Visualization Workshop

Lab 7 - Building advanced++ dashboards

Lab Goal

This lab shows you how to build and extend your advanced dashboard, sprucing it up with a few more important components until you have an advanced++ dashboard you can be proud of.

Advanced++ dashboard - Previous advanced dashboard

In the previous lab you started with a basic dashboard and created more advanced panels with line charts in a new row. This workshop builds on the work you did on the last lab, so your starting dashboard should look lik this (see next slide to jump to this point):

Intermezzo - Jumping to the starting point

If you have not completed the previous labs and just want to upload a fully completed dashboard, just apply the file workshop-myfirstdashboard-lab6.json found in the Perses Easy Install project. . It's a resource defining a dashboard as worked out in previous labs and can be applied as follows:

							
								$ ./support/bin/percli apply -f support/workshop-myfirstdashboard-lab6.json

								object "Dashboard" "MyFirstDashboard"
								     has been applied in the
								    project "WorkshopProject"

Intermezzo - Evaluating the end results

If you want to just upload a fully completed lab result (basically cheating!) to see what the final dashboard looks like without completing the lab work, just apply the file workshop-myfirstdashboard-lab7.json found in the Perses Easy Install project. . It's a resource defining a dashboard as worked out in this lab and can be applied as follows:

							
								$ ./support/bin/percli apply -f support/workshop-myfirstdashboard-lab7.json

								object "Dashboard" "MyFirstDashboard"
								     has been applied in the
								    project "WorkshopProject"

Advanced++ dashboard - Adding a new row

Time to add another row to your dashboard, where you'll be putting team status information. Add a new Panel Group by editing the dashboard, adding a new panel group, Team Status and naming it as shown (don't forget to save the results):

Advanced++ dashboard - Creating docs panel

Let's help our team out and create a handy documentation panel to help the on-call teammate when they first land on our dashboard. This is a Markdown panel and will look like this when finished:

Advanced+++ dashboard - Adding team docs

Let's add your first Markdown panel for the team using this dashboard. This component can host anything you like as it's just a Markdown document inside. To add a new panel, EDIT the dashboard, add a panel to the new row, and add details as shown:

Advanced++ dashboard - Adding markdown text

Scroll down to the Markdown tab and add the following text, and note for help you can use the Markdown Guide link:

							
								## Troubleshooting starts here:

								On this page, you'll find the help you need for this team.

								Who you gonna call? [Ghostbusters direct hotline](https://chronosphere.io)

								| Dashboard   | Link |
								| ---------   | ---- |
								| Dashboard 1 | [link](https://chronosphere.io) |
								| Dashboard 2 | [link](https://chronosphere.io) |

Advanced++ dashboard - Using markdown editor

The editor pane should look like this after you enter the markdown:

Advanced++ dashboard - Previewing docs panel

Preview the team documentation panel and ensure you like what you see:

Advanced++ dashboard - Adjusting docs panel

To apply all the changes to this new panel and add it to the existing dashboard group, click on the ADD button at the top. Adjust the panel size until it displays the team documentation as shown:

Advanced++ dashboard - Finalizing the dashboard

Now save the dashboard and your finalized markdown documentation panel should look like this, with the two other rows collapsed to save space:

Advanced++ dashboard - Creating stat chart panel

The team would like to have an instant visual of each service they are responsible for. To show an overview like this of their systems, lets create stat charts for each one with a green bar if it's up and running. Add the first stat chart panel to visualize the status of the Alertmanager service, which will look like this when done:

Advanced+++ dashboard - Adding stat chart details

This panel will use a simple query to fill the first panel. To add a new stat chart panel, EDIT the dashboard, add a panel to the new row, and add details as shown:

Advanced++ dashboard - Adding alertmanager query

Scroll down to the Query tab and add the following PromQL query which will target the Alertmanager status:

							
								up{job="alertmanager"}

Advanced++ dashboard - Previewing alertmanager status

Preview the status panel and ensure you like what you see:

Advanced++ dashboard - Adding alertmanager status

To apply all the changes to this new panel and add it to the existing dashboard group, click on the ADD button at the top. Adjust the panel size until it displays as shown:

Advanced++ dashboard - Finalizing the dashboard

Now save the dashboard and your finalized Alertmanager status panel should look like this:

Advanced++ dashboard - Extra credit adding stat chart panels

Now create several more of these stat chart panels for the Node, Prometheus, and cAdvisor services (hint: these are all found under the PromQL job syntax). Save and finalize the team status dashboard to look something like the following:

Advanced++ dashboard - Creating multi-gauge panel

It would be nice to have an overview of our system, each node with its own gauge to indicate status. Let's add a multi-gauge panel that provides a current system overview, which should eventually look something like this:

Advanced+++ dashboard - Adding overview details

This panel will use a more complex query to fill multiple gauges. To add a new multi-gauge panel, EDIT the dashboard, add a panel to the new row, and add details as shown:

Advanced++ dashboard - Adding overview query

Scroll down to the Query tab and add the following PromQL query which will fill multiple gauges with node statuses:

							
								avg without (cpu)(
									rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{job='$job',instance=~'$instance',mode!="nice",mode!="steal",mode!="irq"}[3m])
								)

Advanced++ dashboard - Adjusting overview settings

Adjust the settings for your system overview multi-gauge panel as shown to adjust the unit, decimals, and thresholds (including the colors):

Advanced++ dashboard - Previewing system overview

Preview the system overview panel and ensure you like what you see:

Advanced++ dashboard - Adding system overview

To apply all the changes to this new panel and add it to the existing dashboard group, click on the ADD button at the top. Adjust the panel size until it displays as shown:

Advanced++ dashboard - Finalizing the dashboard

Now save the dashboard and your finalized multi-gauge panel with system overview should look like this:

Advanced++ dashboard - Finishing touches

The last thing to do here is to determine how this dashboard presents when opened by your team when on call. Reopen the WorkshopProject dashboard you just created (hint: try using home page and the Projects & Dashboards entry) you'll see each row is open showing everything:

Advanced++ dashboard - Auto close rows

Let's change the last two rows group settings by editing the dashboard, then clicking on the pencil icons in each row to edit that group, and using the pop-ups to set defaults to close the rows as shown:

Advanced++ dashboard - Rearrange the row order

Finally, let's change the row order by moving the second row to the bottom using the arrows to move the bottom row one level up as shown:

Advanced++ dashboard - Well done!

Now double-check your team's on-call dashboard is done by reopening it and see if only the first row is open (hint: try it by refreshing your browser tab):

Lab completed - Results

Look what you've created!

Contact - are there any questions?

Eric D. Schabell
Director Evangelism
Contact: @ericschabell {@fosstodon.org) or https://www.schabell.org

Lab and workshop completed!

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