Queries

This documentation topic is designed for Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 8.x.

For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 10.x, see Working in Grafana version 10.

For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 9.x, see Working in Grafana version 9.

Grafana workspace panels use Queries to communicate with data sources to get data for the visualization. A query is a question written in the query language that is used by the data source. If the query is properly formed, the data source responds. In the panel data source options, you can adjust how often the query is sent to the data source and how many data points are collected.

Grafana workspaces supports up to 26 queries per panel.

Query editors

Query editors are forms that help you write queries. Depending on your data source, the query editor might provide automatic completion, metric names, or variable suggestion.

Because of differences between query languages, data sources might have query editors that look different.

Query syntax

Data sources have different query languages and syntaxes to ask for the data. Here are two query examples.

PostgreSQL

SELECT hostname FROM host WHERE region IN($region)

PromQL

query_result(max_over_time(<metric>[${__range_s}s]) != <state>)

For more information about writing a query for your data source, see the documentation for that data source. Data sources are listed in Connect to data sources.

Query tab UI

The Query tab consists of the following elements:

• Data source selector

• Query options

• Query inspector button

• Query editor list

Data source selector

The data source selector is a dropdown list. Choose it to select a data source that you have added. When you create a panel, Amazon Managed Grafana automatically selects your default data source. For more information about data sources, see Connect to data sources.

In addition to the data sources that you have configured in your Grafana workspace, three special data sources are available.

• TestDataDB – A built-in data source that generates random walk data. The Grafana data source is useful for testing visualizations and running experiments.

• Mixed – A data source for querying multiple data sources in the same panel. When this data source is selected, you can select a data source for every new query that you add.

  • The first query will use the data source that was selected before you selected Mixed.

  • You cannot change an existing query to use the Mixed data source.

• Dashboard –A data source for using a result set from another panel in the same dashboard.

Query options

To see settings for your selected data source, choose Query options next to the data source selector. Changes you make here affect only the queries made in this panel.

Amazon Managed Grafana sets defaults that are shown in dark gray text. Changes are displayed in white text. To return a field to the default setting, delete the white text from the field.

You can use the following panel data source query options:

• Max data points – If the data source supports it, sets the maximum numbers of data points for each series returned. If the query returns more data points than the max data points setting, the data source consolidates them (reduces the number of points returned by aggregating them together by average or max or other function).

  There are two main reasons for limiting the number of points: performance and smoothing the line. The default value is the width (or number of pixels) of the graph, which avoids having more data points than the graph panel can display.

  With streaming data, the max data points value is used for the rolling buffer. (Streaming is a continuous flow of data, and buffering is a way to divide the stream into chunks).

• Min interval – Sets a minimum limit for the automatically calculated interval, typically the minimum scrape interval. If a data point is saved every 15 seconds, you don't need to have an interval lower than that. Another use case is to set it to a higher minimum than the scrape interval to get more coarse-grained, well-functioning queries.

• Interval – A time span that you can use when aggregating or grouping data points by time.

  Amazon Managed Grafana automatically calculates an appropriate interval that can be used as a variable in templated queries. The variable is either in seconds: $__interval; or in milliseconds: $__interval_ms. It is typically used in aggregation functions like sum or average. For example, this is a Prometheus query using the interval variable: rate(http_requests_total[$__interval]).

  This automatic interval is calculated based on the width of the graph. If the user zooms out a lot, the interval becomes greater resulting in a more coarse-grained aggregation. If the user zooms in, the interval decreases resulting in a more fine-grained aggregation.

  For more information, see Global variables.

• Relative time – Override of the relative time range for individual panels causing them to be different from what is selected in the dashboard time picker in the top-right corner of the dashboard. This enables you to show metrics from different time periods or days on the same dashboard.

• Time shift – Provides another way to override the time range for individual panels. This function works only with relative time ranges, and you can adjust the time range.

  For example, you can shift the time range for the panel to be 2 hours earlier than the dashboard time picker. For more information, see Time range controls.

• Cache timeout – (This field is visible only if it is available in your data source.) Overrides the default cache timeout if your time series store has a query cache. It is specified as a numeric value in seconds.

Query inspector button

You can choose Query inspector to open the Query tab of the panel inspector. On the Query tab, you can see the query request sent by the panel and the response.

Choose Refresh to see the full text of the request sent by this panel to the server.

Note

You need to add at least one query before the Query inspector can return results.

For more information about the panel inspector, see Inspect a panel.

Query editor list

In the UI, queries are organized in collapsible query rows. Each query row contains a query editor and is identified with a letter (A, B, C, and so on).

Sharing query results between panels

With Amazon Managed Grafana, you can use the query result from one panel for any other panel in the dashboard. Sharing query results across panels reduces the number of queries made to your data source, which can improve the performance of your dashboard.

The Dashboard data source lets you select a panel in your dashboard that contains the queries that you want to share the results for. Instead of sending a separate query for each panel, Amazon Managed Grafana sends one query, and other panels use the query results to construct visualizations.

This strategy can drastically reduce the number of queries being made when, for example, you have several panels visualizing the same data.

To share data source queries with another panel

1. Create a dashboard. For more information, see Creating a dashboard.

2. Add a panel. For more information, see Adding a panel.

3. Change the title to Source panel. You’ll use this panel as a source for the other panels. Define the query or queries that will be shared. If you don’t have a data source available at the moment, you can use the Grafana data source, which returns a random time series that you can use for testing.

4. Add a second panel, and then select the Dashboard data source in the query editor.

5. In Use results from panel list, select the first panel that you created.

All queries defined in the source panel are now available to the new panel. Queries made in the source panel can be shared with multiple panels.

To go to a panel where a query is defined, choose that query.