Launch and shutdown dates for synthetics probes in February 2025

Between January 13 - 24, we’re launching eight (8) new public probes in AWS: Calgary, Hyderabad, Indonesia, Montreal, Spain, UAE, Stockholm, and Zurich.

The new probes will replace eight (8) deprecated probes running in Linode and Digital Ocean: Atlanta, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Dallas, Newark, New York, Toronto, and San Francisco.

The deprecated probes will be shut down on:

February 10, 2025 : Newark, Bangalore
February 17, 2025 : Toronto, Dallas, San Francisco
February 24, 2025 : Atlanta, Amsterdam, New York

Exact shutdown times will be posted as maintenance notices on our status page.

To avoid disruption, we recommend migrating your synthetics off deprecated probes ahead of the shutdown dates.

Why are we doing this?

Functionality: Digital Ocean and Linode locations have limitations that prevent us from running new synthetics capabilities like k6-powered scripted and browser synthetics. By replacing these locations with new AWS locations, we can deliver you new capabilities in all public probes.

Reliability: Our AWS probes have proven to be our most reliable. We expect this change to improve the overall reliability of Grafana Cloud Synthetic Monitoring.

Geographic rebalancing: The new locations provide a better distribution across regions to serve customers globally. Once these eight locations have been replaced, AMER will have seven (7) locations, EMEA will have eight (8), and APAC will have seven (7).

I run tests in a deprecated location. What should I do?

Move tests to nearby probes as soon as possible: We recommend you move affected tests to a nearby location before the shutdown dates:

Deprecated location	Shutdown date	Recommended locations
Newark	February 10, 2025	North Virginia, Montreal
Bangalore	February 10, 2025	Mumbai, Hyderabad
Dallas	February 17, 2025	North Virginia, Ohio
San Francisco	February 17, 2025	North California, Calgary
Toronto	February 17, 2025	Ohio, Montreal
Atlanta	February 24, 2025	North Virginia, Ohio
Amsterdam	February 24, 2025	London, Frankfurt, Zurich
New York	February 24, 2025	North Virginia, Montreal

To bulk edit all checks running in a location:

Navigate to “Testing & Synthetics” > “Synthetics” > “Probes”
Each probe has a “used in _ checks” link. Click that link, it will take you to a list of checks running in that probe.
Check the select all box
Select “Bulk Edit Probes” > “Add probes” and add one of the recommended locations above.
Select “Bulk Edit Probes” > “Remove probes” and remove the deprecated location.

Update custom queries and alert rules: Synthetic monitoring uses a probe label on logs and metrics to identify the source of the data, for example probe="NewYork". Update any location-specific references to the probe label in alert rules, dashboards, PromQL, or LogQL queries to ensure they continue working after shutdown. After shutdown you will no longer receive metrics or logs with the deprecated probe labels.

Update your Terraform configuration: If you’re using the Terraform provider to manage synthetic monitoring, remove or replace deprecated probe locations before the shutdown date. Terraform apply will fail if shut down probes are referenced.

What happens if I don’t move my synthetics?

Before a probe is shut down, we’ll add the synthetic test to a nearby probe shown in the table below. This is to ensure the test is running in the same number of locations after the shutdown. Note that if the test is already using that probe location, it won’t be added again.

Deprecated location	Moved to before shutdown
Newark	North Virginia
Bangalore	Hyderabad
Dallas	Ohio
San Francisco	North California
Toronto	Montreal
Atlanta	North Virginia
Amsterdam	Zurich
New York	North Virginia