Prometheus and Grafana

The goal of this project is to implement a comprehensive monitoring system for your server infrastructure using Prometheus for metric collection and Grafana for visualization. This setup will provide real-time insights into your server’s performance, resource utilization, and overall health.

Requirements

To begin this project, you’ll need:

• A running server to monitor. You can use an existing server from a previous project or setup a new server on Digital Ocean or another cloud provider
• An application running on the server using some dependencies e.g., Nginx, Node.js, or others.

Once your server is operational, you’ll proceed with setting up Prometheus and Grafana.

Prometheus Setup

Prometheus is a powerful, open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit. Follow these steps to set it up:

• Install Prometheus on your server
• Configure prometheus for scarping intervals, endpoints and retention policies
• Install and configure exporters for System metrics (CPU, memory, disk, network). Also setup additional exporters for services like Nginx, MySQL, MongoDB, etc.
• Implement custom exporters or instrumentation for application-specific metrics

Prometheus offers extensive data collection capabilities and a flexible query language (PromQL) for data analysis.

Grafana Configuration

Grafana provides customizable dashboards for your metrics. You can setup a dashboard for system metrics and another for application metrics. Follow these steps:

• Install Grafana on your server
• Connect Grafana to Prometheus as a data source
• Create dashboards for various metrics:
  • System overview (CPU, memory, disk, network)
  • Application-specific metrics
  • Custom panels using PromQL queries
• Set up user authentication and authorization for your Grafana instance

Advanced Goals

For those looking to expand their skills and create a more robust monitoring system, consider implementing these advanced features:

• Set up alerting rules in Prometheus and configure notification channels in Grafana (e.g., email, Slack)
• Implement Prometheus recording rules to optimize query performance
• Use Prometheus service discovery for automatic monitoring of dynamic environments
• Integrate log aggregation using Loki and correlate logs with metrics in Grafana
• Create a custom exporter for a specific application or service you’re running

This project will provide you with hands-on experience in setting up a production-grade monitoring system. You’ll gain valuable skills in metric collection, data visualization, and system observability, which are crucial for maintaining reliable and performant infrastructure.