If you’re involved in DevOps circles, this news will surely excite you. Grafana has launched version 11.0, introducing groundbreaking changes, including query-less data exploration without the need for complex query languages and enhanced dashboard functionalities, thus promising a more intuitive user experience.
Grafana 11.0 Highlights
The major highlight of Grafana 11.0 is the introduction of Explore Metrics and Explore Logs. These features enable users to navigate through Prometheus (Grafana’s monitoring system) metrics and Loki (Grafana’s log aggregation system) logs seamlessly without the need to write any PromQL or LogQL.
Well, let me tell you—this is a game changer for one simple reason: This query-less browsing experience simplifies data analysis and makes it more accessible to users without technical expertise in these query languages. Here’s a bit more about the two new additions.
Explore Metrics offers a public preview across all editions of Grafana. It allows users to effortlessly filter and view metrics based on labels, visualize relevant data automatically, and pivot easily to related telemetry. This includes an innovative “explore in a drawer” feature that enhances dashboard interaction without losing context.
Meanwhile, Explore Logs, still in an experimental phase in both Grafana Open Source and Enterprise editions, focuses on enhancing the log exploration process. Users can now view log volumes and patterns directly, improving the efficiency of log analysis and anomaly detection.
Grafana 11.0 also introduces several improvements to dashboard management and visualization capabilities. The new Scenes-powered Dashboards, available in public preview, are designed to offer more dynamic and stable dashboards using the Scenes library. In addition, an edit mode has been added to streamline dashboard customization.
Another notable update is the general availability of subfolders in all Grafana editions, enhancing dashboard organization and permission management across different team levels.
Leveraging AI, Grafana 11.0 now enables the auto-generation of titles and descriptions for panels and dashboards, making the visualization process quicker and more intuitive—a feature also available across all Grafana editions.
Improvements to the canvas visualization include new flowcharting features, enhanced element styling, and expanded data link support, broadening the scope for creative and functional data representation.
But the novelties don’t stop here.
For advanced users and administrators, Grafana 11.0 brings several key enhancements:
- PDF Export Improvements: Significant performance upgrades have been made to the PDF export feature, drastically reducing the time required to generate reports from complex dashboards.
- Alerting Redesign: The alert rule detail view has been redesigned to provide more detailed insights and easier navigation of alert conditions and instances.
- RBAC for Alerting APIs: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) has been enforced to alert provisioning APIs and enhance security and compliance.
Lastly, since Grafana 11.0 introduces some breaking changes, users are advised to consult the detailed changelog to ensure a smooth upgrade process. The official documentation provides a detailed walkthrough of all the new features and improvements.
