Get Started With TimescaleDB and Grafana

Grafana ships with built-in Prometheus, PostgreSQL, Jaeger, and other data source plugins that allow you to query and visualize data from a compatible database. To add a data source in Grafana you must be signed as a user with organization administration role privileges.

To connect Grafana with Timescale, start by installing Grafana. For more information about installing Grafana, see the Grafana documentation.

This section shows you how to connect Timescale as a data source in Grafana.

Configure Timescale as a data source

To configure Timescale as a data source, you need to create a service and then configure Timescale as the data source in Grafana.

Creating a Timescale service

1. Sign in to the Timescale portal.
2. Click Create service.
3. Click Download the config. This .sql file contains the credentials that you require to configure TimescaleDB as a data source on Grafana.

Configuring TimescaleDB as a data source

To configure the TimescaleDB service on Timescale with your Grafana installation, log in to Grafana and proceed to step 5 in this procedure.

1. Sign in to your Timescale account, and click the name of your new Grafana service.
2. On the service details page, take a note of the User and Password field for your service.
3. Navigate to Grafana and log in with your service credentials.
4. Navigate to Configuration → Data sources. The data sources page lists supported data sources for the Grafana instance.
5. Click Add data source.
6. Type PostgreSQL in the search field and click Select.
7. Configure the data source:
   • In the Name field, type the name that you would like for your dataset on TimescaleDB.
   • In the PostgreSQL Connection section, type the Database, User, and Password fields using the .sql file that you downloaded when creating the TimescaleDB service.
   • In the Host type <HOST>:<PORT> from the .sql file that you downloaded.
   • Set TLS/SSL Mode as require.
   • In PostgreSQL details enable TimescaleDB
8. Click the Save & test button. A connected message will now appear.

To double-check if the connection is successful, click through to Connections and confirm that your new data source is listed under Data sources.

When configuring TimescaleDB as a data source in Grafana, you can create panels populated with data using SQL. Learn more about ways to visualize this data with the NYC Taxi Cab tutorial.