating custom exporters for application-specific metrics
Best practices for naming and labelling metrics

Module 4: PromQL Fundamentals

Introduction to Prometheus Query Language (PromQL)
Basic query types: instant vector, range vector, and scalar
Using operators and functions in PromQL
Aggregation and grouping techniques
Time series selection and filtering

Module 5: Advanced PromQL and Performance Optimisation

Complex query patterns and use cases
Subqueries and offset modifiers
Understanding query performance and optimisation techniques
Best practices for writing efficient PromQL queries
Troubleshooting common query issues

Module 6: Alerting with Prometheus

Configuring Alertmanager
Defining alerting rules in Prometheus
Setting up notification channels (email, Slack, PagerDuty)
Implementing alert inhibition and grouping
Best practices for creating effective alerting strategies

Module 7: Introduction to Grafana

Installing and configuring Grafana
Understanding Grafana’s architecture and components
Exploring the Grafana UI and basic concepts
Configuring data sources in Grafana
User management and basic security settings

Module 8: Building Dashboards in Grafana

Creating and organising dashboards
Working with panels and visualisations
Using variables for dynamic dashboards
Implementing dashboard templating
Best practices for designing effective dashboards

Module 9: Advanced Grafana Features

Exploring Grafana plugins and their use cases
Setting up alerting in Grafana
Using annotations for event correlation
Implementing dashboard sharing and export options
Grafana provisioning for automated setup

Module 10: Scaling and High Availability

Implementing Prometheus federation
Setting up remote storage for long-term data retention
Strategies for scaling Prometheus in large environments
Implementing high availability for Prometheus and Grafana
Performance tuning and optimisation techniques

Module 11: Integration with Other Tools

Integrating Prometheus with service discovery mechanisms (Consul, Kubernetes)
Exploring the role of Prometheus in the broader observability stack
Integrating with logging solutions (e.g., Loki)
Combining metrics with tracing data (e.g., Jaeger)
Overview of the OpenTelemetry project and its relation to Prometheus

Module 12: Best Practices and Real-world Scenarios

Implementing monitoring as code
Security best practices for Prometheus and Grafana
Strategies for monitoring cloud-native and microservices architectures
Handling common challenges in large-scale monitoring setups
Case studies and lessons learned from real-world implementations

Conclusion and Future Trends

Recap of key concepts and best practices
Emerging trends in the monitoring and observability space
Resources for continued learning and community engagement
Q&A session and final thoughts

Throughout this course, Peter will share insights from his extensive experience, providing real-world examples and practical tips that go beyond theory. You’ll not only learn how to use Prometheus and Grafana effectively but also understand how these tools fit into broader DevOps and SRE practices, enabling you to drive tangible improvements in your organisation’s monitoring capabilities.