August 2018 Summaries

Grafana Labs released versions 5.2.3 and 4.6.4 to address a critical security vulnerability affecting installations using LDAP or OAuth authentication. This issue, identified as CVE-2018-558213, allowed potential attackers to generate valid cookies with just a username, posing a significant security risk. Grafana's team quickly responded by developing patches for the affected versions and updating Grafana Cloud instances. The release was strategically timed to ensure users could prepare without impacting weekend schedules. The company acknowledged the incident as a learning opportunity, enhancing their vulnerability handling processes. Users are urged to upgrade to the latest versions or implement alternative security measures.

TimeShift's 58th issue, curated by Trent White, focuses on various aspects of monitoring and dashboard creation, highlighting articles on Kubernetes monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana, crafting effective dashboards, and demystifying PromQL. It mentions a range of updates, including bug fixes for Grafana 5.2.2, and introduces upcoming events such as GrafanaCon LA and various monitoring workshops and conferences in locations like Amsterdam, Belfast, London, Raleigh, and Nuremberg. The newsletter also discusses the importance of keeping Grafana plugins updated, shares employment opportunities at Grafana Labs, and details a new feature in the Single Stat Math Panel. Additionally, it spotlights a humorous tweet involving Kubernetes dashboards and encourages reader engagement through feedback and social media interaction.

TimeShift's latest edition provides updates and insights into the Grafana ecosystem, including a focus on the new Explore UI showcased at PromCon. It highlights bug fixes in Grafana's latest stable release, version 5.2.2, addressing issues with Prometheus queries and dashboard variables. The newsletter also discusses various blog posts, such as deploying Prometheus and Grafana on VMware Kubernetes Engine, and offers a tutorial series on setting up a Graphite/Grafana stack for simplified metrics monitoring. Additionally, it announces the opening of the Call for Papers for GrafanaCon LA 2019 and details various upcoming events and talks featuring Grafana around the world. The edition concludes with a featured tweet showcasing a data visualization example and invites community feedback and suggestions for future content.

TimeShift's latest edition highlights events from PromCon in Munich, where Grafana Labs sponsored and presented talks, and celebrates the Prometheus project's graduation as a CNCF project. It details the release of Grafana 5.2.2, which includes fixes for Prometheus graph panel issues and updates for Postgres/MySQL/MSSQL connections. The edition features various blog entries, including insights into Grafana's new explore UI, Prometheus Monitoring Mixins using Jsonnet, and a tutorial on using TimescaleDB with Prometheus for monitoring CockroachDB. It also covers Fortnite's data analytics pipeline and cost management on Kubernetes using Grafana and Prometheus. Additionally, the edition announces new plugins for Grafana, job openings at Grafana Labs, and upcoming events such as the London Hashicorp User Group and the CloudNative London 2018 conference, where Prometheus monitoring will be discussed. The edition concludes with a highlighted tweet about Grafana's new explore UI and invites feedback from readers.

TimeShift's Issue 55 highlights several key updates and events related to Grafana, including the announcement of GrafanaCon LA with a call for papers now open, and PromCon in Munich, featuring talks on monitoring strategies like the RED Method and Prometheus Monitoring Mixins. The latest stable release, Grafana 5.2.2, addresses various bug fixes across dashboards, Prometheus, and database connections. The newsletter also outlines blog posts on diverse topics such as Plaid.com's large-scale integration monitoring, IoT efficiency improvements using Protocol Buffers, and setting up Grafana for Ubuntu server monitoring. Additionally, the Instana plugin has been updated to enhance its application model, and the newsletter encourages submissions for interesting articles, while also promoting open positions at Grafana Labs and upcoming events like the Sensu Summit and CloudNative London 2018.

At GrafanaCon EU, Tom Wilkie introduced the RED Method, a monitoring approach tailored for microservices, which he developed in response to the limitations of the USE Method, a popular instrumenting technique for hardware resources. The RED Method focuses on monitoring the rate of requests per second, the error rate of those requests, and the duration they take, providing a consistent view of service performance and user experience across different services. This method is complemented by Google's Four Golden Signals, which adds saturation to the metrics, and together they offer a comprehensive framework for service monitoring. Wilkie advocates for using the RED and USE Methods in tandem to address both user satisfaction and machine efficiency, emphasizing that these methods provide different perspectives on the same system and enhance operational scalability and alert accuracy.