Skip to main content

Grafana and the data.world Collector

Important

The Grafana collector is available as a private beta release for select customers. Please contact data.world if you are interested in using this collector.

Introduction

Note

The latest version of the Collector is 2.138. To view the release notes for this version and all previous versions, please go here.

The data.world Collector harvests metadata from your source system. Please read over the data.world Collector FAQ to familiarize yourself with the Collector.

Grafana versions supported

  • The collector supports Grafana version 9.0.0.

Authentication supported for cataloging Grafana

The collector authenticates to Grafana using an API key. For the collector to run successfully, the API key needs to have Viewer role.

To generate the API key:

Complete the following tasks to generate the API key that you will use for running the collector. See the Grafana documentation for all the details about doing this task.

  1. Navigate to https://<your_organization_name>.grafana.net/org/apikeys.

  2. Click Add API Key to add a new API key.

    1. Provide the key name.

    2. Set the Role as Viewer.

    3. In the Time to live field, set the expiry time for the API key.

      grafana_api_key.png

Note down the API token that is generated after this task. We will use it while setting up the command for Grafana.

What is cataloged

The collector catalogs the following information from Grafana.

Table 1.

Object

Information cataloged

Dashboards

Owner, created by date, style, type, version, url, slug (human-friendly portion of the dashboard URL).

Dashboard Panels

Title, description, type, associated dashboard, source if exists.

Dashboard Annotations

Title, query text, source if exists.

Dashboard Variables

Title, description, query text, source if exists.

Data Source

Type, title, source json.

Playlists

Title, dashboards that are part of the playlist.

Folders

Title, dashboards that are part of the folder.



Lineage for Grafana

The following lineage information is collected by the Grafana collector.

Table 2.

Object

Lineage available

Dashboards

The collector identifies the associated annotations, variables, and any upstream data sources.

Data source

The collector identifies downstream annotations, dashboards, and panels.

Annotation

The collector identifies the associated upstream data source and the dashboards containing the annotation.

Variable

The collector identifies the dashboard containing the variable.

Panel

The collector identifies the associated dashboard annotations and variables, and upstream data sources.



Setting up pre-requisites for running the collector

Make sure that the machine from where you are running the collector meets the following hardware and software requirements.

Table 1.

Item

Requirement

Hardware

RAM

8 GB

CPU

2 Ghz processor

Software

Docker

Click here to get Docker.

Java Runtime Environment

OpenJDK 17 is supported and available here.

data.world specific objects

Dataset

You must have a ddw-catalogs (or other) dataset set up to hold your catalog files when you are done running the collector.



Generating the command or YAML file

This section walks you through the process of generating the command or YAML file for running the collector from Windows or Linux or MAC OS.

To generate the command or YAML file:

  1. On the Organization profile page, go to the Settings tab > Metadata collectors section.

  2. Click the Help me set up a collector button.

  3. On the On-prem collector setup prerequisites screen, read the pre-requisites and click Next.

  4. On the On which platform will this collector execute? screen, select if you will be running the collector on Windows or Mac OS or Linux. This will determine the format of the YAML and CLI that is generated in the end. Click Next.

    general_01.png

  5. On the Choose metadata collector type you would like to setup screen, select Grafana. Click Next.

  6. On the Configure a new on premises Grafana Collector screen, set the following properties and click Next.

    grafana_01.png

  7. On the next screen, set the following properties and click Next.

    grafana_02.png
    Table 3.

    Field name

    Corresponding parameter name

    Description

    Required?

    Base URL of the Grafana API

    --grafana-api-base-url=<baseUrl>

    Base URL of the Grafana API. Format: https://organizationName.grafana.net/api

    Yes

    Authentication token

    --grafana-api-token=<token>

    The token for authentication to the Grafana API. This is the token you generated in this task.

    Yes



  8. On the Finalize your Grafana Collector configuration screen, you are notified about the environment variables and directories you need to setup for running the collector. Select if you want to generate a Configuration file( YAML) or Command line arguments (CLI). Click Next

    grafana_03.png

  9. The next screen gives you an option to download the YAML configuration file or copy the CLI command. Click Done. If you are generating a YAML file, click Next.

    grafana_06.png

    Sample YAML file.

    grafana_04.png

  10. The Grafana command screen gives you the command to use for running the collector using the YAML file.

    grafana_05.png

  11. You will notice that the YAML/CLI has following additional parameters that are automatically set for you.

    Important

    Except for the collector version, you should not change the values of any of the parameter listed here.

    Table 4.

    Parameter name

    Details

    Required?

    -a= <agent>

    --agent= <agent>

    --account= <agent>

    The ID for the data.world account into which you will load this catalog - this is used to generate the namespace for any URIs generated.

    Yes

    --site= <site>

    This parameter should be set only for Private instances. Do not set it for public instances and single-tenant installations. Required for private instance installations.

    Yes (required for private instance installations)

    -U

    --upload

    Whether to upload the generated catalog to the  organization account's catalogs dataset.

    Yes

    -L

    --no-log-upload

    Do not upload the log of the Collector run to the organization account's catalogs dataset.

    Yes

    dwcc: <CollectorVersion>

    The version of the collector you want to use (For example, datadotworld/dwcc:2.113)

    Yes



  12. Add the following additional parameter to test run the collector.

    • --dry-run If specified, the collector does not actually harvest any metadata, but just checks the database connection parameters provided by the user and reports success or failure at connecting.

Verifying environment variables and directories

  1. Verify that you have set up all the required environment variables that were identified by the Collector Wizard before running the collector. Alternatively, you can set these credentials in a credential vault and use a script to retrieve those credentials.

  2. Verify that you have set up all the required directories that were identified by the Collector Wizard.

Running the collector

Important

Before you begin running the collector make sure you have the correct version of collectors downloaded and available.

Running collector using YAML file

  1. Go to the server where you have setup docker to run the collector.

  2. Make sure you have download the correct version of collectors. This version should match the version of the collector specified in the command you are using to run the collector.

  3. Place the YAML file generated from the Collector wizard to the correct directory.

  4. From the command line, run the command generated from the application for executing the YAML file.

    Caution

    Note that is just a sample command for showing the syntax. You must generate the command specific to your setup from the application UI.

    docker run -it --rm --mount type=bind,source=${HOME}/dwcc,target=/dwcc-output \
  --mount type=bind,source=${HOME}/dwcc,target=${HOME}/dwcc --mount type=bind,source=${HOME}/dwcc-drivers,target=/usr/src/dwcc-config/lib \
  datadotworld/dwcc:2.124 catalog-grafana --agent=8bank-catalog-sources \
  --site=solutions --no-log-upload=false --upload=true --api-token=${DW_AUTH_TOKEN} \
  --name=8bank-catalog-sources-collection --output=/dwcc-output \
  --upload-location=ddw-catalogs --grafana-api-base-url=https://8Bank.grafana.net/api \
  --grafana-api-token=${DW_GRAFANA_TOKEN}

  5. The collector automatically uploads the file to the specified dataset and you can also find the output at the location you specified while running the collector.

  6. At a later point, if you download a newer version of collector from Docker, you can edit the collector version in the generated command to run the collector with the newer version.

Running collector without the YAML file

  1. Go to the server where you have setup docker to run the collector.

  2. Make sure you have download the version of collectors from here. This version should match the version of the collector specified in the command you are using to run the collector.

  3. From the command line, run the command generated from the application. Here is a sample command.

    Caution

    Note that is just a sample command for showing the syntax. You must generate the command specific to your setup from the application UI.

    docker run -it --rm --mount type=bind,source=${HOME}/dwcc,target=/dwcc-output \
  --mount type=bind,source=${HOME}/dwcc,target=${HOME}/dwcc --mount type=bind,source=${HOME}/dwcc-drivers,target=/usr/src/dwcc-config/lib \
  -e DW_AUTH_TOKEN=${DW_AUTH_TOKEN} -e DW_GRAFANA_TOKEN=${DW_GRAFANA_TOKEN} \
  datadotworld/dwcc:2.124 --config-file=/dwcc-output/config-grafana.yml

  4. The collector automatically uploads the file to the specified dataset and you can also find the output at the location you specified while running the collector.

  5. At a later point, if you download a newer version of collector from docker, you can edit the collector version in the generated command to run the collector with the newer version.

Collector runtime and troubleshooting

The catalog collector may run in several seconds to many minutes depending on the size and complexity of the system being crawled. If the catalog collector runs without issues, you should see no output on the terminal, but a new file that matching *.dwec.ttl should be in the directory you specified for the output. If there was an issue connecting or running the catalog collector, there will be either a stack trace or a *.log file. Both of those can be sent to support to investigate if the errors are not clear. A list of common issues and problems encountered when running the collectors is available here.

Automating updates to your metadata catalog

Keep your metadata catalog up to date using cron, your Docker container, or your automation tool of choice to run the catalog collector on a regular basis. Considerations for how often to schedule include:

  • Frequency of changes to the schema

  • Business criticality of up-to-date data

For organizations with schemas that change often and where surfacing the latest data is business critical, daily may be appropriate. For those with schemas that do not change often and which are less critical, weekly or even monthly may make sense. Consult your data.world representative for more tailored recommendations on how best to optimize your catalog collector processes.

In this section: