Grafana Cloud has introduced a range of updates to enhance its fully managed observability platform, including new features in Synthetic Monitoring powered by Grafana k6, such as k6 browser checks for frontend performance metrics and scripted checks for complex applications. Improvements have also been made to the data visualization experience, with a more intuitive dashboard-sharing process and the ability to add actions to various visualization types. Authentication and authorization have been streamlined, with easier setup for LDAP and SAML certificates, while a new escalation step in Grafana OnCall allows for automatic incident declaration. Additionally, updates to data source plugins now include managed plugins for Grafana Labs-created sources and GitHub App authentication for the GitHub data source, offering enhanced security and ease of use. These enhancements are available for free with Grafana Cloud's generous Cloud Free plan.