Add and use an Alibaba Cloud API data source-Application Real-Time Monitoring Service(ARMS)-阿里云帮助中心

Monitoring cloud resources often requires switching between service consoles to check metrics, inventory, and status. The Alibaba Cloud OpenAPI data source plugin connects Grafana directly to cloud service APIs, so you can query and visualize resource data from multiple services in a single dashboard.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

Grafana 9.0.x or later -- Managed Service for Grafana or a self-managed instanceFor more information, see Quick start with Managed Service for Grafana.
Alibaba Cloud OpenAPI plugin -- pre-installed on Managed Service for Grafana 9.0.x and later. For self-managed Grafana, install from the Alibaba Cloud OpenAPI GitHub repository
A Resource Access Management (RAM) user with permissions to call the target cloud service APIs. See Create a RAM user
An AccessKey pair (AccessKey ID and AccessKey secret) for the RAM user. Save the AccessKey secret at creation time -- the console does not display it again. See View AccessKey pairs of a RAM user.

Log on to Grafana

Log on to the Managed Service for Grafana console. In the left-side navigation pane, click Workspace Management.
On the Workspace Management page, find your workspace and click the URL in the URL column to open Grafana.

Note

Log on with the Grafana administrator account and the password you set when you created the workspace, or click Sign in with Alibaba Cloud to use your current Alibaba Cloud account.

Add the OpenAPI data source

Navigate to the data source configuration page. The path differs by Grafana version:

Grafana version	Navigation path
10.0.x and later	Click the icon > Administration > Data sources > + Add new data source
9.0.x	Hover over the icon > Data sources > Add data source

Search for OpenAPI and select it from the results.

Configure the data source

On the OpenAPI data source configuration page, set the following parameters and click Save & test.

Data source configuration

Parameter	Description
Name	A display name for this data source.
AccessKeyId	The AccessKey ID of the RAM user authorized to call cloud service APIs. See View AccessKey pairs.
AccessKeySecret	The AccessKey secret of the RAM user. The console displays this value only at creation time -- use the copy you saved.
Product	The cloud service to query. Select from the drop-down list or type to search.
Endpoint	The API endpoint for the selected service. Find this in the API reference of the service. See Endpoints for examples.
Version	The API version. Find this in the API reference of the service (for example, `2014-05-26` for ECS).
Style	The API calling style: Remote Procedure Call (RPC) or Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA). Check the API reference to determine which style your target service uses.

If the message "Data source is working" appears, the data source is configured correctly.

Note

Tip: If the test fails, verify that: - The AccessKey pair is valid and not disabled - The RAM user has the required API permissions - The endpoint matches the target region

Common endpoints

The following table lists endpoints for frequently used Alibaba Cloud services. For a complete list, see the API reference for each service.

Service	Endpoint example (China (Hangzhou))	API version	API style
Elastic Compute Service (ECS)	`ecs.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com`	`2014-05-26`	RPC
CloudMonitor	`metrics.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com`	`2019-01-01`	RPC

Note

To query multiple regions with a single data source, you can enter the endpoint in the arms.[regionId].aliyuncs.com format to support more regions. If you enter the endpoint in this format, you must specify the region ID in the request parameters when you call an API operation.

Create a dashboard panel

After you add the data source, create a dashboard panel to query and display cloud service data.

Navigate to the dashboard creation page. The path differs by Grafana version:

Grafana version	Navigation path
10.0.x and later	Click the icon > Dashboards > New > New Dashboard > + Add visualization > select the OpenAPI data source
9.0.x	Click the Dashboards icon > New Dashboard > Add a new panel > select the OpenAPI data source from the Data source drop-down list on the Query tab

Configure the query

On the Query tab, configure the following settings:

Action tab

Parameter	Description
product	The cloud service name. Use the same value as the Product parameter in the data source configuration.
action	The API operation to call. See the API reference for available operations. For example, ARMS operations are listed in List of operations by function.
pathName	The request path. Required only for ROA-style APIs.
method	The HTTP method: `POST` or `GET`.

Params tab

Click Add param to add request parameters as key-value pairs. The required parameters depend on the API operation you are calling -- check the API reference for details.

Fields tab

Field	Description
Field	A JSONPath expression that specifies which data to extract from the JSON response. Use `$` to select all data.
Type	The data type for the extracted field. Default: `Auto`.
Alias	A display name for the field in the panel.

Examples

For working dashboard examples that use the OpenAPI data source, visit the OpenAPI demo dashboards.