SDSC Grafana Cloud Usage Report

Owned by Victoria Nguyen
Last updated: Mar 18, 2022
4 min read

Overview

SDSC Grafana Usage Report is a resource provided to SDSC Cloud users to help them estimate their cloud usage.

  • What is Grafana? Don’t worry! SDSC manages a Grafana instance and its contents. You’ll be provided a pre-built dashboard (a page of visualizations for monitoring and browsing). In other words, Grafana is an interactive web application that provides charts and graphs when connected to a data source.

  • What is a Grafana Usage Report? A “Usage Report” is a Grafana snapshot, a shareable interactive dashboard. It is stripped of sensitive data, leaving only visible metrics and legend/panel names. They can be access by anyone with the link. A Grafana snapshot is not the same thing as an Openstack cloud project snapshot. To prevent confusion, a Grafana snapshot can also be referred to as “Usage Report.“

Usage

For best practice, please refresh the page to generate new reports at the top of every hour. This ensures the reports include the latest metrics and allows for a higher level of security.

The Usage Report site requires users to enter their SDSC Cloud credentials.

After logging in, a drop-down bar will be populated with the user’s cloud project usage reports. Users are to select one project from the dropdown and the page will automatically embed the report. The reports live for 1 hour and in the event they expire, one can refresh the page or use the Refresh button to generate new reports.

Users have the ability to change the report time window to reflect historical data and may retrieve a shareable link for viewing beyond this site. Note the shareable link has the same expiration as the report.

If no movement, mouse clicks or keyboard presses are detected on the site for 30 minutes, you will be automatically logged out for inactivity.

How to Change Dashboard Time Window

  1. Log in on SDSC Grafana Cloud Usage Report. Your usage reports will automatically be created.

  2. Select the desired Cloud Project from the drop down to embed it to the site.

  3. On the embedded dashboard, click on the time range window in the top right corner. The default value should be Last 30 days.

  4. In the time window dropdown, select from the available quick ranges or select your own custom time range.

  5. Click on Apply time range.

Getting a Shareable Link

While the snapshot is embedded into the website, it may be desirable to receive a shareable link (to share with others, for easier viewing, or in case the page accidentally refreshes).

Note this link will expire after 1 hour of the report creation. This link will only show information for the selected cloud project.

  1. Log in on SDSC Grafana Cloud Usage Report

  2. Select the desired Cloud Project from the drop down.

  3. Click Request and wait for the dashboard to generate and embed. This may take a few seconds.

  4. On the embedded dashboard, click on the share icon to the right of the Cloud Project Dashboard Title.

  5. Click Copy on the Link URL section. This will copy the link to your clipboard.

  6. Paste and send with caution.
    Again, anyone with this link can view your Cloud Project metrics and the link will expire in 1 hour.

Notes

  • Please do not click on other Grafana embedded buttons. These buttons are clickable, but will not display any new or useful information. Most importantly, you will not be able to return to the created report. You will need to refresh the page and make a new request.

  • The values and data displayed on the report dashboard should be used as an estimate. Units may not be fully accurate.

  • If no movement, mouse clicks or keyboard presses are detected on the site for 30 minutes, you will be automatically logged out for inactivity.