December 2016 Summaries

Grafana 4.1 Beta introduces several enhancements and new features, primarily driven by community contributions, following the recent release of version 4.0. Key updates include the addition of shared tooltips across all graphs, VictorOps and OpsGenie notification integrations, and improved Cloudwatch configuration that allows specifying access and secret keys directly on the data source configuration page. Support for Elasticsearch 5.x has been added, while support for Elasticsearch 1.x has been discontinued, urging users to upgrade to version 2.x or 5.x. The release also includes help text for panels, utilizing Markdown for better formatting and linking. Users are encouraged to check the CHANGELOG.md file for a comprehensive list of new features, changes, and bug fixes, with download links available on the v4.1 download page.

Grafana 4.0 marks a significant upgrade with the introduction of alerting, transforming it from a visualization tool into a critical monitoring resource. This new feature allows users to configure alert rules using existing graph panels, with notifications sent out when conditions are met, though currently limited to certain data source plugins like Graphite, Prometheus, InfluxDB, and OpenTSDB. The release also includes an alert list panel for tracking rule state changes, ad-hoc filter variables for creating dynamic key/value filters, and numerous UX improvements such as TV and kiosk modes for streamlined displays. Annotations are now recorded in an internal database, with future plans for user-added graph comments, while enhancements in the dashboard building experience include more intuitive drag-and-drop features and keyboard shortcuts. Notably, there are no breaking changes, ensuring compatibility with existing dashboards, while users are encouraged to update plugins for optimal functionality.