Annotations and variables

In this section, you will learn about two important features of Grafana: annotations and variables. First, we will explore annotations.

Annotations

Annotations are a great tool for building insights into the data. With annotations, you can mark data points according to specific criteria.

Then, when you hover a data point, you will see the annotation description and the associated tags (if available).

Grafana makes it easy to add annotations. You can do it directly from the graphical user interface. The annotations can be related to a data point or a range of data. In Figure 8.7, you can see an annotation related to a data range.

To add a data range annotation, press Ctrl/Cmd + click to select the region with the mouse. If you just want to select a data point, use Ctrl/Cmd + click with the mouse.

Figure 8.7 – Adding an annotation to a data range

Once you have added an annotation, it will remain visible in the...