Grafana and Kibana

DennyY · 08-03-2018, 10:41 AM

Hi All,

So I am at the end of Linux training course.
And I noticed that this instructor is focused on GUI quiet a bit.
For example, we are now learning how to install Grafana and Elasticsearch/Kibana, and learn how to use them.

But from my understanding is that in the "real world", most of the Linux servers are not GUI based, correct?

Sorry, didn't mean to make it sound like I don't want to to waste my time learning new applications.

But I have been thinking maybe I can "skip" learning these applications for now and concentrate more on Shell Scripting and Python3?

Thank you all,
Denny

TB0ne · 08-03-2018, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DennyY

Hi All,
So I am at the end of Linux training course. And I noticed that this instructor is focused on GUI quiet a bit. For example, we are now learning how to install Grafana and Elasticsearch/Kibana, and learn how to use them. But from my understanding is that in the "real world", most of the Linux servers are not GUI based, correct?

Sorry, didn't mean to make it sound like I don't want to to waste my time learning new applications. But I have been thinking maybe I can "skip" learning these applications for now and concentrate more on Shell Scripting and Python3?

Your learning path needs to be based on your interests/desires. While you are correct in saying that most servers are not GUI based, there are a LOT of times when having a GUI can be very beneficial. For example, configuring LVM's or SAN's with many slices/devices/paths....seeing it on a screen graphically can let it make MUCH more sense than just the lines on a screen.

To me, you should know how to do it both ways. And don't forget that even though your server may be running without a GUI, you can still run X apps FROM it, to your local workstation...giving you both access to the CLI and GUI.

DennyY · 08-03-2018, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TB0ne

Your learning path needs to be based on your interests/desires. While you are correct in saying that most servers are not GUI based, there are a LOT of times when having a GUI can be very beneficial. For example, configuring LVM's or SAN's with many slices/devices/paths....seeing it on a screen graphically can let it make MUCH more sense than just the lines on a screen.

To me, you should know how to do it both ways. And don't forget that even though your server may be running without a GUI, you can still run X apps FROM it, to your local workstation...giving you both access to the CLI and GUI.

Thank you so much for the info.
-Denny

Pearlseattle · 08-03-2018, 04:41 PM

Hi

Mmmhh, I'm not 100% sure if I understood the question because your 2 chapters...

Quote:

...this instructor is focused on GUI quiet a bit.
For example, we are now learning how to install Grafana and Elasticsearch/Kibana, and learn how to use them.

But from my understanding is that in the "real world", most of the Linux servers are not GUI based, correct?

...are not directly related to each other.

When thinking about GUI you probably think about "I run program X and it shows me its GUI" (chapter #2) but what your instructor is probably trying to convey to you is probably that by using Grafana/Kibana (pls. exclude Elasticsearch as it's some kind of DB-engine and not a GUI) you can get a visual (potentially aggregated/transformed) representation about a lot of different data sources, and those data sources can be absolutely remote.

That was a really bad explanation => I'll try with an example:
the company I'm working for has thousands and thousands of servers => each single server has "collectd" installed, which send general information (e.g. metrics about CPU usage, disk usage, etc...) to a "big database" => we then have other servers which are running Grafana which we then use to query the "big database" that contains a lot of metrics about all servers => by being able to correctly use Grafana I can create graphs that show me of course the current status of all servers, but as well some more complex stuff that e.g. highlight that when something happens on server X then it has a repercussion on servers Y and Z.

Grafana is maybe more focused on "status", and Kibana more on "data exploration"?

Hope this helps... .

DennyY · 08-03-2018, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pearlseattle

Hi

Mmmhh, I'm not 100% sure if I understood the question because your 2 chapters...

...are not directly related to each other.

When thinking about GUI you probably think about "I run program X and it shows me its GUI" (chapter #2) but what your instructor is probably trying to convey to you is probably that by using Grafana/Kibana (pls. exclude Elasticsearch as it's some kind of DB-engine and not a GUI) you can get a visual (potentially aggregated/transformed) representation about a lot of different data sources, and those data sources can be absolutely remote.

That was a really bad explanation => I'll try with an example:
the company I'm working for has thousands and thousands of servers => each single server has "collectd" installed, which send general information (e.g. metrics about CPU usage, disk usage, etc...) to a "big database" => we then have other servers which are running Grafana which we then use to query the "big database" that contains a lot of metrics about all servers => by being able to correctly use Grafana I can create graphs that show me of course the current status of all servers, but as well some more complex stuff that e.g. highlight that when something happens on server X then it has a repercussion on servers Y and Z.

Grafana is maybe more focused on "status", and Kibana more on "data exploration"?

Hope this helps... .

Thank you so much for the info. That helped me a lot.

-Denny

ondoho · 08-04-2018, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DennyY

And I noticed that this instructor is focused on GUI quiet a bit.
For example, we are now learning how to install Grafana and Elasticsearch/Kibana, and learn how to use them.

But from my understanding is that in the "real world", most of the Linux servers are not GUI based, correct?

if you want to learn to manage servers in a professional way, i guess you will need some sort of monitoring, and it's nice to see a graphical representation of the data.
that is not the same as running a GUI on your server!

i do agree that one should learn to manage a server via command line, and that a server shouldn't even run a graphicasl desktop: less resource-intensive (my server is a 10-year old laptop, and no problems), more secure, less error-prone, and you learn more (instead of relying on some software to configure things for you).

AwesomeMachine · 08-04-2018, 03:46 AM

I use both gui and cli. As has been said above, you just use the best tool for the job. I even use Windows for certain tasks. I generally prefer cli, because it's usually faster. But it isn't always.

For instance, if you want to clean out old, useless files that match no pattern and have no common attributes, a gui works better, because you can click on each file to select it, and delete them all at once, rather than typing out every file name.

Just make sure you use the best tool for the job.