Grafana 8.1 released: New Geomap and Annotations panels, updated plugin management, and more

Grafana 8.1 introduces significant enhancements to its open observability platform, building on the features of Grafana 8.0 with new visualization and configuration options. Key additions include the Geomap panel, which replaces the WorldMap panel, and offers custom base tile layers, multiple map layer options, and the ability to define data layers. The new Annotations panel allows for more efficient management of annotations with features like tag-based querying and live filtering. Enhancements to existing panels, such as the Time Series panel, now include annotations and dynamic configuration settings. Grafana 8.1 also brings improvements to logs and traces, including a Prettify JSON option and refined query behavior for trace spans. The release features a new UX for plugin management, time zone support for the MySQL data source, and extended functionality for Elasticsearch. Enterprise users benefit from fine-grained access control, enhanced reporting scheduler flexibility, and the ability to customize Grafana's loading logo for white labeling. Users can explore these features further through the documentation and participate in community forums for discussions.