--- title: "Migrate Grafana Agent Flow to Grafana Alloy | Grafana Cloud documentation" description: "Learn how to migrate your configuration from Grafana Agent Flow to Grafana Alloy" --- # Migrate from Grafana Agent Flow to Grafana Alloy This topic describes how to perform a live migration from Grafana Agent Flow to Grafana Alloy with minimal downtime. > Note > > This procedure is only required for live migrations from a Grafana Agent Flow install to Alloy. > > If you want a fresh start with Alloy, you can [uninstall Grafana Agent Flow](/docs/agent/latest/flow/get-started/install/) and [install Alloy](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/set-up/install). ## Before you begin - You must have a Grafana Agent Flow configuration to migrate. - You must be running Grafana Agent Flow version v0.40 or later. - If you use auto-scaling make sure you disable auto-scaling for your Grafana Agent Flow deployment to prevent it from scaling during the migration. ## Differences between Grafana Agent Flow and Alloy By default, you can only use functionality marked *Generally available*. You can enable functionality in *Experimental* and *Public preview* by setting the `--stability.level` flag in [run](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/reference/cli/run). - The default value of `--storage.path` has changed from `data-agent/` to `data-alloy/`. - The default value of `--server.http.memory-addr` has changed from `agent.internal:12345` to `alloy.internal:12345`. - Debug metrics reported by Alloy are prefixed with `alloy_` instead of `agent_`. - The “classic modules”, `module.file`, `module.git`, `module.http`, and `module.string` have been removed in favor of import configuration blocks. - The `prometheus.exporter.vsphere` component has been replaced by the `otelcol.receiver.vcenter` component. ## Steps ### Prepare your Grafana Agent Flow configuration Alloy uses the same configuration format as Grafana Agent Flow, but some functionality has been removed. Before migrating, modify your Grafana Agent Flow configuration to remove or replace any unsupported components: - The “classic modules” in Grafana Agent Flow have been removed in favor of the modules introduced in v0.40: - `module.file` is replaced by the [`import.file`](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/reference/config-blocks/import.file) configuration block. - `module.git` is replaced by the [`import.git`](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/reference/config-blocks/import.git) configuration block. - `module.http` is replaced by the [`import.http`](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/reference/config-blocks/import.http) configuration block. - `module.string` is replaced by the [`import.string`](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/reference/config-blocks/import.string) configuration block. - `prometheus.exporter.vsphere` is replaced by the [`otelcol.receiver.vcenter`](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/reference/components/otelcol/otelcol.receiver.vcenter) component. ### Deploy Alloy with a default configuration Follow the [installation instructions](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/set-up/install) for Alloy, using the default configuration file. The configuration file is customized in the following steps. When deploying Alloy, be aware of the following settings: - Alloy should be deployed with topology that’s the same as Grafana Agent Flow. The CPU, and storage limits should match. - Custom command-line flags configured in Grafana Agent Flow should be reflected in your Alloy installation. - Alloy may need to be deployed with the `--stability.level` flag in [run](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/reference/cli/run) to enable non-stable components: - Set `--stability.level` to `experimental` if you are using the following component: - [otelcol.receiver.vcenter](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/reference/components/otelcol/otelcol.receiver.vcenter) - Otherwise, `--stability.level` may be omitted or set to the default value, `generally-available`. - When installing on Kubernetes, update your `values.yaml` file to rename the `agent` key to `alloy`. - If you are deploying Alloy as a cluster: - Set the number of instances to match the number of instances in your Grafana Agent Flow cluster. - Don’t enable auto-scaling until the migration is complete. ### Migrate Grafana Agent Flow data to Alloy Migrate your Grafana Agent Flow data to Alloy by copying the contents of the Grafana Agent Flow data directory to the Alloy data directory. - Linux installations: copy the *contents* of `/var/lib/grafana-agent-flow` to `/var/lib/alloy/data`. - macOS installations: copy the *contents* of `$(brew --prefix)/etc/grafana-agent-flow/data` to `$(brew --prefix)/etc/alloy/data`. - Windows installations: copy the *contents* of `%ProgramData%\Grafana Agent Flow\data` to `%ProgramData%\GrafanaLabs\Alloy\data`. - Docker: copy the contents of mounted volumes to a new directory, and then mount the directory when running Alloy. - Kubernetes: use `kubectl cp` to copy the *contents* of the data directory on Flow pods to the data directory on Alloy pods. - The data directory is determined by the `agent.storagePath` (default `/tmp/agent`) and `alloy.storagePath` (default `/tmp/alloy`) fields in `values.yaml`. ### Migrate pipelines that receive data over the network Telemetry pipelines which receive data over the network (for example, pipelines using `otelcol.receiver.otlp` or `prometheus.receive_http`) should be configured in Alloy first: 1. Configure Alloy with all pipelines where telemetry data is received over the network. 2. Reconfigure applications to send telemetry data to Alloy instead of Grafana Agent Flow. ### Migrate the remaining pipelines Migrate remaining pipelines from Grafana Agent Flow to Alloy: 1. Disable remaining pipelines in Grafana Agent Flow to prevent Flow and Alloy from processing the same data. 2. Configure Alloy with the remaining pipelines. > Note > > This process results in minimal downtime as remaining pipelines are moved from Grafana Agent Flow to Alloy. > > To completely eliminate downtime, configure remaining pipelines in Alloy before disabling them in Grafana Agent Flow. This alternative approach results in some duplicate data being sent to backends during the migration period. ### Uninstall Grafana Agent Flow After you have completed the migration, you can uninstall Grafana Agent Flow. ### Cleanup temporary changes You can enable auto-scaling in your Alloy deployment if you disabled it during the migration process.