Data visualization is one of the simplest ways to produce or consume information. Prometheus exposes a well-defined API, where PromQL queries can produce raw data for visualizations.
Currently, the best external software for visualization is Grafana, which we will explain thoroughly in Chapter 10, Discovering and Creating Grafana Dashboards. The Grafana team has made its integration with Prometheus seamless, and the result is a delightful user experience.
The Prometheus server also ships with two internal visualizations components:
- Expression browser: Here, you can run PromQL directly to quickly query data and visualize it instantly:
Figure 2.4: The Prometheus expression browser interface
- Consoles: These are web pages that are built using the Golang templating language and are served by the Prometheus server itself. This approach allows you to have...